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Author Topic: What are you currently playing?  (Read 192290 times)

AzyWng

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Re: What are you currently playing?
« Reply #360 on: March 07, 2019, 03:07:54 am »

The Division isn't half bad, actually.

While the RPG mechanics aren't something I'm a huge fan of, the cover-based shooting was more fun than I thought it had any right to be.

Also, the headshot noise is wonderful.
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nenjin

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Re: What are you currently playing?
« Reply #361 on: March 07, 2019, 11:08:59 am »

Agreed, the cover-based shooting is the best part of the game.

Unfortunately, I found the RPG side of it to be incredibly, incredibly bland. Skills? Bland? Guns? Satisfying for the first few hours but then devolves into a bunch of uninteresting weapon traits and micro improvements. Armor and clothing is cool for the visuals but similarly has the same problem.

I dunno. I feel like somewhere around 2005 big AAA games adopted this bland, unintersting UI philosophy that for some reason reminds me of mobile phones. The Secret World was the first where I really noticed it, and it stuck me again in the Division.

I enjoyed playing through the campaign of the Division but man, as soon as the end game started my interest completely evaporated. Even after the numerous reworks the game went through.

I likely won't be playing Division 2 until it's well and truly vetted.
« Last Edit: March 07, 2019, 11:42:25 am by nenjin »
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Telgin

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Re: What are you currently playing?
« Reply #362 on: March 07, 2019, 11:16:24 am »

Started playing Breath of the Wild again, after seeing talk about it and watching Let's Plays of Twilight Princess.  I'm trying to pay attention to any possible details I missed early on in the game last time.

A funny and annoying glitch happened to me in one of the first four shrines, where you encountered one of the small guardians.  I tried to reflect its laser back at it, but somehow not only did I not reflect the laser, but the bolt got stuck on Link.  It continued to do damage to me for like 30 seconds until my frantic flailing finally dislodged it and caused it to explode against a wall.  Had to eat a few steaks to survive that.
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AzyWng

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Re: What are you currently playing?
« Reply #363 on: March 07, 2019, 12:04:23 pm »

Agreed, the cover-based shooting is the best part of the game.

Unfortunately, I found the RPG side of it to be incredibly, incredibly bland. Skills? Bland? Guns? Satisfying for the first few hours but then devolves into a bunch of uninteresting weapon traits and micro improvements. Armor and clothing is cool for the visuals but similarly has the same problem.

Fallout New Vegas's shooting is objectively worse, I'd say (taking cover isn't exactly something the game is built for, and aside from doing things like popping stimpaks, breaking line of sight entirely, or wearing fuckoff heavy suits of power armor), but its weapons are at least somewhat interesting by virtue of being at least somewhat different from each other. At the start of the game, you get varmint rifles, .357 magnum revolvers, and 9mm SMGs and Pistols. Later on, you've got stuff like Cowboy weapons (more revolvers, lever-action weapons) alongside your usual gear choices of various rifles, a pump-action shotgun, higher-caliber pistols and SMGs, and so on. Then you get to the unique variants of weapons, where you have things like Lucky, which can inflict a hell of a lot more damage than a normal .357 revolver by virtue of high crit chance and damage.

Additionally, ammo in New Vegas is considerably more limited than in The Division (At least, until you manage to get yourself soaked in caps courtesy of selling weapons that are extremely valuable like the hunting rifle or hunting shotgun). Also, in New Vegas, there are no ammo stashes that immediately give you bullets and drugs. This means the ammo counter is more than just "how many clips you can plink away carelessly".

Division's weapons do feel disturbingly same-y, and I don't exactly have the same feeling as I get when I get new weapons in New Vegas of "Oh, nice, this'll kill 'em faster".

I dunno. I feel like somewhere around 2005 big AAA games adopted this bland, unintersting UI philosophy that for some reason reminds me of mobile phones.

Honestly, I think the Heads-Up Display and the way it appears to be projected onto the world seems kind of cool, but admittedly that's only one aspect of the game's UI. Do you mean the many menus for things like skills and equipment and the like?

Still. Not the worst way to spend dollars.
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MCreeper

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Re: What are you currently playing?
« Reply #364 on: March 07, 2019, 12:57:58 pm »

wrong thread
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AzyWng

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Re: What are you currently playing?
« Reply #365 on: March 07, 2019, 01:50:21 pm »

Sorry.
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nenjin

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Re: What are you currently playing?
« Reply #366 on: March 07, 2019, 02:30:13 pm »

Quote
Honestly, I think the Heads-Up Display and the way it appears to be projected onto the world seems kind of cool, but admittedly that's only one aspect of the game's UI. Do you mean the many menus for things like skills and equipment and the like?

It's that slight attenuation of the HUD that makes it look dynamic, how the perspective leans in slightly toward the center of the screen the way something projected on the inside of a helmet might look. I love that effect but it's gotten a lot of use in the last few years.

More my issue is with icons and coloration. These big, flat, white silhouettes of weapons on these big panes, with the backdrop being a flat warm color.

Basically, this:




As a guy who loves UI design, I hate this shit. It's functional and boring, and makes me feel like I'm on my phone even though I'm playing a fucking computer game with limitless possibilities in front of it, reduced down to the blandest and least offensive form possible. There's no artisty to it, just work-a-day functionality. It also somehow feels like it takes up more space despite trying to be minimalist, and there's simply nothing for the eye to hang on. Some UI designer would be like "that's the point, we don't want you to think about the UI we just want you to absorb it." But that's shit in my mind. It's like someone making an amazing entree then serving it on the cheapest paper plates they can find. UIs are part of the experience, for me.
 
« Last Edit: March 07, 2019, 04:39:01 pm by nenjin »
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jocan2003

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Re: What are you currently playing?
« Reply #367 on: March 07, 2019, 11:43:09 pm »

Playing and streaming fo4 modded survival and also looking for twitch integration. Bren havong s blast even tho the game seem to be unstable at time
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Parsely

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Re: What are you currently playing?
« Reply #368 on: March 07, 2019, 11:50:47 pm »

Quote
Honestly, I think the Heads-Up Display and the way it appears to be projected onto the world seems kind of cool, but admittedly that's only one aspect of the game's UI. Do you mean the many menus for things like skills and equipment and the like?

It's that slight attenuation of the HUD that makes it look dynamic, how the perspective leans in slightly toward the center of the screen the way something projected on the inside of a helmet might look. I love that effect but it's gotten a lot of use in the last few years.

More my issue is with icons and coloration. These big, flat, white silhouettes of weapons on these big panes, with the backdrop being a flat warm color.

Basically, this:
-snip-

As a guy who loves UI design, I hate this shit. It's functional and boring, and makes me feel like I'm on my phone even though I'm playing a fucking computer game with limitless possibilities in front of it, reduced down to the blandest and least offensive form possible. There's no artisty to it, just work-a-day functionality. It also somehow feels like it takes up more space despite trying to be minimalist, and there's simply nothing for the eye to hang on. Some UI designer would be like "that's the point, we don't want you to think about the UI we just want you to absorb it." But that's shit in my mind. It's like someone making an amazing entree then serving it on the cheapest paper plates they can find. UIs are part of the experience, for me.
 
I don't disagree, but what are some examples of what you'd prefer to see?
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Kagus

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Re: What are you currently playing?
« Reply #369 on: March 08, 2019, 03:58:34 am »

As a guy who loves UI design, I hate this shit. It's functional and boring, and makes me feel like I'm on my phone even though I'm playing a fucking computer game with limitless possibilities in front of it, reduced down to the blandest and least offensive form possible. There's no artisty to it, just work-a-day functionality. It also somehow feels like it takes up more space despite trying to be minimalist, and there's simply nothing for the eye to hang on. Some UI designer would be like "that's the point, we don't want you to think about the UI we just want you to absorb it." But that's shit in my mind. It's like someone making an amazing entree then serving it on the cheapest paper plates they can find. UIs are part of the experience, for me.
 
I don't disagree, but what are some examples of what you'd prefer to see?
Breasts.

nenjin

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Re: What are you currently playing?
« Reply #370 on: March 08, 2019, 10:46:20 am »

He's not wrong.

Warframe has a decent UI both for combat and mechanics from an aesthetic perspective. Borderlands 2, while looking cartoony, similarly at least felt like someone put some thought in to it. Dark Souls UI, despite being clunky, has the right font choices and borders to things so there's something for the eye to enjoy.

Basically it doesn't have to be amazing, but if it's just straight up cribbing whatever Apple or Microsoft does in an effort to be "immersive", it usually just comes across as lazy to me.
« Last Edit: March 08, 2019, 11:00:05 am by nenjin »
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Cautivo del Milagro seamos, Penitente.
Quote from: Viktor Frankl
When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.
Quote from: Sindain
Its kinda silly to complain that a friendly NPC isn't a well designed boss fight.
Quote from: Eric Blank
How will I cheese now assholes?
Quote from: MrRoboto75
Always spaghetti, never forghetti

Robsoie

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Re: What are you currently playing?
« Reply #371 on: March 11, 2019, 07:02:12 am »

The gals really really can't take a break, one of those annoying terror missions (mutant pogroms in x-piratez) popped up, and as i needed to improve their score due to that old xcom mechanic i had always disliked (in x-piratez all the nations still sponsoring you that decide to not do that anymore and you just lose the game even if you could provide your needed money yourself) so i couldn't skip this one as i had failed a previous mission and it was a big score malus.

With my (bad) luck it was apparently an invasion from enemies coming from the xcom : terror from the deep game, a small village filled by tons of gillmen (that with my shotguns are only a problem because there's a very lot of them).
But the worst thing is that they come with a couple of lobstermen, yeah those extremely resistant to ranged weapon and melee near insta-killers lobstermen.

Lobstermen are a big pain in old TFTP , but with X-Piratez and the kind of weapons available to the Gals, i simply had no idea on how to deal with them (in TFTP their weakness are stunning/freezing and drills) as my shotgun that are impressively powerfull in nearly every missions are ridiculously super weak against a single lobsterman.
So i loaded my gals with grenades of many types (frag,HE, incendiary, poison gaz) to go along their most powerful weaponry at that point (Combat Shotguns), as the stun mechanics aren't really documented well enough to know exactly how good/bad a specific grenade can be against this kind of opponent, it was certainly going to be a lottery.
https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php?topic=4569.0

At first the crew was super lucky because their location was made very easy to defend, at least a good point
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

(a previous save was in open terrain and it was simply impossible to have enough reaction shot before getting overwhelmed by the numerous gillmen, you kill a lot but after getting out of ammo, the remaining gillmen and those lobstermen just destroy you before your next turn can finally come)

The gillmen were standing no real chance, the configuration of the area allowed the Gals to control the hordes, as fortunately the true threat was nowhere to be seen yet.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

At some point of the battle, one of my scouts spotted one of the monsters, the lobsterman was standing on a high roof at a long distance.
Instead of wasting shotgun ammo on something that is near impervious to that kind of damage, the whole crew started to throw grenades of many kind
Looks like the poison gaz grenade did a good job, generating a vast area of poison gaz, the enraged lobsterman found himself inside of it for a lot of time.
And another poison gaz grenade later, the Lobsterman was history.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

As the gillmen weren't coming anymore, the Gals decided to take the matter in their own hands and with their powerful combat shotgun they manage to clear the area of those pesky monsters from the depths.
Until we got sight of the last guy : a 2nd lobsterman.
This one was much more of a problem because we were out of explosive, the crew threw their last grenades but apparently even if the guy was now on fire it wasn't stopping.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Fortunately as i sent a few gals back to the ship to get some more grenades we finally got rid of the beast, all my Gals were wounded unfortunately (one that survived the lobsterman claws to my own surprise, but the other were due to the blast effect of a grenade i miscalculated) .
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Was lucky that the giant poison gaz cloud didn't killed any bystander, but now basically the infirmary is now full and i have to send the peasants (normal human women hired) canon fodder into battle, hopefully the next terror mission will not happen before a long long time so the elite gals can recover.
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Telgin

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Re: What are you currently playing?
« Reply #372 on: March 11, 2019, 08:41:01 am »

Started playing the Mega Man collection recently, and got my butt kicked by the first one pretty thoroughly.  I knew it was going to be hard, but I wasn't expecting some of the BS so early on, like the flipping platforms in Gutsman's stage.  Or the Yellow Devil.

At least the game went overboard with the robot masters' weaknesses so you can kill most of them in like 3 shots.

Mega Man 2 was so very much easier than the first one, and I can see that it pretty much codified how the later games worked.  Energy cans were added, the more modern energy pickup sprites were added, the Wily fortress looks like the standard format, etc.  Having played Mega Man 6 before any others, Mega Man 2 looks pretty familiar.
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Parsely

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Re: What are you currently playing?
« Reply #373 on: March 11, 2019, 10:05:10 am »

Basically it doesn't have to be amazing, but if it's just straight up cribbing whatever Apple or Microsoft does in an effort to be "immersive", it usually just comes across as lazy to me.
My massive pet peeve when it comes to GUI is when a game just straight up cribs it from whatever game it's "inspired by". Looking at you, newCOM clones... Phantom Doctrine is the worst offender because it feels like it could be an XCOM 2 mod and I absolutely hate it.
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Rince Wind

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Re: What are you currently playing?
« Reply #374 on: March 11, 2019, 10:11:52 am »

Robsoie:
Choking damage is great against Lobsters. So your poison gas grenades were a good choice. If you have a Wand of Airlessness even an untrained Gal can bring one down with 2 hits.
Melee works reasonably well as well.
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