What are you playing 4: HD Remaster Gold Collector's Edition Thread of the Year

[-Sentinel-]

It also made exploration of large areas possible. Sure, usually you didn't find anything interesting, but I kinda thought that was the point. In the pre-Ubification of maps, you could actually have a big empty space... because that planet was mostly empty space. Made exploration feel like exploration because often there wasn't anything. If there's always something to find I don't really feel like I'm exploring a space, I feel like I'm just vacuously vacuuming up rewards.

Yes. YES. I don't like the handling of the Mako, but I do love planetary exploration. I started it a couple of days ago during the search for the Asari researcher and I can tell I'll be doing a lot of it between missions. Some mining here... a crashed probe there... but what's this? A secret pirate base! Let's go take a closer look!

Give me more games with vast, uncharted expanses of nothingness. Games where just spotting some dark speck in the distance is exciting.

[Zevox]

Avengers, sadly, just looked like a bad Marvel Ultimate Alliance knockoff where instead of getting to choose from a huge roster of Marvel characters (including some that are less well represented in games and media, like Deadpool was when the first game came out, and Iron Fist) you only get a few of the Avengers.

Oh, I don't think that at all. Granted, I haven't played Ultimate Alliance, but from what I've seen of it it comes across a very basic, shallow game to me. Which is why I never played it: it doesn't look even remotely fun. Avengers' combat, while by no means the best action game combat I've ever seen, definitely has a lot more to it than that. It's just that, ultimately, there's very little else to the game, and a lot of it is disappointing in various ways. Much of the blame for that, though, I think goes to the decision to emphasize its games-as-service style online multiplayer aspect, not to a lack of effort or ability on the developers' part.

I am pretty sure that if, for a reason or another, you don't have save data of what you've done on the two previous games (such as if you played the first two on Steam and the last one on Origin), the points you could get in a single playthrough of the third game would not be enough to get the best endings.

Maybe if you don't have save data from the previous games, but I'm pretty certain that isn't the case if you did. I know I got the third ending on my first time through, and I'm pretty sure I hadn't touched the multiplayer before finishing the main story.

I honestly don't know why people had issues with the Mako. I actually found it quite fun to bounce around in the thing, and it certainly contributed greatly toward a feeling of distance travelled that was arguably missing in ME2 and 3. It was certainly a lot more fun than that ruddy probe game from ME2, which felt like they'd decided to see what would happen if they nicked the Star Control 2 resource-gathering mechanic but removed all the fun parts...

Personally, I think they're both bad wastes of time, but at least Planet Scanning took less time and involved less frustration, so I'll take it over the Mako. Both ought to just be left in a trash heap and never seen again, but still, if I had to choose, it's not that hard of a choice.

Give me more games with vast, uncharted expanses of nothingness.

Wow, we are complete opposites, you and I.

[Anonymouswizard]

Give me a game with open ideas, not an open landscape. I couldn't care less about a massive sandbox, but make me think.

It's why I'm enjoying Shadowrun Returns. All the good of a WRPG, but with plot structure.

[LibraryOgre]

I doubt that'll happen, any long-time player these days knows that the Thalmor are the superior faction.

I used to be a wiseass like you, then I took an elbow to the larynx.

[Lord Raziere]

I used to be a wiseass like you, then I took an elbow to the larynx.

Bah, real Elder Scrolls players know the most superior faction is Molag Bal who has clearly done nothing wrong.

[factotum]

Wow, we are complete opposites, you and I.

I can kind of see his point--heck, there are entire games out there which revolve around just driving from one place to another (e.g. the Truck Simulator games), so having a bit of that inside another game type seems fine. Heck, I often thought it would have been fun to cruise around the Fallout 4 world in a vehicle rather than having to hoof it everywhere (or call a vertibird, which was just fast travel under a different name).

[oxybe]

Will admit: Just flying around aimlessly in a Final Fantasy airship or chocobo and just grooving to the travel music as the ground zips by below you is usually pretty fun. A whole game that's just that isn't my thing, but the option to just... take a drive without a care in the world is nice at times.

I've been looking at getting DBFZ myself. Been watching a streamer I like labbing with characters as they come out and trying some online fights and it's always been some of my fav streams. Everytime I see this game i'm like... man i really want to play this game, but it's base game is 80$ CAN without DLC on Steam and it's been out for a few years now, and i dunno if i should wait/hope for a DBFZ2 or just jump in the base game and get stomped by dlc folks.

[Taevyr]

Bah, real Elder Scrolls players know the most superior faction is Molag Bal who has clearly done nothing wrong.

Then again, Sheogarath gives you free cheese! Or no cheese at all, but that's just as much of a reward for the lactose intolerant among us.

Will admit: Just flying around aimlessly in a Final Fantasy airship or chocobo and just grooving to the travel music as the ground zips by below you is usually pretty fun. A whole game that's just that isn't my thing, but the option to just... take a drive without a care in the world is nice at times.

I've left games running at certain locations just to enjoy the music/ambience before I discovered OST's, or got my hands on the respective one. And exploration's the kind of thing that makes me enjoy the Skyrims and Dragon's Dogma's of the world: being able to say "that direction. I like that direction" and just heading out.

Which does require an interesting/challenging world/environment to explore though. I don't think I'll ever quite click with the Fallout setting, but I probably saw every nook and cranny of the Shivering Isles. And Skyrim's so much more fun with some survival mods like Frostfall.

[Anteros]

Oh, and I think you still need to play the multiplayer if you want the 'Shepherd survives Destroy' ending.

Nah. I got that ending on my first playthrough, and I definitely never touched multiplayer in that game at all. I did do pretty much everything in the game though.

[Wookieetank]

RIP Marauder Shields, you were the true hero.

On topic:
Been working leisurely through my way through Xenoblade as my RPG of choice. It has a very strong MMO feel to the gameplay, and the side quests (so gorram many sidequests...), which is great for scratching the MMO itch without having to play one. Story has been decent, and probably would be better paced if I wasn't running around doing so many side quests.

My daughter and I have also been working our way through Lugi's Mansion 3 and that's been entertaining. I think we've spent as much time playing the game as seeing just how many shenanigans we can get up to. Granted some of the things we get up to has netted us collectables, so apparently they're less shenanigans and more how the game devs thought the game should be played XD

[zlefin]

So World of Warships just changed all the commander skills. Most of the changes are either pointless, tedious, or suck, with such charming additions as boosts to cruiser HE spam, long range battleship accuracy, and (sigh) torpedo bomber buffs. I can only conclude their analytics showed that some players weren't constantly on fire, getting sniped, or sailing in circles trying to desperately dodge aerial torpedoes while on fire and being sniped, and something had to be done.

Stealth upside: it's a Mikasa buff. Mikasa, the only predreadnought in the game, is a total joke of a ship and usually basically impossible to find matches for because she's restricted to TII and TIII only... and she's the only TII battleship. But he way they reworked secondary batteries actually boosts her accuracy and lets all the secondaries fire even with a focused target, so everybody's getting their Tsushima on. Right now you can get matches with 2 Mikasa s on each side, which steam right up next to each other and proceed to just cut loose with her genuinely insane predreadnought broadside. It's just glorious.

Nice to hear about. I don't play anymore, as I hated when they made the warcenter app mandatory to play the game rather than the old launcher; but I still like ot hear about interesting new developments.

Skill rework seems good; there was indeed a paucity of real choices under the old system.

[Anonymouswizard]

Nah. I got that ending on my first playthrough, and I definitely never touched multiplayer in that game at all. I did do pretty much everything in the game though.

I think the DLC pushes you over the line? I did all the major sidequests but none of the DLC, and I think I got Refusal, Control, and Destroy as my options but no Synthesis.

[GloatingSwine]

I really liked the Mako in terms of broadening the feel of the universe through playing the game. It let you do stuff outside of the core third person shooter gameplay. Which, since that's pretty much walking short distances between shooting small packs of dudes, is a good thing. Now you could have proper distance between locations, long range combat with heavy enemy units that the third person shooting didn't handle gracefully, and so forth.

It also made exploration of large areas possible. Sure, usually you didn't find anything interesting, but I kinda thought that was the point. In the pre-Ubification of maps, you could actually have a big empty space... because that planet was mostly empty space. Made exploration feel like exploration because often there wasn't anything. If there's always something to find I don't really feel like I'm exploring a space, I feel like I'm just vacuously vacuuming up rewards.

Sure the handling was not good, and the worlds could have stood to be more visually interesting, but the concept was solid. Andromeda fixed the handling problems, buy dropped vehicle combat, which just felt stupid. Like, why isn't there a gun on this damn thing? I'm getting shot at in it constantly, why can't I liquidate bad dudes from the comfort of my pimped out ride?

There were, IIRC, almost always exactly three things per drivable non-story planet. Usually one building, 1-3 resource pods, and one environmental fight with Geth or a Thresher Maw or Rachni on one of them.

Having the Mako and being able to drive it around places that didn't matter and didn't have ongoing stories in them though made the universe feel bigger and more like it existed for its own sake rather than existing for the sake of the narrative currently happening to Commander Shepard.

[Cygnia]

Dinged 50 on Grim Dawn with the hubby and finished the 1st expansion. While we like the game, we're weighing our options about getting the other expansions ('cause we're also cheap bastards in the middle of a house renovation).

[LibraryOgre]

I'm almost done with Dragon Age: Awakening, which has some neat bits but I think I screwed up a few choices long enough ago that I won't get cool endings in some ways... but I am too tired to go back and fix them. Having played a lot of the DLC, though, I want to add:

Post-Archdemon DLC that do not let me have my Mabari as a companion are invalid. I am tempted to look for a mod to allow Barkspawn to come with me.

[warty goblin]

Nice to hear about. I don't play anymore, as I hated when they made the warcenter app mandatory to play the game rather than the old launcher; but I still like ot hear about interesting new developments.

Skill rework seems good; there was indeed a paucity of real choices under the old system.

I just launch through Steam, no messing around with other launchers required.

Right now the commander rework is, Mikasa aside, a complete mess. The concept is having a different skill set for each ship class, which is a fine idea and dovetails nicely with their ongoing quest to add subs to the game. The problem is the execution, which, at the moment, is not good.

The short version is that there's more stuff, but it feels like less flexibility and more gimmicky stuff. So cruisers now get sod all for survivability options, and buffs for fighting at particular ranges, or if there's more enemies visible than friendlies. Battleships get a stupid huge buff to accuracy if there's no enemies in their detection range, and another skills gives a reload boost if an enemy is in secondary range. A lot of skills feel less like enhancing your ship to better at something, and more like "we want you to play the game exactly like this."

Unfortunately the way they want you to play seems to be to find a good camping spot as far back as possible, and dump HE on people, while hoping that the enemy CV decides somebody else should lose 20 - 100% of their HP bar as unavoidable airplane tax. Which wasn't exactly untrue before, but it's even more the case now.

Overall I'm really, really not happy. WoWS always teeters on the edge of fun and ungodly infuriating, but the first two days of the commander rework have been thoroughly in the latter category.

[Silverraptor]

My beef with Mass Effect 3 ending was just the lack of diverse endings. I really thought they would have a dozen or 2 different possible outcomes, allowing you to replay all 3 games over and over again, doing different things to get different endings.

Spoiler: Two Endings I was expecting

Show

Two endings that spring to mind that I was really expecting to see was an ending in the future after the reapers were destroyed and you are introduced to Shepard's kid based on who you developed a love interest (Human or Asari in case you went with Liara) with and it shows them taking command of a Normandy Class ship with their own crew and everyone referring to them as Shepard and then they go through a Mass Relay and then the credits. The other ending I foresaw coming to pass was back in the center of the galaxy through the Omega Relay and you pan through as bodies are liquefied of humans and such, machinery is put together, and then you hear Harbinger's voice giving some cryptic speech like "You will be our salvation", "You will be our Usher", and then it pans over a new reaper being created with it's eye's opening and coming online for the first time and Harbinger's voice finishes with, "You will be, our Shepard!" Implying that you become a new Reaper given the name Shepard.

[Zevox]

I can kind of see his point--heck, there are entire games out there which revolve around just driving from one place to another (e.g. the Truck Simulator games), so having a bit of that inside another game type seems fine. Heck, I often thought it would have been fun to cruise around the Fallout 4 world in a vehicle rather than having to hoof it everywhere (or call a vertibird, which was just fast travel under a different name).

Hey, that sort of thing may do it for some people, but definitely not me. Vast open expanses of empty space are one of my biggest complaints about Bethesda-style open world games and the Mako sections of ME1 alike. As far as I'm concerned, they're just boring wastes of time, padding that I would much rather do without. If you can't do something worthwhile with the space, there's no need for it to exist in a game, IMO, it will only detract from the experience.

I've been looking at getting DBFZ myself. Been watching a streamer I like labbing with characters as they come out and trying some online fights and it's always been some of my fav streams. Everytime I see this game i'm like... man i really want to play this game, but it's base game is 80$ CAN without DLC on Steam and it's been out for a few years now, and i dunno if i should wait/hope for a DBFZ2 or just jump in the base game and get stomped by dlc folks.

Ah, a Maximilian fan, I'm guessing? Nice.

I am surprised by that price point, though I don't know how American and Canadian prices typically compare. Still, I see it go on sale a lot on PSN here in the states - pretty much every time there's a big sale event happening to coincide with a holiday or season change, it feels like - and often at a fairly substantially reduced price now, since it's a three year old game at this point. Given Steam's fame for sales, might be worth watching for one.

Waiting for a DBFZ2 might work out, as it's practically guaranteed to happen given how successful the game was (last I heard it was basically tied with Tekken 7 for the best-selling fighting game of this console generation not named Smash Brothers or Mortal Kombat). It is hard to guess when that might happen though. The developers, ArcSystem Works, are busy beavers these days, with multiple fighting games and/or their DLC and balance updates in the works all the time, and DBFZ has at least one more DLC character yet to come. Plus there's still speculation that we might see one more season of DLC characters for it, too, though that's pure guesswork at this point, nobody really knows one way or the other.

As for that last, I wouldn't worry about the base roster characters not being able to compete with the DLC ones. The game's pretty darn well-balanced at this point, aside from arguably Ultra Instinct Goku, and even he's obviously not as strong in the average player's hands as he is in the professionals'. And even if you wanted to field a team of nothing but tournament-meta top tier characters, you could do that with just the base roster. Kid Buu, Gotenks, and Teen Gohan are all top tier at the moment (hell, Kid Buu has been top tier since day 1, and remained there despite repeated nerfs), Trunks or Yamcha make great anchors, and there's plenty of others among the base roster that are still considered among the upper half of the tier list easily. Heck, while the DLC characters do include some of the game's strongest (UI Goku, Broly, Bardock, GT Goku), they also include some of its consistent weakest (Videl, Android 17, Gogeta, Zamasu) - and speaking as someone who plays some of those weak DLC characters (Videl is actually my most-used character overall), they can definitely still compete as long as you're not fighting the actual pros.

[Anonymouswizard]

Well Crafty Xu is bugged, just repeating her first conversation over and over. Guess I have to start from the beginning again, now it's tinme to decide if I want to continue as a Decker or play a combat mage instead.

[Anteros]

Well Crafty Xu is bugged, just repeating her first conversation over and over. Guess I have to start from the beginning again, now it's tinme to decide if I want to continue as a Decker or play a combat mage instead.

Weird. I never had any bugs like that. That stinks.

Combat mage seems fun. It's also the one role that the games never really give you a good NPC of to play around with.

[Anonymouswizard]

Weird. I never had any bugs like that. That stinks.

Combat mage seems fun. It's also the one role that the games never really give you a good NPC of to play around with.

Apparently it's a quite common bug that comes up with loading saves in Heoi, Annoyingly I've never loaded my (singular) Heoi save, but looks like I have to restart/

And yeah, although I do like Gobbet. I suppose two orkish magicians can't be too much for a group (although it does mean I'll have to decide between Duncan and Gaichu if I want to bring Is0bel along for decking). I'd have gone for an Adept build, but honestly Gaichu fills that slot in the roster just fine.

Man these games often make me wish I had five character slots for missions.

[oxybe]

Ah, a Maximilian fan, I'm guessing? Nice.

I am surprised by that price point, though I don't know how American and Canadian prices typically compare. Still, I see it go on sale a lot on PSN here in the states - pretty much every time there's a big sale event happening to coincide with a holiday or season change, it feels like - and often at a fairly substantially reduced price now, since it's a three year old game at this point. Given Steam's fame for sales, might be worth watching for one.

Waiting for a DBFZ2 might work out, as it's practically guaranteed to happen given how successful the game was (last I heard it was basically tied with Tekken 7 for the best-selling fighting game of this console generation not named Smash Brothers or Mortal Kombat). It is hard to guess when that might happen though. The developers, ArcSystem Works, are busy beavers these days, with multiple fighting games and/or their DLC and balance updates in the works all the time, and DBFZ has at least one more DLC character yet to come. Plus there's still speculation that we might see one more season of DLC characters for it, too, though that's pure guesswork at this point, nobody really knows one way or the other.

As for that last, I wouldn't worry about the base roster characters not being able to compete with the DLC ones. The game's pretty darn well-balanced at this point, aside from arguably Ultra Instinct Goku, and even he's obviously not as strong in the average player's hands as he is in the professionals'. And even if you wanted to field a team of nothing but tournament-meta top tier characters, you could do that with just the base roster. Kid Buu, Gotenks, and Teen Gohan are all top tier at the moment (hell, Kid Buu has been top tier since day 1, and remained there despite repeated nerfs), Trunks or Yamcha make great anchors, and there's plenty of others among the base roster that are still considered among the upper half of the tier list easily. Heck, while the DLC characters do include some of the game's strongest (UI Goku, Broly, Bardock, GT Goku), they also include some of its consistent weakest (Videl, Android 17, Gogeta, Zamasu) - and speaking as someone who plays some of those weak DLC characters (Videl is actually my most-used character overall), they can definitely still compete as long as you're not fighting the actual pros.

Yeah, my work shifts tend to line up with when the Yo Videogames crew start their streams, so I'll often tune to Max or Kenny at the start of my shifts as background noise and actively watch when it's quiet.

I checked and I am seeing the game on sale in some form on both PSN and XBox Store (alas I only own a PC and Switch) so i'm hoping to maybe get it in a Steam Sale, probably come spring. I've dropped it on my wishlist for notifications in the meanwhile.

I am legit hyped to see a legit SSJ4 character with SSJ4 Gogeta for DBFZ, rather then the simple SSJ4 nod that GT Goku does. It's my fav of the transformations and would love to see it brought into DB Super proper, with my headcannon being that it should be going to the new Super version of Broly, giving the 3 last pure blooded Saiyans each their own transformation gimmick: Goku going all raw instinct with UI, Vegeta either focusing on SSJ Blue/Royal Blue potential or recent hinting him learning some God of Destruction/god ki technique stuff and Broly refining his rage and ascending to Monke.

I am curious... how is the DBFZ netcode and matchmaking? I know Max is a very vocal proponent for rollback, and for good reason, but at times I do wonder if he's making a mountain out of a normal hill and exaggerating the issue on some games, especially those with bigger playerbases. Then again, I am familiar with Smash Bros and it's... well mum told me if you can't say anything remotely nice to not say anything at all, so i'll stay my tongue on Smash's online. Obviously I'll be playing on a wired internet connection and had minimal issues on games like TF2, Fortnite, MonHunt, etc... it's not the best internet, but then again I don't have the best PC :D

Good to know the game's base characters are still viable! I saw some Yamcha wolf fang fist stuff and it looks silly and fun.

Now if you'll excuse me, it's my first break of the shift and Max just started streaming. :P

[Zevox]

I am curious... how is the DBFZ netcode and matchmaking? I know Max is a very vocal proponent for rollback, and for good reason, but at times I do wonder if he's making a mountain out of a normal hill and exaggerating the issue on some games, especially those with bigger playerbases. Then again, I am familiar with Smash Bros and it's... well mum told me if you can't say anything remotely nice to not say anything at all, so i'll stay my tongue on Smash's online. Obviously I'll be playing on a wired internet connection and had minimal issues on games like TF2, Fortnite, MonHunt, etc... it's not the best internet, but then again I don't have the best PC :D

If you don't play fighting games much, it might feel like that, but for anyone who gets much into them, he's very much not exaggerating. With how precise some things in fighting games want you to be, typical delay-based netcode can be a huge problem once your familiarity with and skill at a given game passes a certain point. Playing some games with well-implemented rollback, like Them's Fightin' Herds or Guilty Gear XXAC+R, you can really feel a huge difference in how well they perform online compared to delay-based games (or ones with poorly implemented rollback like Street Fighter 5).

As far as DBFZ goes, well, it's not rollback, sadly (a lot of us are hopeful that a hypothetical DBFZ2 will have that, though, given ArcSys is working on rollback for their next game, Guilty Gear Strive). I know Max very much does not like it - frustrations with that were a big factor in him stopping playing the game a month or so after it came out initially, and Parsec providing a better online option for him is a big part of why he started playing it again. I find that it's usually playable though as long as you stick to players whose connection is rated at least 3 bars (out of 4) - and since 4s seem to be as rare as Unicorns, basically that means you only take the best connections. That seems to keep the delay to 3-4 frames on average (caveat: when the display for that is accurate, which it isn't always), which isn't ideal, but is perfectly playable. Even then, you might wind up with someone using wifi whose connection will fluctuate frustratingly, or whose connection is a little worse than other 3 bars and has an average delay of more like 5-6 frames, though, and there's not much you can do about that but drop after one match. The game allows endless rematches in casual mode, and an optional best 2 of 3 in ranked (I think, that's fluctuated a bit over time, and I've been playing casual more thank ranked lately). Definitely better than what Smash Bros has, no question there (not that that's a high bar).

As far as matchmaking, sometimes it takes longer than you'd think to find a match, but not insanely so, at least not in my experience. Ranked matches you based on your ladder rank, obviously, while casual matches you based on your threat level, which is a small colored square you'll see on your player card or next to your user name in the lobby. It basically reflects your win rate, to my understanding, and generally goes from cooler colors (light blue being the lowest) to warmer ones (pink being the highest). Players who haven't played enough to be assigned a threat level will have a white square, meaning the game doesn't know where to rate them yet. It does actually seem to correlate reasonably well to skill level more often than not - when I run into a pink threat player they're far more likely to be the type who can just walk all over me than when I face even players with the next highest threat level, orange (which seems to be about my average threat level, which feels about right when I compare myself to the kinds of players I typically see with that rating).

There's also ring matches - basically what you'd think of as lobby matches in any other fighting game - which I don't recommend unless you've got some IRL friends you're looking to play with, as getting a decent connection in those is a total crapshoot, since anyone can walk in on them unless the ring is made private with a password (in which case obviously it's for people's friends only), and most people hosting them don't seem to kick people with poorer connection quality. Also you can only play two matches simultaneously in a given ring, so you may be stuck just spectating a lot. And there's another type of matchmaking called arenas, but people barely used those even when the game was new, and I don't think anyone uses them at all anymore, so don't worry about them.

Good to know the game's base characters are still viable! I saw some Yamcha wolf fang fist stuff and it looks silly and fun.

Yamcha can definitely be fun, though he's a bit of a one-trick pony. That trick being exactly wolf fang fist. He can pull some sneaky mixup stuff with that, and it's an amazing assist. Unfortunately his neutral's kind of awkward, his combo routes very limited (even compared to other base roster characters, and especially compared to most of the DLC characters), and his damage off most of his combos is low. Still, his assist is so good that he's sometimes been considered one of the best anchors in the game mostly because of it, and that mixup potential does mean that he can still get wins once he's on his own, he'll just take an extra combo to do it compared to most characters.

[factotum]

Hey, that sort of thing may do it for some people, but definitely not me. Vast open expanses of empty space are one of my biggest complaints about Bethesda-style open world games and the Mako sections of ME1 alike. As far as I'm concerned, they're just boring wastes of time, padding that I would much rather do without. If you can't do something worthwhile with the space, there's no need for it to exist in a game, IMO, it will only detract from the experience.

As I said, though, what it gave you in ME1 was a feeling of scale--the fact it took you a while to find the interesting stuff. In an RPG, where immersion is, IMHO, very important, I think that's a worthwhile thing to do that most definitely does not detract from the experience.

[MCerberus]

Unfortunately the way they want you to play seems to be to find a good camping spot as far back as possible, and dump HE on people, while hoping that the enemy CV decides somebody else should lose 20 - 100% of their HP bar as unavoidable airplane tax. Which wasn't exactly untrue before, but it's even more the case now.

Overall I'm really, really not happy. WoWS always teeters on the edge of fun and ungodly infuriating, but the first two days of the commander rework have been thoroughly in the latter category.

We're one patch away from carriers on console and everyone is DREADING it, especially after the big WoT console rework messed up the UI royally and somehow made having low-rank crew even more punishing to new players.

[Anonymouswizard]

As I said, though, what it gave you in ME1 was a feeling of scale--the fact it took you a while to find the interesting stuff. In an RPG, where immersion is, IMHO, very important, I think that's a worthwhile thing to do that most definitely does not detract from the experience.

Eh, it was too much scale, it was a world where only like 3% of it mattered. I have enough trouble with the open worlds in Elder Scrolls games, you tell me that I can go anywhere and do anything, but is there a point to any of it?

Honestly, to me Hong Kong is feeling bigger than the galaxy in ME ever did. Sure I can't beam down to a random planet and explore a square mile of it, but there seemed to be nothing there when I went over them. In Hong Kong wherever I go there's people coming into conflict, there's enough random NPCs to converse with that places feel alive, but not so many that it becomes hard to navigate, like I'm out at 10am a couple of miles from a city centre. There are things from outside the city that matter to the story, but they're things I can't affect.

Scale alone is meaningless. For a world to feel large there has to be things to do, a couple of hundred square metres with six NPCs I can converse with feels larger than a square mile with a couple of resources, a base filled with enemies to shoot, and a load of mountains. Because the space feels full rather than a random area that's at best a boring commute.

Not to say that you can't make fun gameplay out of the journey, but I don't find deriving a vehicle around a map it's not suited for gfun.

[factotum]

Oh, saying the worlds in ME1 were maybe a bit *too* empty is fair criticism, but the answer to that was to make the worlds more interesting, not dump the Mako entirely and add the probe game!

Anyway, now 60 hours into DQ11. This game does seem to like its endings:

Spoiler

Show

We first had the bad guy winning, then we defeated the bad guy in turn, now we've decided to go back in time to rescue Veronica and an even *worse* bad guy has turned up...

[oxybe]

Lack of rollback in DBFZ is a bummer, but ArcSys putting it Strive is awesome. If DBFZ does get a sequel we can only hope it's at a time where proper netcode implementation is common practice instead of the "eh... it works for japan, it should work for everywhere else, right?", but it's good to know matchmaking isn't entirely terrible as long i set the right parameters.

with what @Zevox said, I'll probably end up picking up the game when it's on sale. Speaking of sales, HUGE Resident Evil series sale on Steam. big price cuts on many titles.

I've also decided to try something: a self-imposed Sims 4 "Homeless Sim" challenge. It's different way to play to say the least.

First thing to do is to get your sim a lot, then enable cheats and remove all your cash. Your goal is make back that 20k starter, at which point you can "apply for a mortgage", build a house, get a job and buy furniture as normal.

-You can't build a house until you get that mortgage. you don't have any permanent residence outside of your "home" lot
-you can't buy things from the build/buy menu until you get that mortgage.
-the only things you can place in your lot are things you've either stolen or harvested/dug up. Yes you can replant wild fruits and veggies.
-you can't get married as means to get money or a house, nor can you get a job. You can however, sell anything you can pick up, harvest, fish, steal or make.
-you can't travel outside your city. You can travel to different lots, like the community ones to take advantage of public restrooms when no one wants to let you in their house, or the various outdoor grills.
-you still have to pay your bills.

my sim can only nap for short times at best on benches and I often find myself weaseling my way into a home to steal a sleep on a bed or shower, only to get yelled at and kicked out, hopping from lot to lot and foraging for berries and wild vegetables to eat and stuff to sell so I can occasionally make myself a good meal/hotdogs. It's rough as your sim is usually managing multiple needs that are in the red and you don't have too many ways to immediately fix some of them.

[Zevox]

As I said, though, what it gave you in ME1 was a feeling of scale--the fact it took you a while to find the interesting stuff. In an RPG, where immersion is, IMHO, very important, I think that's a worthwhile thing to do that most definitely does not detract from the experience.

I would strongly disagree, both with the specific case of ME1 (there was nothing interesting to find in those particular areas, just the most dull, fillery side-quests of the game), and with the general sentiment (I do not think that sort of "immersion" is remotely desirable, and think it very much does detract from the experience).

Personally, the only games with such large, open areas that I've enjoyed are ones that feature ways to traversing them extremely quickly, and with a manner of mobility that is itself fun to do. InFamous: Second Son (neon lightspeed run), or the recent Spider-Man games (web slinging) being the big ones that come to mind. Because with features like those, large areas don't feel nearly as large as they objective are, and going from one area to another doesn't take so long nor become boring. (And both of those games are set in big cities, so their areas are hardly empty like the planets of ME1 or the wasteland of Fallout 3, which might play into it a touch now that I think of it.)

Lack of rollback in DBFZ is a bummer, but ArcSys putting it Strive is awesome. If DBFZ does get a sequel we can only hope it's at a time where proper netcode implementation is common practice instead of the "eh... it works for japan, it should work for everywhere else, right?", but it's good to know matchmaking isn't entirely terrible as long i set the right parameters.

with what @Zevox said, I'll probably end up picking up the game when it's on sale.

One thing it occurs to me that I forgot to mention: I play the game on PS4, so I can't speak from any experience about the PC version. I haven't heard anything about it having problems compared to the console version, but it might be worth noting.

[warty goblin]

We're one patch away from carriers on console and everyone is DREADING it, especially after the big WoT console rework messed up the UI royally and somehow made having low-rank crew even more punishing to new players.

Are you at the original WoWS RTS carriers, or no CVs at all?

In either case, get ready for suffering. If it ends up on consoles like it is on PC, it's by far the worst at low tiers, where AA mostly functions as an aircraft alert system, because heaven knows it doesn't actually inconvenience them at all. Its particularly galling because CVs start at T4 - because if there's one thing I associate with pre- WW1 warships its carrier operations - so unless you have a thing for very low tier cruisers there's simply no escaping the damn things. At higher tiers they get somewhat less obnoxious, since ships start to get catapult fighters, defensive fire consumables, and a much thicker coating of AA guns in general. Still total misery for the poor DD players though.