What are you playing right now?

[Triaxx]

Losing strategically no matter what I do on the battle map is the opposite of fun.

[rooster707]

Losing strategically no matter what I do on the battle map is the opposite of fun.

It’s not supposed to be “fun.” It’s *FUN.*

[warty goblin]

Losing strategically no matter what I do on the battle map is the opposite of fun.

It's not really losing though, it's getting dinged by a point or two. I mean it's hardly a well designed mechanic (like pretty much the entire geoscape layer in XCOM) but it's mostly just an obstacle/resource management problem.

[Drasius]

Losing strategically no matter what I do on the battle map is the opposite of fun.

Because you're looking at it (and probably the whole game) as a thing to be won, when actually it's meant to be a horrible struggle with meaningful losses and actual choices. ie *FUN

Are you familiar with the saying "That's X-COM baby!" ?

[enderlord99]

Because you're looking at it (and probably the whole game) as a thing to be won, when actually it's meant to be a horrible struggle with meaningful losses and actual choices. ie *FUN

Are you familiar with the saying "That's X-COM baby!" ?

IF they all result in the same thing (losing completely) then the "Actual choices" you mentioned aren't really there.

[Drasius]

IF they all result in the same thing (losing completely) then the "Actual choices" you mentioned aren't really there.

Except none of the choices are about winning everything, it's about which 1 of the 3 options you want, or, quite often, which one hurts you the least. Sometimes things are going well and you decide based on the reward or mission difficulty, others you decide on which one will contain panic the best and/or make the least amount of countries leave.

On the lower difficulties, it's relatively easy to keep all countries onboard for the whole game whereas on the higher difficulties it's rather difficult (as it should be). The choices you make on the various missions as to which reward can be a huge driver on all difficulties.

Do you take the mission where you get an early Engineer to get your workshop up and running early and are able to snowball satelite coverage into more funding into more sats? Or do you need to address the Panic in Europe and have to instead accept a heavy Captain that you don't need 'cause RNG has already given you a nigh endless supply of Heavies? On top of that, you then have the choice on where to place your sats. Do you aim for max funding? Complete continent bonii? Eliminate panic? Remove a danger continent from the mission pool to control panic of already red panic nations who already have a sat? All of these are things to consider and result in meaningful choices.

There's plenty of choices and if you're in a situation where taking any of them are resulting in a game over, well, you probably ****ed up (or, because it's X-Com, it is possible that RNG just decided that you were meant to fail, but the majority of the time it's the player making a mistake, especially on the easier levels).

[warty goblin]

Got in a bit more Pharaoh time last night. You wouldn't think a mining city would be the best place ever, but my mining city is the best place ever. It's turning massive profits based on exporting copper, weapons and gemstones, enough that I can afford to import beer and papyrus, while keeping the gods happy and maintaining a crack army. Really, the only problem is that I need to get another 700 or so people to move in without totally tanking my Prosperity rating.

(I think I prefer the combat in Caeser III, mostly because it's very wall-centric, and I enjoy building insane defensive works.)

[Lost Demiurge]

A MMOrpg called Project Gorgon. It's got Everquest-style graphics, but the system itself is amazingly deep, and it's a sandbox-style game that encourages exploration and discovery. It's a glorious timewaster, and it's retro in a good way; quests don't hold your hand, there usually aren't waypoint markers, and it manages to pull that off while being casual-friendly.

Throw in a good community, no subscription fees, and a system that doesn't punish you for dying, and that's a recipe that'll keep me playing for a good while.

[Triaxx]

I don't mind sacrificing a country or two to win the war. But when I can just make the terror mission and it means that I lose one month later than I was already, because the requisite number of countries have decided to just up and quit because they were at red panic, the game stops being enjoyable.

I suppose the only answer is to keep restarting until the RNG doesn't roll for a complete failure. Now I remember why I uninstalled this game last time.

[Avilan the Grey]

Well I know what I'm not playing.
Just found out they want $70(!!!!!!) for Sea of thieves...
Yeah I know, it's priced for the XBox but how on earth do they think they can compete on the PC with that price? Wouldn't dream of paying more than $50 for a base game. Ever.

[Triaxx]

Tell me about it. Of course there are quite a few people convinced we're still getting a massive undersell at $60 because they cost so much to make. I've seen various figure's on how the price should have changed, from $90 to $130. Of course every one of those figures I've seen includes the cost of distribution, which means console discs, rather than how I get all my new games, which is online from Steam or Gog, or whatever other platform catches my eye.

[Rynjin]

Tell me about it. Of course there are quite a few people convinced we're still getting a massive undersell at $60 because they cost so much to make. I've seen various figure's on how the price should have changed, from $90 to $130. Of course every one of those figures I've seen includes the cost of distribution, which means console discs, rather than how I get all my new games, which is online from Steam or Gog, or whatever other platform catches my eye.

Worse, a lot of people include marketing costs into those figures. The marketing costs that are usually artificially inflated by pointless celebrity cameos and extraordinarily wasteful public events hardly anyone even sees, much less attends.

Meanwhile the cost to actually make the game itself gets ever cheaper and cheaper (particularly with the proliferation of existing game engines that can be used instead of making a new one from scratch every single time - though many companies refuse to do this) while the profits go higher and higher, but self-serving executives and these embroiled in the industry try to claim the opposite so they can make more money.

I was almost starting to like Extra Credits again until that incredibly ****ty and dishonest video they put out recently on the subject.

[Cespenar]

I was almost starting to like Extra Credits again until that incredibly ****ty and dishonest video they put out recently on the subject.

Which video was it? I'm not following Extra Credits much since the Escapist days, but I figured their stance often was on the side of the users?

[Avilan the Grey]

Oh I also just bought the big expansion for Grim Dawn so I'm going back into that as well.

[GloatingSwine]

Which video was it? I'm not following Extra Credits much since the Escapist days, but I figured their stance often was on the side of the users?

Their loot box ones presume the necessity of loot boxes for funding AAA game development, and completely slide around the fact that loot boxes in all their forms will always exploit the same dopamine mechanisms as gambling. It's just inherent in what they are (gambling is fun and can be addictive because the dopamine reward in the brain for success is greater when that success was in doubt, so by having randomised contents where some are inherently more desirable, lootboxes are inherently the same mechanism. They will never not be gambling, whether you can get money out to meet an outdated legal definition or not), and so the only "good" lootboxes are ones you can't pay for.


Also, the premise that they're "necessary" is not evidenced. The vast budgets of major AAA games are, in fact, not necessary precursors of success or the biggest game on the market wouldn't be a technical ****show (PUBG), plus the success of many second tier games like, well, basically everything made in Japan (Ten years ago Japanese developers were pointing out that western studios were way ahead technically, but by keeping costs down Japanese teams now have a lot more room to innovate and pursue mechanically strong but technically lacking titles like Dark Souls, Nier Automata, the entire Switch, and so on). And predatory monetisation is not in fact necessary for profitability for a AAA game as evidenced by The Witcher, Final Fantasy XV, and others.

[Cespenar]

Their loot box ones presume the necessity of loot boxes for funding AAA game development,

You had me by the end of that sentence already. It's a strange stance for them, honestly.

[NRSASD]

Also started Prey (the new one). I’m not nearly far in enough to say if it’s good or not, but it reminds me a lot of several games that I love, which is a good sign.

Ooo enjoy! It's quite a good time. My only complaint is that the enemy variety feels a little lacking by the end. Besides that, it has such a strong combination of combat, stealth, and story that I've played through it completely twice.

Once you finish the game, you should really check out Extra Credits' video on the subject. There's a lot going on below the surface.

You wouldn't think a mining city would be the best place ever, but my mining city is the best place ever.

Mining cities are great! You can make so much cash so quickly. Honestly, the only thing I prefer to them are timber cities, cause man, wood sells like hotcakes on the market.

I don't mind sacrificing a country or two to win the war. But when I can just make the terror mission and it means that I lose one month later than I was already, because the requisite number of countries have decided to just up and quit because they were at red panic, the game stops being enjoyable.

XCOM 1 did have that problem, but thankfully XCOM 2 does a lot to solve it. I second that once you play 2, there's no reason to go back. However, I avoided WoTC and went straight into Long War 2.

Their loot box ones presume the necessity of loot boxes for funding AAA game development, and completely slide around the fact that loot boxes in all their forms will always exploit the same dopamine mechanisms as gambling.

I think that's kind of a given. We all know lootboxes are terrible, but there has to be a reason they're popping up besides just more money. I thought the video did a decent job addressing why lootboxes are popping up when ingame stores and cosmetic DLCs already exist. Extra Credits has been pretty upfront about saying that they're industry insiders, and this video seemed to be more of a "Here's our perspective" instead of an indepth explanation or judgement.

[Triaxx]

Honestly even classic Difficulty in EU wasn't such a pain but I want to play EW and even on normal it's just... Impossible. I might go easy mode as much as I feel like that's giving up. For now I just uninstalled because I don't even want to think about it.

That said, I'm installing Xenonauts in it's place, and I'm going to give that a whirl. See if it's less annoying.

[warty goblin]

Mining cities are great! You can make so much cash so quickly. Honestly, the only thing I prefer to them are timber cities, cause man, wood sells like hotcakes on the market.

In this case my mining city is great because something like 99% of the population is living in these big gorgeous houses, there's dancing girls and jugglers on every other street corner, the relevant god is so happy with me he insta-kills any and all invaders, I've got a big army sitting around as backup, beer is readily available, and it's basically paradise. So long as you like ostrich burger, because ostrich is literally the only food around, and I'm too cheap to import any.

I think that's kind of a given. We all know lootboxes are terrible, but there has to be a reason they're popping up besides just more money. I thought the video did a decent job addressing why lootboxes are popping up when ingame stores and cosmetic DLCs already exist. Extra Credits has been pretty upfront about saying that they're industry insiders, and this video seemed to be more of a "Here's our perspective" instead of an indepth explanation or judgement.

Does there have to be a reason besides 'they make money?' I mean that's the literal job of EA, Ubisoft, etc, make money for shareholders by getting people to spend money on their products. Something like a lootbox, which has to be fairly cheap to develop content for is going to be intensely attractive, whether or not the production costs of the game requires the extra revenue.

Honestly even classic Difficulty in EU wasn't such a pain but I want to play EW and even on normal it's just... Impossible. I might go easy mode as much as I feel like that's giving up. For now I just uninstalled because I don't even want to think about it.

That said, I'm installing Xenonauts in it's place, and I'm going to give that a whirl. See if it's less annoying.

Xenonauts is good*. It's also quite hard, and lacks a number of XCOM's abstractions/quality of life things. Ammo has weight, and you decide how much of it each dude carries. There's a decent system of pre-built loadouts available, so you can easily equip somebody with your breach'n'clear kit or whatever. All of which is fine, Xenonauts runs much more simulationish in feel than XCOM, and it does a good job of making that pretty easy to handle.

The annoyances that add up in Xenonauts are things like the not exactly ideal camera system. It works fine for CQB, but elevation is something of a mystery to deal with, and it's basically impossible to check what you might accidentally hit if you're shooting across more than a single screen. Sniping your own dudes in the ass because your crack shot rolled badly and you couldn't see to make sure he had a clear LOS is infuriating. It's even worse when you melt down your squad with an errant tank shell.


*Except for the air combat, which still sucks.

[GloatingSwine]

Xenonauts is basically original UFO with a mild QoL pass like not having to fiddle about restocking ammo.

Also there is a Chryssalid* behind you. (They love using their really high move to run around where you can't see, so always look behind yourself at the start of a turn if they're around)



* Or whatever trademark friendly name they got given, can't remember.

[Triaxx]

Sounds like fun, accidentally melting my squad with a tank. Can't wait to name them after people on the forums. I'm certain it won't be long before I run out of people I know personally. Watch out for terror enemies, check. So they don't line up in front of you like they do in New XCom, got it.

Then again I played UFO:Alien Invasion for a while, until it updated to the point where it was quicker to auto-resolve. You were going to lose at least one soldier anyway, so there wasn't a point in trying to fight it out.

So far the only X-Com game I've found that did ship combat well at all was X-Com Interceptor, which is a game most people didn't like because it was so different.

[GloatingSwine]

The only real problem with Xenonauts air combat is that once you've figured out how to beat a given ship you'll beat it exactly the same way every time.

And there's a lot of air combat.

That said, it does have a cool approach to autoresolve, which is that you airstrike the crash site and get some money. You don't get the loot you get from manually combing through the site, but also there's no sense of "I would have done that way better" which usually makes autoresolve unsatisfying.

[warty goblin]

Sounds like fun, accidentally melting my squad with a tank. Can't wait to name them after people on the forums. I'm certain it won't be long before I run out of people I know personally. Watch out for terror enemies, check. So they don't line up in front of you like they do in New XCom, got it.

Being able to melt your squad with a tank is fun attention to simulationist detail. Melting your squad because you were shooting at an enemy more than one screen width or height away from your tank and couldn't see that the shot would clip the corner of that building next to your squad, because once you select your target the camera locks and you can't check for possible friendly fire issues is annoying as hell. I don't mind doing it if it's a calculated risk, I mind not being able to know it is a risk, when I really should.

[NRSASD]

In Xenonauts, your friend, lord, and saviour is named smoke grenade. They're subtly the single most important item in your arsenal. I actually had someone who just carried a pistol and bandoliers of smoke grenades.

[Triaxx]

Perhaps it'll get repetitive later but the first scout fell for standard WWII tactics. Let it chase one then roll in from behind with the wingmate.

[Kato]

Still working on my backlog... Finally "finished" (did everything I think worth doing) in Twilight Princess. So only a dozen years late. Probably give Other M a shot next. I'm not afraid of the story but my inability with FPS. If I can't get into it, probably Skyward Sword..

Also, I've seen a little of My Lovely Daughter and I'm really intrigued to give it a shot.. If it was 10 instead of 15€ I'd likely given in already..

[Triaxx]

From all I've seen Other M is completely skippable.

[Drascin]

From all I've seen Other M is completely skippable.

Not only skippable, it's actively bad. Gameplay-wise, half its mechanics work directly against the other half, and the exploration (AKA what most of us come to Metroid for) is strictly nil until the bloody postgame.

And the less said about the story, the better. It's basically Anticlimaxes: The Game, with a dash of what is very hard to not see as romanticized parental abuse. I think Other M is the first time I have actually gotten angry at a videogame.

As for me, what I'm playing lately is mostly Celeste. Which is absolutely delightful, and for now my absolute GotY. And keep in mind I'm saying this in a year that has Monster Hunter World, so the bar is pretty damn high .

[Yora]

Got back into Darkest Dungeon and now that I am concentrating entirely on getting the Blacksmith upgraded I am starting to successfully get through most Medium Level 1 dungeon and Short Level 3 dungeons. I even beat my first boss in Week 81.

[Cespenar]

As for me, what I'm playing lately is mostly Celeste. Which is absolutely delightful, and for now my absolute GotY. And keep in mind I'm saying this in a year that has Monster Hunter World, so the bar is pretty damn high .

Yep, Celeste is pretty good. I'm not gonna say 11/10 like most critics, but its controls are pretty tight for a platformer, its difficulty level seems very carefully balanced, and it has fun, above average writing.

Got back into Darkest Dungeon and now that I am concentrating entirely on getting the Blacksmith upgraded I am starting to successfully get through most Medium Level 1 dungeon and Short Level 3 dungeons. I even beat my first boss in Week 81.

First boss in Week 81? I forgot the game enough to lose track of its timelines, but is that normal?