Videogames : Cyberpunk Samurai edition.

[RumHam]

Really tempted by this new The Division expansion that goes back to NYC. But there's just too much to play and I know wouldn't stick with it after finishing the plot parts. 

[Fez]

Continuing my trend of getting slightly janky, poorly translated turn-based tactical games from Asia, I've started playing Troubleshooter. It's a South Korean take on a cyberpunk XCOM. The game's still in early access, but I'm getting the sense its already a massive game (and, in the grand South Korean tradition, there's grinding). The translation is really dodgy in places (especially some of the help menus unfortunately), but the gameplay itself is pretty fun.

[The Anti-Targ]

I'm not sure that I like the direction Baldur's Gate 3 has taken with going full turn based for combat. I really liked the pause and play style of BG and BG2, which was still totally turn based in the back ground but played out visually like  real time combat if you let it run. Have they gone turn basaed because Pillars of Eternity basically co-opted the "real-time_turn based" mechanic from Baldurs Gate / Icewind Dale? I was very excited for BG3 but now I'm less excited.

[Gorn]

10 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

I'm not sure that I like the direction Baldur's Gate 3 has taken with going full turn based for combat. I really liked the pause and play style of BG and BG2, which was still totally turn based in the back ground but played out visually like  real time combat if you let it run. Have they gone turn basaed because Pillars of Eternity basically co-opted the "real-time_turn based" mechanic from Baldurs Gate / Icewind Dale? I was very excited for BG3 but now I'm less excited.

My feelings are pretty much the exact opposite - real-time play with pause with six different characters (with extensive spells and skills) now feels too messy and unmanageable. Combat was the least enjoyable part of Pillars of Eternity for me, and the main reason why I never finished the game. I don't remember having trouble with it back when I played BG1, BG2 and Icewind Dale, but I mostly played them in easy mode, something I generally try not to do when gaming now.

[Heartofice]

I’m in the ‘ real time play is annoying’ camp as well. Pillars of Eternity’s combat just scared me, a bunch of things were happening all the time and I was constantly hitting pause anyway to adjust things. Turn based makes more sense from my perspective 

[Werthead]

12 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

I'm not sure that I like the direction Baldur's Gate 3 has taken with going full turn based for combat. I really liked the pause and play style of BG and BG2, which was still totally turn based in the back ground but played out visually like  real time combat if you let it run. Have they gone turn basaed because Pillars of Eternity basically co-opted the "real-time_turn based" mechanic from Baldurs Gate / Icewind Dale? I was very excited for BG3 but now I'm less excited.

No, the Divinity engine is built specifically to be turn-based and they didn't want to change anything about it.

The RTWP versus turn-based argument is tedious, mainly because the "problems" with RTWP are less with the idea or the system but the implementation: the Infinity Engine games (the Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale series and Planescape: Torment) had excellent implementation, the Aurora games (the Neverwinter Nights and Knights of the Old Republic series, Jade Empire and The Witcher) had reasonably good implementation and pretty much everything else (the Dragon Age and Mass Effect series and the original Pillars of Eternity) had kind of shitty implementation. Tyranny and Pillars of Eternity 2 did fix some of the problems with the implementation and UI to avoid the "blobbing" issue that made Pillars of Eternity borderline unplayable after a while.

Pure turn-based is great in games that are built specifically around tactical combat (the XCOM games, Mutant Year Zero etc) but becomes problematic in large-scale RPGs. It massively slows the pace and speed of the game down because you have to go into this laborious turn-based mode when facing enemies you could curb-stomp with ease. Wasteland 2, the Divinity: Original Sin games and (especially) Torment: Tides of Numenera all had this problem and extended the length of the game out beyond their natural lifespans by hours because of this. In RTWP you could take out trivial enemies much faster but then have the flexibility to go much more tactical for tougher battles. To be fair, Divinity: Original Sin II did try to make each combat encounter more meaningful and avoid the trash mobs, but it couldn't fully overcome the issue.

It also creates a design problem of having the game playing out in two distinct modes, real-time exploration and interaction and turn-based combat, with differing ideas on how to switch between them (Mutant Year Zero and Corruption 2029 made it impossible to go into turn-based mode without being in combat, which made it impossible to use some abilities to prep before combat; Pillars of Eternity had the same problem). RTWP plays out in the same mode for the entire game and you can use all your abilities without an issue. BG3 does seem to be addressing this by allowing you to go into turn-based at any time, even out of combat (I think at least D:OS2 enabled you to do this as well), which will help with that.

Ultimately turn-based by itself is limited, whilst RTWP or the option of doing both (which Pillars of Eternity 2 was patched to provide) gives you more options and I'm broadly in favour of anything that gives you more options rather than limiting gameplay. Turn-based is fine and certainly won't put me off playing BG3, but it does seem like a weird choice when RTWP was such a cornerstone of the original games. Just another problem of this being a 99.99% unrelated game (aside from the inevitable Minsc/Boo appearance) that they've slapped the BG name on for marketing purposes.

[Fez]

58 minutes ago, Werthead said:

No, the Divinity engine is built specifically to be turn-based and they didn't want to change anything about it.

The RTWP versus turn-based argument is tedious, mainly because the "problems" with RTWP are less with the idea or the system but the implementation:

I think a big part that plays into it is that most of the recent big RTWP games had disappointing sales, whereas many of the recent big turn-based games were relatively successful. Of course, there's a lot of mitigating reasons why things worked out that way, it's not just the game-mode. But it's telling that Pillars of Eternity 2 specifically added a turn-based mode, which it wasn't designed for at all, to try to boost sales after a poor release.

Personally, I vastly prefer turn-based to RTWP, hence the rabbit holes on Steam I go down, so I'm fine with BG3 making that change. My only concern so far about the game is entirely unrelated, which is the weird way the dialog system seems to be getting set-up, which it all being past-tense narration from the main character. Seems like something that would easily take me out of the story.

[Gorn]

1 hour ago, Werthead said:

The RTWP versus turn-based argument is tedious, mainly because the "problems" with RTWP are less with the idea or the system but the implementation: the Infinity Engine games (the Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale series and Planescape: Torment) had excellent implementation, the Aurora games (the Neverwinter Nights and Knights of the Old Republic series, Jade Empire and The Witcher) had reasonably good implementation and pretty much everything else (the Dragon Age and Mass Effect series and the original Pillars of Eternity) had kind of shitty implementation. Tyranny and Pillars of Eternity 2 did fix some of the problems with the implementation and UI to avoid the "blobbing" issue that made Pillars of Eternity borderline unplayable after a while.

There might be something to the implementation as well. Due to 6-second long "rounds", RTWP in BG1 and 2 was significantly slower compared to modern implementations. Of course, it led to funny situations if you actually watched the action, such as your fighters glaring menacingly at their enemies for 5 seconds between their attacks, but it kept the action manageable.

[RumHam]

Call of Duty's free battle royale mode comes out tomorrow. I'll try it. Their last one was my favorite BR game, mostly cause it had helicopters. and no fortnite-esq building and better handling/was more polished than PUBG. Something about Apex Legends rubbed me the wrong way and I only played one match. 

It's funny I'm a much bigger Battlefield fan than Call of Duty and I'm just realizing that despite owning BFV I never bothered to try their Firestorm battle royale mode. Conquest was just too much fun. 

[Werthead]

Horizon: Zero Dawn confirmed for PC. Summer 2020 release.

That's pretty huge. Interesting now to see if Last of Us, Spider-Man and Bloodborne make the jump.

[Red Tiger]

Im proud of Horizon Zero Dawn. As a Dutchman, it's literally the only piece of Dutch entertainment I like.

[Werthead]

Command and Conquer: Remastered due on 5 June this year.

[Ferrum Aeternum]

1 hour ago, Werthead said:

Horizon: Zero Dawn confirmed for PC. Summer 2020 release.

That's pretty huge. Interesting now to see if Last of Us, Spider-Man and Bloodborne make the jump.

Awesome. Such a remarkable game, I'm glad a whole new set of players will get to experience it now. 

[Corvinus85]

7 minutes ago, Ferrum Aeternum said:

Awesome. Such a remarkable game, I'm glad a whole new set of players will get to experience it now. 

I may be one of them, if I decide to upgrade my PC this summer. Never played Last of Us either. I don't play console games.

[Werthead]

Very bizarre reactions online to the news. It's now trending on Twitter mostly on the back of anger and fury and some PS fans accusing Sony of devaluing their platform.

Strange.

4 minutes ago, Corvinus said:

I may be one of them, if I decide to upgrade my PC this summer. Never played Last of Us either. I don't play console games.

You can play them right now via PS Now on PC, although I think it has some aggravating limitations (like you require a PlayStation controller). Still the only way of playing games like Last of Us and Bloodborne and even the original Red Dead Redemption on PC for now.

[Jace, Extat]

1 minute ago, Werthead said:

Very bizarre reactions online to the news. It's now trending on Twitter mostly on the back of anger and fury and some PS fans accusing Sony of devaluing their platform.

Strange.

 

The only thing strange about it is out of 10,000 sci-fi novels, of which 13,000 cover end-stage capitalism, written in the last hundred years none of them predicted late-stage fanboiism.

[Raja]

Not even an uncharted fan but I laughed a lot

 

[Relic]

On 3/9/2020 at 1:07 PM, Heartofice said:

I’m in the ‘ real time play is annoying’ camp as well. Pillars of Eternity’s combat just scared me, a bunch of things were happening all the time and I was constantly hitting pause anyway to adjust things. Turn based makes more sense from my perspective 

Boomer apm? 

[Werthead]

E3 cancelled this year.

It looks like companies will instead be doing launch and product announcements around the same time, just not live in that context.

Pretty big, considering it was expected that we'd get our first proper look at the PS5 and XBX at the event. Game-wise it's more arguable. There was relatively little that was expected to make a big splash, unless Bethesda were going to surprise-confirm Starfield for a late 2020 or early 2021 release. More damaging is the loss of the spotlight for all the smaller games that usually get announced alongside the big ones.

[Red Tiger]

Come on Sony, give me some online trailers!