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PaperclipPerfector  9mo ago (text post)   1437 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for February 2, 2024

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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I’ve played outward!

The first time, I had no idea what I was doing. I was going to eschew magic and put together a greatsword paladin. I trekked across the great swamp and joined the crusade, learning recipes, scraping together cash, and trying to stay alive. This led me to giant anthills and a lich’s tower. I spent a lot of time being thrashed by dogs and constructs. It was very cool.

I certainly remember, after gathering gear and a couple skills, planning a triumphant trip back to Cierzo. I’m sure you know what I found.

Much more recently, I started a new run to co-op with my girlfriend. We struggled even in the tutorial, but started to collect gear and money. Once we got to the forest city, though, things got out of hand. Even scripted story missions spawned overwhelming enemies. We left town to do normal missions and ran into a terrifying bandit chief. Apparently, this was the next step in a poorly explained mission, but we’d followed his road by accident. I wasn’t sure if it was worse to get respawned next to him (with a good chance to be put back under before even drinking water), or in a “neighboring” cave (adding a five minute walk, followed by the same trip to dreamland). It was vicious.

There are so many things I liked about Outward. Temporary health damage. The role of consumables. Mages as devastating casters if and only if they have the time and resources to set up. Building your own class out of skills. Backpacks. More games could use things like these!

On the other hand, I found a lot of things that were just dated. Big, empty levels with impassable terrain and packs of idle enemies. Illegible animations. Lifeless NPCs. Clumsy stealth and melee and archery and—you get the idea. It was 2019, and lots of games had done one or another of these things better.

It’s an obvious pipe dream. I want the beautiful, traversable terrain of Breath of the Wild populated by dynamic, threatening enemies. I want it as lively as an Elder Scrolls game, but of course, without giving up the real time consequences. I want diegetic user interfaces that keep me immersed. I want to move through a dungeon with stealth mechanics worthy of MGSV, and when that fails, resort to brutal melee combat that’s as tightly controlled as Dark Souls.

Outward gestures at a surprising number of these wants! There are just too many places where it falls back on outdated mechanics. The overall effect was asking me “what could have been?”

Lately I’ve been playing STALKER: Anomaly, a fanmade entry in a Chernobyl survival series. It does remarkably well on the lively world, on the general combat, and on atmosphere. Map design is evocative and foreboding. You’ll equip yourself with clean water and radioactive food, and you’ll get excited when you find medical supplies or a repair kit, let alone some undaunted gear. A trip to the next camp is a tense and foreboding affair.

The game also has quicksave, and console commands, and lots of ways to cheese enemies. In a polished and curated product, I’d say these are unnecessary, or even distract from the experience. But STALKER is neither of these. Quest NPCs are going to die to random dogs. You’re going to walk into nigh-invisible hazards and end up burning on the floor. Tools that make the game easier also mitigate the frustrations that come from this chaos.

Give it a try, I guess. You might get something out of it.

Lately I’ve been playing STALKER: Anomaly, a fanmade entry in a Chernobyl survival series. It does remarkably well on the lively world, on the general combat, and on atmosphere. Map design is evocative and foreboding. You’ll equip yourself with clean water and radioactive food, and you’ll get excited when you find medical supplies or a repair kit, let alone some undaunted gear. A trip to the next camp is a tense and foreboding affair.

And then you spend half an hour cleaning your guns part by part.

And then it's all set in the grimy, depressing zone.

And then your character is hungry again for the tenth time within one hour and he has a 36 hour sleep cycle so you can't even sleep at night.

Anomaly is my favorite STALKER game and the modders have done an excellent job, but I'd still rather just not play it.

I still have mixed feelings on the weapon repair/cleaning. Why does it cost a repair kit use to swap in an undamaged part? I might as well have the smith do it for me, since I’ve got to pay him to even use the vice.

Crafting is more trouble than it’s worth, too. Found a recipe? Hope you’ve got enough scrap metal. But also held on to the two specific items you need for the recipe. And paid for the vice.

And don’t get me started on cooking. Worst value for money, let alone carry weight.

When I complete the main story I may start another run using GAMMA and see if it gives any reason to deal with that nonsense. Until then, I’m going to stick with high reliability gear and paying techs for their services, lol.

I might look into STALKER! I've heard a lot of good things about it. I just bought Kingdom Come: Deliverance on sale though so that's going to be the one I play first.

As to your complaints on Outward, totally get it. I can see how that would frustrate people. For me, especially playing with my fiance, I just don't mind. The planning of the route, the difficulty of the combat, the fun of slowly grinding up money/resources/backpacks has been a blast.

If STALKER or other games had local co-op then I'd probably enjoy them as much, if not more, but alas. It's just never as fun exploring an open world on your own.

Agreed on all points. I wasn’t even frustrated so much as…I wish it was just a little different, lol. I went on and on about my gripes but it was a very cool game and there were just as many “wow” moments.

And yeah. Maybe STALKER 2 will have it. Not holding my breath.

Yeah dude! The purple grass swaying in the sunlight. Incredible.

And it really is a shame how couch co-op has fallen out of favor. When I was first gaming that was the best thing I ever did. I still love it. Nowadays couch co-op games are kind of a niche market unto themselves.

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