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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   2756 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for November 4, 2022

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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Beats me! Given that I'm not a fan of the gameplay in Dark Souls, my go to strategy is to simply mod more conventional RPGs to my preferences.

For example, I absolutely despised the leveling in The Witcher 3, when a random townguard could take half an hour to kill, and installed a mod called The Witcher 3 Enhanced Edition, which makes gameplay and combat significantly more immersive and skill based, after which I had a great time and could actually appreciate the story.

For Fallout 4, I use mods that rebalance bullet damage, which largely helps with not making things bullet spongy.

But a single dev that consistently avoids those bad tropes? I can't name one either haha

I know I'm being an annoying from software fan here, but forget the souls games, you really should give elden ring a decent chance. elden ring gives you both the defensive gameplay style of the souls games, the offensive gameplay style of bloodborne plus ranged and magic combat options (plus a hundred different options for outs if you aren't in the mood for a challenge at the time.) I wouldn't bring it up except you are modding decent combat into games, and tw3ee in particular - which I'm pretty sure (based on interviews I can't find sorry) drew inspiration from from software.

I don't know what you like about the Witcher 3, but elden ring scratched so many of the same itches for me. It does lack meaningful arguments, which is admittedly a big minus, but your choices do have major impacts on the world, there are mysteries all over the place for you to solve (and if you can refrain from using the internet they usually require actual thought and investigation), and you are constantly forced to decide between marveling at the beauty or being stopped short by the horror of something new you have discovered.

And yeah, with all the items and spells and ashes you get, you aren't just beating your head against a wall until the loop clicks for you, which is what gave me the most pause before I became a from fan. Instead you can just focus on seeing new and gorgeous nightmares, like a dragon so big it exceeds the bounds of your draw distance, or a giant flaming eye in the sky that drives you mad if you are in its line of sight, or a land being consumed by a cancerous blight that traps everything it touches in a parody of life and death. And from what I've seen playing the game with my friends (most of whom also refused to play a from software game prior to elden ring) eventually the loop does click, and then you go and play bloodborne and we have a proper circlejerk.

What was I talking about? Oh right, my point is it seems a bit crazy to me that you are modding decently built combat against non damage sink enemies into games and not playing a game with it already built in - plus one of the most breathtaking and original fantasy worlds I've ever seen and a strong focus on player agency and diegetic delivery and discovery.

If you change your mind though and have a ps5, hmu in pms and I will be happy to help you get started - I remember how daunting the first hour was and how skeptical I was that I wasn't going to be dying a thousand times on every enemy.

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