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PaperclipPerfector  12d ago (text post)   2319 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for September 19, 2025

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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Video game thread.

I played return to moria this past two weeks. It's a survival crafting game. Gameplay wise it is fairly standard for the genre. The setting of middle earth is fun. I'm not a massive LOTR nerd, so I'm sure I missed some subtleties.

There are some mechanics that definitely make the game better suited for co-op. I played it alone and felt like I was missing out. Storage sizes always felt too small, there were legendary gear items that you could only carry one of, and you could be picked up upon death by a comrade if you had one. I eventually downloaded a mod to fix the first two issues. It expanded storage and allowed carrying multiple legendary items.

Progression happens entirely through gear. And gear drops on death. Corpse runs were not as brutal as I feared. The game seemed to handle agro and grave placement in a way that helped corpse runs.

Resource collecting was generally pretty standard but sometimes I'd find myself making fun little mining platforms to get higher.

The map is procedurally generated, but it's more like pre-made rooms that are stuck together in an odd assortment rather than fully new terrain each time.

Navigation was tricky with the map not helping much except to provide general directions. I ended memorizing a lot of tunnel layouts in order to get where I needed to go.

Replayability felt low. I didn't want to totally start from scratch after getting used to all my awesome gear. The next update is supposedly adding NPCs for bases, I'll probably replay the game when that comes out.

I've started Clair Obscur. I like how you can tell it's French even without a giant mangled Eiffel Tower. I also like how it's not another generic fantasy/sci-fi/post-apoc rehash, but something completely original. I haven't seen a setting this weird since... Death Stranding, I guess.

What I can't enjoy is the combat. The controls are all weird, the QTEs are annoying (even though I didn't mind similar QTEs in The Stick of Truth). I would seriously pay for a mod that adds a generic Final Fantasy/RPG Maker menu.

What's your beef with the controls? Maybe I'm just comfortable with the Persona 5 layout, or are you using keyboard controls instead of a gamepad?

Of course I am using KB&M controls, do I look like a console peasant?

Inventory management is a pain, worse that Skyrim without SkyUI: there's a perfectly fine character screen for managing your materia, but no, there's a separate screen for this and you can't just drag it into a free slot.

The confirm button in dialogue and combat is "move right", not "interact", so if you want to switch your target, you have to cancel the skill, select it and select the skill again.

You can have six active skills per character, but you have to split them into three banks.

If FF/RPGM Attack/Skill/Item arrows/confirm/cancel menu is bad because you want the player to keep one hand on the mouse for free aim and jump counters, why not use a radial menu that can be controlled from the mouse alone?

Input Deviceus 20:3-5:

Thou shalt have no other Input Devices before me.

Thou shalt not make unto thee any gamepad schema, or any input of any thing that is in joystick above, or that is in d-pad beneath, or that is in the console under the telly.
Thou shalt not bow down thyself to developer's recommendations, nor serve them, for I the Keyboard thy Input am a jealous Input, visiting the iniquity of the peasants upon the controllers of the third and fourth and fifth and sixth and seventh and eighth console generation of them that hate me.

And lo, PCsus spoke, and asked:

Didst thou play Dark Souls with KB/M? If so, hatest thou thyself? Let him who is without joystick sin among you cast the first controller down. Also play Persona.

Okay, silliness aside.

The confirm button in dialogue and combat is "move right", not "interact", so if you want to switch your target, you have to cancel the skill, select it and select the skill again.

No it isn't? I've got it pulled up right now, confirm is F, QTE is space, and you can switch targets with A and D while you have a skill selected.

You can have six active skills per character, but you have to split them into three banks.

Not really new to me since I'm familiar with skill management from Persona and Clair Obscur's skills have more stuff going on, so it makes sense to me to break your skill view into pages for easier reading.

If FF/RPGM Attack/Skill/Item arrows/confirm/cancel menu is bad because you want the player to keep one hand on the mouse for free aim and jump counters, why not use a radial menu that can be controlled from the mouse alone?

I haven't hadn't used the KB/M controls until a minute ago but this sounds reasonable to me. That said, I don't know what the deal is with your confirm button issue but it's not part of the default KB/M controls. What keyboard layout do you use?

While I've got you, how do you feel about the diagonal party interface?

Pics related.

No it isn't? I've got it pulled up right now, confirm is F, QTE is space, and you can switch targets with A and D while you have a skill selected.

Yes it is. I play with ESDF, and there's no key binding that maps confirm to F that I can rebind.

Why hast thou strayed from WASD orthodoxy?

Because I picked up this habit back when you had to enable mouselook in Quake console and WASD wasn't a standard it has become.

I dunno, it feels like shifting your hand 1 key column to the left would feel better than coping with the nightmare of a control scheme you currently ended up with. When I played Dota 2, I used SZXC to move the camera rather than my usual WASD, and Clair Obscur is not so demanding on the precise execution of movement.

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