Posts made by ffff0

@axel I think I saw the same thing, but it didn't bother me. In fact, I liked it, because it made the act of making choice different. Usually games have a good option and a bad option. Even when I don't know which is which right away, I still try to go for particular outcome each time. But when I must pick between bad and another bad, it's way more interesting, because I must pause to think which bad option is worse for me personally. In your villager example I had to compare "one certain death" and "many possible deaths", which is a more challenging moral equation than "should he live or die?". Also, this approach creates a much more fleshed out playable character (in my opinion), who is not simply good or evil. Maybe it's just me, but I love stuff like this.

@dmcmaster It's Ubisoft subscription service. $15/month - full access to their catalog (including DLCs). Formerly known as Uplay+.

Watch Dogs: Legion was much shorter than I expected, but just as fun & playful as I expected. DirectX 12 performance problems are serious, but DirectX 11 works fine, so if ray tracing isn't for you, it's totally worth $15 (Ubisoft+ price).

P.S. My final team, lead in the center:

Update: the patch didn't help me. However switching to DirectX 11 did help. No ray-tracing of course, but 1440p 60 FPS is on high is a lock.

@phbz I believe it's the first Ubisoft game with ray-tracing support and the first game for next-gen consoles. It must be a significant update for the engine, so performance issues are understandable. Disappointing, but understandable.

Also even though the game crashed two times during my 5 hour session, I haven't seen any significant issues that can't be fixed with a patch (like problems with AI, physics, world-streaming, interactions, etc.). So I'm sure this game will be in good shape soon.

Yesterday I've spend nearly 2 hours trying to find optimal graphical settings, because FPS was really bad even on medium settings. What made it even more puzzling is that lowering resolution and even disabling ray-tracing had no effect at all. The game kept telling me it's a CPU bottleneck, but I didn't believe it because I'm using AMD 3700X which is officially recommended for 4K ultra with Ray-tracing.

Well, turns out I need to stop thinking that I'm smarter than software, because apparently many others have the same problem with CPU performance and it should be addressed in today's patch. We'll see how it goes.

P.S. The game is more than playable with 30fps lock (although it's not perfect), so I plan to keep playing even if the patch will be delayed. So far it's exactly what I wanted it to be.

Surprise: PS5 was sold out this Friday in Russia (in case you didn't know, it was freely available for pre-order before that). I guess that UI showing was a system seller.

@phbz said in The EZA Forums Top 50 Games of the 2010s!:

I know. But no Hollow Knight!!

At least you can mentally place it whenever you want. Underrated eligible games don't have such privilege.

And here it is:

Youtube Video – [57:29..]

@axel I believe, Jones loves such ratings. I also think that there's value in seeing the points, but I also understand that it will be a bit weird, since it will be unclear how many points were assigned for each vote.

It's up to you of course, I just saw your note about word limit and decided to suggest a workaround.

@axel Great! But you can include points in the format "(100 points)" for the first entry and "(100p)" for the rest. This will add 51 words total, which should still be under the limit if you delete "I didn't include the points for each due to the word limit, but I'll say that the top 12 was way above the rest, clearly the elite of the decade."

Community Showcase submission post is up: https://www.patreon.com/posts/community-2020-42135511

@axel said in The EZA Forums Top 50 Games of the 2010s!:

62 points: Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward

Wow! So many votes for a visual novel! This community respect games from any genre!

@axel I would love to know the points for the rest of the list. Also what is the lowest game that is someone's #1?

Here’s my top 20 games of the decade:
20 The Last of Us.
19 The Witness.
18 Uncharted 4: A Thief's End.
17 Borderlands 3. Excellent shooter, funny jokes and unexpectedly emotional connection to several characters.
16 Dragon Age: Inquisition. Great world, memorable cast, harsh choices, wonderful music. Alas, it requires some grinding.
15 Metro Exodus. Exploring home environment felt awesome and ray-tracing made darkness truly scaring.
14 Forza Horizon 4. Best racing game. And it has Battle Royale.
13 Persona 5.
12 Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice. At first I didn’t like hearing voices and tried to shut them. Then I’ve embraced them and it made me more powerful. Amazing transition.
11 Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony. The story kept surprising me even after I finished the game and was just thinking about it.
10 Horizon Zero Dawn.
9 Detroit: Become Human. So many emotions during first playthrough. Numerous story branches and stunning visuals.
8 Mass Effect 3. Original ending is one of the most powerful video-game finales I’ve ever experienced.
7 Red Dead Redemption 2.
6 The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.
5 Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward. I’ve started it with intention to quit after 5 minutes, but finished it and immediately played second time. The mystery and payoffs are amazing and I’m still referencing some philosophical ideas from it.
4 Outer Wilds.
3 Control.
2 Divinity: Original Sin II. Have an idea? Yes, the game allows that. But despite being a creative sandbox, this game has many powerful story moment with deep attachment to the characters.
1 Assassin's Creed Odyssey. Obviously there are better games and games that impacted me more. But I’ve enjoyed every moment of my 158-hour journey and stopped only because I ran out of content. Last week I’ve started second full playthrough and it’s still amazing. If I can play only one game for the rest of my life, I’ll pick Odyssey. That’s why it’s my #1.

P.S. Mass Effect 2 and Dragon Age II were also in my list, but I used "one game per franchise" rule to get from 22 to 20 games.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is designed in almost the opposite way to my preference.

I don’t like when instead of VO dialogs are presented with noises. And especially when there are “childish” jingle when you open a chest. There’s nothing wrong with games for kids, I love those, but when you have brutal combat, heavy story and childish attitude, it just feels disconnected.

I don’t like when there aren’t quest markers, especially for quest givers. I’ve finished this game without realizing that it has side quests! How do I suppose to find them without a guide? Do I have to talk to every NPC hoping to find someone with a quest? This wastes my time and takes away my freedom to not talk to strangers.

I don’t like stamina-based traversal system, because it makes the environment hard to read. Can I climb there? Can I swim over the river? No idea until I try, die and lose progress.

I don’t like durability system: you save the best items just in case to never use them.

And visually it looks like a PS3 game.

And there’s only one save slot, which is a crime for an RPG (no replays!)

But this game has one redeeming aspect: shrines. Loved them, and if the game was just a series of these puzzle rooms, I would like it way more.

With all that said, I congratulate this game for winning. It made some bold design choices and while I don’t like most of them, many others loved them. It’s definitely not “another of” game, and to be honest I’m grateful that everyone didn’t try to copy its open-world formula. Although Immortals Fenyx Rising picked my interest and since it “fixes” my visuals, VO and quest markers grievances, there’s a good chance that I’ll warm up to other aspects of such game design. Who knows, maybe I’ll even like Breath of the Wild 2.

Bloodborne is the first FromSoftware game I’ve played. And it will be the last one unless they add easy difficulty. I was OK with dying a lot at first, but it didn’t become any better as I was gaining experience (both as a player and as a character). And after getting tired of constantly losing progress, I abandoned any exploration and just used a guide to finish the game. Yes, it feels great to beat a boss, but it lasted only until I’ve died again from some random enemy 5 minutes later. So overall I had miserable time playing this game. I guess this is how challenging puzzle games feel to those who are intimidated by tough puzzles.

@capnbobamous If we don't reveal number one, every game will win!

Come on, Mass Effect: Andromeda, you can do it!

I dearly love the story of The Last of Us, and it’s amazing that one look of a character can lead to an hour-long discussion about her thinking and feelings during that moment. So I knew that this game had to be on my list. But it’s my #20, because I’ve decided to replay the first game right before The Last of Us Part II release. And it was terrible: I constantly had problems with moving the character where I wanted to, which made every combat encounter a big problem. When I played it last time in 2016, I didn’t notice such issues, but it just shows how rapidly gaming industry evolves in terms of controls and animations. And something that was perfect last gen simply doesn’t work in 2020.

My post could end here, but…

At the end of the August I’ve started my third playthrough of The Last of Us Part II on Grounded difficulty. After a while I’ve noticed that I had the same problems with moving my character. I knew for sure that this game was perfect, because I finished it twice just two month ago. So I’ve tried another controller and suddenly the issue was gone. Turns out the left stick on my main DualShock 4 was broken. Turns out I was replaying The Last of Us with the broken controller and thought it was game’s fault! (And I’ve managed to finish The Last of Us Part II twice without realizing that my controller was broken – amazing game!) So really it should be my #7 just between The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and Red Dead Redemption 2. I hope my dumb mistake that costed this game 10 points didn’t influence its position in our ranking.