Wormerine

I don't know if news but news to me. Old World - 4x game from CivIII and IV designer, which looks live Civ but aparently isnt. Between this, and Humankind, we seem to get multiple "like-Civ-but-not-really" games, which I dig. A lot. XCOM Spinoff - I am a bit confused but not unintrigued. EDIT: Gameplay Overview. EDIT2: Only 17 pounds, and 50% off before release?!

Part 2: Writing the Characters & Companions of The Outer Worlds

As platformers go: I see you have Celeste, though with suspiciously low hour count. If that is something you enjoyed, you can't go wrong with good old SuperMeatBoy. On a less manually demanding front: Rayman: Origins and Raymen: Legends two superbly enjoyable games - the latter does come with Ubi-thingy and has some online components. Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove - don't recall seeing that in your list. A superb and content rich game. Freedom Planet: I recently played 2 supposively good Sonic games, and I thought they were terrible. Freedom Planet was like Sonic but good. Mark of the Ninja - superb 2d stealth game. More unusual but still: Snake Pass - an original and super enjoyable platformer. Played with with keyboard and mouse, but controller recommended. Not too long, but very novel. Played through Hollow Knight recently and I thought it was superb. It's combat is very deliberate, but quite simple, and if you don't go for 100% and optional hard bosses, it should be too hard. You do get bang for you buck. Spelunky. Excellent roguelite, and a replayable platformer. Steep learning curve. RPG: Fallout New Vegas- must play RPG. Other: I wouldn't be me, if I didn't recomment Supergiant Games - Bastion is a classic, Pyre is the weird one and my favourite. Transistor is pretty, but not as engaging.

Very timely as I have been thinking about it, due to some info revealed in todays Noclip documentary. I am "in main game expansion" kind of guy, rather then a new adventure. According to the documentary early in devlopment they cut content multiple times as they realised that the compact RPG they drafted was too big for what they can do. L Boyarsky expressed a sentiment of "one cut too many". If so, I would love for them to use expansion to inject at least some of it's content back, if they feel it's possible, or if game in it's current state would benefit of it (I doubt it could be reimplimnented in the way originally planned, but perhaps those ideas could be used as a basis for the expansion).

Well, for some games controller, for some keyboard&mouse. I have been eyeing Elites. Pricey but they look solid.

He's a human being. Isn't that enough, you monster?

Part 1: From Concept to Creation

Any preferences regarding controllers? After some research I bought Dualshock2 for my laptop, and outside having to use it while wired I had mostly a great time with it. Quite quickly I started to gave issues with left sticks deadzone, which I wasn't able to quite solve by expanding the deadzone in steam settings (it tends to put forward imput by itself) which was disappointing. It feels good to use though.

All of the spoilers.

Also A higher quality of the same gameplay demo.

And.... I watched it all. Ready for the part 2. I must say, it's been quite chaotic. I admire his commitment to exploring reactivity even including seeing through what will happen in Witcher 3 if he allows Thaler to die in W1 Meantime I am still to start the Netflix show.

According to the most recent trailer Early Access release is July 28th

July 28th

Meh. The overall "story" didn't grab me, though it had potential. The only parts that annoyed me, were pretty obvious attempts at recreating "Tormement" - the game has it's "What-can-change-the-nature-of-the-man" moment, which falls so very very short. I felt the game got better once you reach the flesh city thing. Overall, it's full of irrelevant wall of text, which while sometimes entertaining don't add up to a cohesive whole.

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2020/04/02/gears-tactics-will-appeal-to-xcom-fans-and-classic-gears-of-war-fans-alike/ Huh... Gears Tactics... Due to IP this one completely flew under my radar.

Noclip is to release 5 videos long documentary series on The Outer Words. I shall update as they become available.

Wait till she survives being wrapped around a tree... that is generally the point the game looses me... as well, as endless chain of explosions that follows soon after. I did like the sequel much better, and am yet to play 3rd one.

I think those games are easier to play then watch. Didn't play Dooms, but they look fun.

I think it'is fine for optional, high difficulty enemies to require more discovery and trial&error, though Kangaxx is also a example how artificially difficult fights in BGs could get. I liked the fight more, when I didn't undestand the underlying systems. As I tend to be mechanics driven these days, slapping much of immunities on the enemy doesn't particularly excite me. The most extreme example of this problem were Basilisks in BG1, who were the deadliest/the easiest enemy depending if you happen to have one specific potion or spell. Memorable? Yes. Good and fun design...?Noooooooooooo. I wouldn't qualify this as safescumming, though. Casting finger of death on a dragon and reloading when the roll doesn't go your way is safescumming (guilty as charged). Having rolls on skillchecks, encounraging quick-saving before every lock and box and reloading if dice doesn't go your way is savescumming. What you mentioned sounds to me more like "you should have all the tools you need to succeed when you get locked into combat", which in general sounds like good design principle. There's also a part of Megabosses I didn't like, as they like to start pulling new moves deep into the combat without chance for you to know they are coming, like the bloody mage who unlocks all the wards. It's just a waste of player's time. A good rogue-lite gives you all the tools and information you need from the get go, you just won't succeed without the practice. An RPG system with good amount of depth, should be able to achieve the same thing. Using meta-knowledge instead of difficulty is cheap, but PoEs do have a tendency to be undertuned with how easy it is to overlevel most of the content. That's a problem, but BG design you mentioned is not a solution, I don't think. I am certain of it, in fact, thanks to some encounters in the Pathfinder, and its limited inventory making sure you won't have what you need at any given time.

True, but only if certain situations. Some reloading might be impulsive, rather then voluntary. I for one hate skill checks in single player RPGs - failed trap or pickpocket roll in Kingmaker or Wasteland2 result in re-load for me. Not because it is fun. Getting unlucky roll simply sucks, and not being able to open a chest, which I could open or having a trap blow up in my face is not interesting. It's a failure outside my control. Disco Elysium managed to do rolls somewhat right, as failing a roll usually resulted in memorable story bit, led you to take a different path, sent you on a mini-quest to improve you chances. Though those lasted only for a while... Passing rigid "wind" check is easily the bottom point of the game, and in the hindsight the roll-system did damage other parts of the game, like leveling up, by encouraging to hoard points, rather then spending them.

Oh man, my favourite bit of PoEs. If all of the PoEs were White March it would be glorious series. Overall, I feel DLCs show what PoE could be, with a bit more time.

Any data on that number, or are you just pulling it out of your ass? There are likely some lost, or delayed sales, but I find it unlikely that 50% of potential purchasers would refrain from buying it, even if a big chunk might be complaining about the platform. Even so, people who played the game on Game Pass (like myself) aren't lost sales, especially if they release an expansion with the steam release. All data I have seen suggests that Epic release doesn't affect sales - major releases seem to sell as well, if not better then it's precedessors - and in big volumes extra 18% makes a difference. Also: 2K's Private Division signed the deal with Epic. As to expected sales: no one could predict in what fortunate time Outer Worlds would release. Replace Fallout76, with traditional Bethesda release, and demand for off brand, small scale, modest budget, not moddable Fallout-like might have been far smaller. Unintentionally, OW cashed in on bad will that Bethesda has gathered in the last year. Any shortcoming OW has, was completely overlooked. It is possible, that in this setting OW could benefit from unhindered release, but the question is: would it be beneficial for Private Division? OW is not the only game they sold to Epic. I have heards Ancestors, wasn't good. Did money they got from Epic compared to sales, balance whatever extra profit they could make off OW?

Little damage is most likely a result from rolling a graze, which can severely reduce the damage. If you mouse over (plus shift I think? For details. It’s been a while) the roll you are interested in (bottom right text box) you will get a detailed breakdown of what contributed to final number. As Boeroer mention, number calculations aren’t straightforward, and maluses are more severe then they might seem. but on to the point I wanted to make. Due to people finding misses frustrating in turn-based combat the threshold for graze has been lowered significantly (Graze has been extended from 50-25 to 50-01). That means, that unless enemy deflection is significantly higher then your accuracy you are guaranteed or very likely to at least to grace him, even if you have about 50% chance to hit. (And them you for that matter) The chance to hit tooltip (percentage number above enemy heads, above penetration tooltip) uses “graze” as it reference, which became quite unhelpful in the turn-based system. For example in your first example you have only slightly more accuracy then the enemy, but the chance-to-hit shows 100%, while you have 56% chance to actually properly hit him and do full damage. Most damage you do to him will be severely reduced, meaning a buff/debuff is encouraged.