Tale

Won't it depend on what the stuff is? And what stuff is available on the way to "full unlock?" If a game requires 100 hours just to unlock horse armor, there's an issue there. Mostly a "whyyyyyy?" And that continues to be true even if the game has satisfactory customization and progression without a grind. When it doesn't, then we've got other issues. The goldilocks zone is "does what is unlocked justify the cost to achieve?" A new color scheme for your armor that costs as much in RMTs as an entire expansion for a different game usually does not fit that bill. And if the playtime required to unlock it for free is comparable to the length to play through an entire other game to the point of boredom, that better be some super sweet loot.

Found more of a groove in Divinity Original Sin 2. It does take me out of the experience to have to hop around the map like a mad bunny trying to find level appropriate quests and areas, but it's still fun. Even when the fights are cheap or cheesy. Like there's one battle I'm maybe even overleveled for, but the enemy has such high initiative and gets so many actions, they can kill a character before I take a turn. They start the fight with 4 pets, summon up 2 more pets, can steal source, and use a powerful AOE in turn 1. And all 7 of them get their turn before one of my characters. I had to abuse the fact that I can move characters not involved in dialogue to move my vulnerable characters out of range so they couldn't reach them without using up all their movement. Because when I tried fighting head-on using the location the dialogue starts in, everyone got frozen and then eaten before they could act. This is interesting, in a way, but it's not what I would want out of "normal difficulty." I also did two fights on bloodmoon isle similarly. Having my lead character attack from max range, then the rest of the party ambush from stealth so they can slip in between character turns while the enemies were wasting all their actions trying to get to my lead. I can't imagine how people play tactician difficulty without using Glass Cannon Fanes with Apotheosis and blood magic.

Coming down off Divinity Original Sin 2. It's a good game, but Act 2 feels like a bunch of busy work. Go visit the masters, do their quests for power, then maybe get back to the real plot. Also don't forget to pick up the dry cleaning and help all the old ladies across the street, else you'll be under leveled. It really sets in when I'm following the only interesting part of the quest. The master with the demon! Ooh, there's Malady, she's interesting. And... I'm 4 levels too low. Geeze, I thought I was running out of quests for this dumb act already. And now I find I've only just started.

Feelies, usually. New Vegas Collector's Edition had a deck of playing cards and some poker chips. I'm a sucker for playing cards. I wonder if we'll be looking at any sort of physical collector's edition here.

I imagine it has something to do with the ending of the game being the most unpredictable in a complex game. In addition to designers often plateauing the difficulty spike early on. To actually get a new spike they have to do something the players aren't prepared for to add in some difficulty. The two I like best, though, are duel finales and something of an endurance challenge that's only just complex enough that you don't get bored going through it.

Decided to stop wasting time with Skyrim and play a "new" RPG. Divinity OS 2! I think this is the first act final boss.

Jumping around a bunch of games, looking for something to catch me. A little Battlefront 2, Read Only Memories 2064, Skyrim, Fallout: New Vegas. I'm trying to find something with a good story, but also easy to jump into. Most of these games are just holding pattern while I figure it out.

I know one exists for X3 Reunion. I used the map a lot. I just did a google search for "X2 The Threat Map" and "X3 Reunion Map" and found a few.

May the good blood guide your way. Edit: I keep forgetting what thread I'm in!

As I recall, it was because all items had the same rarity. The company being compared against printed all cards in the same quantity.

Had a free weekend of HBO and ended up binging Westworld Season 2. Loved it enough that I'm struggling to find something else to catch my attention. Hulu had a deal on Cybermonday for a year at .99 a month. Maybe I should make use of that.

Seems like corporate brands in this setting.

Unavowed Do you like Wadjet eye? You'll like it, might be Dave Gilbert's best work. Do you like point and click adventure games? Then why didn't you say yes to the first question?

I was only looking for an example of: "A game that's fun to play at install. And, if there is a leveling system, it doesn't require repetitive tasks." The answer is FEAR. It's always FEAR. Except when it's XCOM. Or SOMA. Apparently games where the title is ALL CAPS are universally excellent.

I'm sure I can give you a few. I've always hated MMO raiding for one example. Going through the same dungeon, fighting the same bosses, week after week. Or even something as simple as camping spawns for hours at a time to get one particular drop or enough materials for one particular item. Progression raiding is kind of interesting, people trying to figure out how to beat the bosses. But gear raiding? Complete drivel. Repetitive attempts on solved content to stay competitive or move to the next tier because the developers weren't able to make enough interesting content without repetition to keep people engaged. If you're wanting RDR2 examples, I can give none, because I won't play it. GTAV Online had this problem when I did play it. To unlock some later missions that might have been interesting, you first need to grind levels in deathmatch and races even if you don't care for deathmatch or races. It was a game that gated fun behind tedium.

A game that's fun to play at install. And, if there is a leveling system, it doesn't require repetitive tasks.

Observer Do you like random screams? Do you like long hallways that either stretch as you go down them or slow you as you get near the end? Do you think making things twitchy is scary? Random flying objects or slamming doors? Lots of nonsense? Do you like intentional design that makes you wonder if your graphics card is dying? Do you think characters don't pause enough between random words in their dialogue? Do you think dialogue is overall too coherent? Do you like having every overplayed horror and sci-fi trope shot straight into your face like a TVtropes.com submachine gun before you even hit the two hour mark? You'll love this one.

More Shantae! Beat Pirate's Curse, a fun little game, part Metroidvania. Beat Half-Genie Hero, which felt like a smaller game, with the mazes being more straightforward, but still with lots of secrets encouraging (and requiring at times) you to replay them. I've even beat Pirate Queen's Quest, which is basically a rerun of the HGH maps, with some minor changes, to accomodate playing as Risky instead. On to Friends to the End. Which is supposedly all new maps to accomodate playing Shantae's friends. Edit: And it's the same levels again, just with a new story. That's getting disappointing.

Shantae and the Pirate's Curse. It's just fun and with charming characters, so I ended up putting everything else aside for it.

Unavowed | Shantae: Half-Genie Hero Ultimate Edition | The Dark Eye: Chains of Satinav | Hunted: The Demon’s Forge™ Chains of Satinav I already own on GOG, but I simply loved it. I want to get Steam cards and background and show a bit more support.

Now I'm sold on buying it.

Runs XCOM 2 fine? I run XCOM 1 fine. 2 runs rough. Shadowrun runs great, too.

How is performance on Mechanicus? I'm worried my integrated graphics wouldn't be able to handle it. Or that it'd run like Xcom 2 did.

The level scaling in Fallout 3 kills the game for me so badly I can't even form an opinion on their world building. Ooh, let's go check out the... and I'm running into an albino radscorpion again.

Back to Icewind Dale. The Dragon's Eye is where this place starts to pick up quite a bit. Not a lot of junk loot, but each level is practically a different dungeon. Also helps that my party feels overpowered as heck. So I just cut through all the snakes and undead like a mail order sword through the fingers of a roomate at a college party where everyone's had way too much to drink and there's the cute girl there he's trying to impress.