Community MetaSteam | October 2021 - Guardians of Ashes: Maiden of Empires

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fantomena

MetaMember
Dec 17, 2018
9,634
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Well... Forza Horizon is just great fun. I'll play it on GamePass tho and buy it later with Microsoft Rewards Points. This is the Way.
My point is that despite being "free" via game pass, the game is topping the Steam seller charts. On Xbox I have no doubt the majority of people will play it via game pass, as in, not buying a copy, but that is not happening on PC, people are buying games despite of game pass.
 
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Alextended

Segata's Disciple
Jan 28, 2019
5,461
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Fatal Frame controls fine (with the standard series clunk) with gamepad and runs pretty damn great (makes sense) but it seems to have technical issues. Lip syncing is completely off (regardless of language so it's not related to that and I mean way off, whole seconds difference from the audio), it stalls in weird black screens after cut scenes and stuff. Also I'm not sure but the running animation looks like it's in fast forward? or maybe the whole thing runs faster cos it goes 96fps locked (my global limit set in RTSS) for me and maybe it's not actually meant to go over its original framerate (whatever that may be)? I don't know...
Edit: confirmed, some elements' speed is tied to fps, lock to 60 for proper gameplay for now. It fixes all my issues above (the black screens were because some cut scene aspects wanted to finish sooner due to the 96 fps but others like the audio aren't tied to the fps - hence the lip sync - and thus it had to wait for it all). It wasn't so obvious it was running in fast forward, it just felt twitchier, the proper walking speed is slower but seemed fine, the sounds were proper etc...
All that seems to have gotten patched, if nobody mentioned. Also not the cheap way by just having it max out at 60, it runs in high fps still.
 
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Nabs

HyperĖ—Toxic ProĖ—Consumer
Oct 23, 2018
3,681
12,256
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I watched a Darkest Dungeon 2 Stream and now i understand why it's epic exclusive
the game sucks



Hardly a big comic enthusiast myself, i love Spidergwen:



they should make a game about her
the word of mouth has been surprisingly negative.
 

toxicitizen

MetaMember
Oct 24, 2018
1,536
3,909
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I hope Square Enix is enjoying this. I sure am.
This along with Cyberpunk not remotely scratching the same itch as Deus Ex is just such a massive bummer to me. I actually really loved Cyberpunk but it definitely wasn't anywhere close to an immersive sim. Even if it hadn't been a buggy mess it still wouldn't have filled the Deus Ex-shaped hole in my heart. :disappointed-face:

And now Arkane seems to be moving away from the genre as well... :weary-face:
 

spindoctor

MetaMember
Jun 9, 2019
803
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And now Arkane seems to be moving away from the genre as well... :weary-face:
The thing that bothers me about Deathloop is that it had all the ingredients to make an Arkane immersive sim. The gameplay is exactly what you would expect from one. You can play in near total stealth or ultra violent or anything in between. You have a bunch of abilities to let you play in a variety of ways. The objectives can be completed in a variety of ways. The maps are designed to let you play in a variety of ways. They created an interesting universe with an intriguing premise as well. And then they chose to structure it as a rogue like. This is the game's biggest failing. You'll have a blast in the first 10-15 hours of the game as you thoroughly explore each of the 4 massive maps they've made. But no matter how much variety there is, you absolutely will get bored of repeating the same map over and over. You'll reach a point where you just run past all enemies straight towards your target because you can't be bothered to play the same level in a clever way on your fifth run through.
The rogue like structure also removes any sort of branching narrative paths. There is only one perfect loop which means everyone will always be funneled in to that one single way to beat the game.
I was quite disappointed by the time I reached the end.

And I have to wonder why they chose this path. The game doesn't lend itself to the usual GAAS/continuous monetization formula that publishers typically demand. Was it less work to make a game where you repeat the same maps? The 4 maps are quite huge and I reckon they'd count as a good 12 regular sized maps in a linear game. They did all the work otherwise. Did somebody think rogue like games are in vogue or something?
 

dex3108

MetaMember
Dec 20, 2018
3,053
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I hope Square Enix is enjoying this. I sure am.
There is nothing to enjoy here when Guardians is great game with one of the best characters and writing in recent time. I love Deus Ex and I am still pissed that Mankind Divided ended up being half of the game but Guardians is made with as much love as Deus Ex and deserves much bigger success than it is now.
 

bobnowhere

Careful Icarus
Sep 20, 2018
1,665
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2bf, it's clear SE had no confidence in it. Only announcing it 6 months out and still most people have no idea what sort of game it is.
 
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dex3108

MetaMember
Dec 20, 2018
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2bf, it's clear SE had no confidence in it. Only announcing it 6 months out and still most people have no idea what sort of game it is.
Announcing game 6 months before release should be standard. They announced game when it was complete and ready to show. They did show wrong parts and marketing wasn't the best but short period between announcement and release is not the issue.
 

AHA-Lambda

MetaMember
Oct 9, 2018
2,811
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The thing that bothers me about Deathloop is that it had all the ingredients to make an Arkane immersive sim. The gameplay is exactly what you would expect from one. You can play in near total stealth or ultra violent or anything in between. You have a bunch of abilities to let you play in a variety of ways. The objectives can be completed in a variety of ways. The maps are designed to let you play in a variety of ways. They created an interesting universe with an intriguing premise as well. And then they chose to structure it as a rogue like. This is the game's biggest failing. You'll have a blast in the first 10-15 hours of the game as you thoroughly explore each of the 4 massive maps they've made. But no matter how much variety there is, you absolutely will get bored of repeating the same map over and over. You'll reach a point where you just run past all enemies straight towards your target because you can't be bothered to play the same level in a clever way on your fifth run through.
The rogue like structure also removes any sort of branching narrative paths. There is only one perfect loop which means everyone will always be funneled in to that one single way to beat the game.
I was quite disappointed by the time I reached the end.

And I have to wonder why they chose this path. The game doesn't lend itself to the usual GAAS/continuous monetization formula that publishers typically demand. Was it less work to make a game where you repeat the same maps? The 4 maps are quite huge and I reckon they'd count as a good 12 regular sized maps in a linear game. They did all the work otherwise. Did somebody think rogue like games are in vogue or something?
It;s quite interesting watching the reaction to Deathloop now; seems like there has been a pretty big "course correction" in its reception (at least on forums etc that I've seen anyway) and folk have been quick to row back from the 10/10s and very high MC/OC scores.

Fwiw, I've not played it.
 
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ZKenir

ā€ Child of Raikou ā€
May 10, 2019
3,312
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don't think I'll get anything during the sale

I'm kinda interested in GotG but I'll wait until it's heavily discounted, being a western SE games they usually goes on deep sale fairly quick
 
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dex3108

MetaMember
Dec 20, 2018
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And I just remembered that Alan Wake Remastered came out too and as far as I can see that game bombed on PC hard. I really don't know what they were thinking by charging 30$ for it. Even Steam release wouldn't save it at that price.
 
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spindoctor

MetaMember
Jun 9, 2019
803
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It;s quite interesting watching the reaction to Deathloop now; seems like there has been a pretty big "course correction" in its reception (at least on forums etc that I've seen anyway) and folk have been quick to row back from the 10/10s and very high MC/OC scores.
The 10/10s were always the critics' consensus, never from the players. Also, like I mentioned, the game makes a great impression when you start it out. It's everything you would want from an Arkane game. It only starts to lose steam when the repetition really kicks in. The Steam user review score is 76% which is far more accurate. It's a good game but definitely not a 10/10.

As a side note, it's already 35% off 6 weeks after release. Kind of a bomba I guess. But the fun part is that even this game had twice the peak CCU of Guardians of the Galaxy :sneaky:
 

C-Dub

Makoto Niijima Fan Club President
Dec 23, 2018
3,992
11,886
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I might be one of the few people who really likes Deathloop even after the honeymoon period. I don't consider it a roguelike and I actually think it's more of a BioShock/System Shock game with a time looping mechanic.

I think some people really wanted a Deus Ex-style immersive sim, however. I definitely want something new in that style of game, and it's still heartbreaking that neither Arkane nor Eidos Montreal have done one in quite a while (not to mention last year, when Cyberpunk really didn't deliver on the Deus Ex qualities in anything but some surface level gameplay elements), but I won't take that out on Deathloop which in my view is an excellent game in its own right.

As for Guardians of the Galaxy... well... I hear it's better than it has any right to be. But I am a Marvel refusenik and I won't be paying anywhere near full price for a Marvel game. As it happens, of the three Marvel properties I have a passing interest in (X-Men, GOTG and Spider-Man) two of them have quality game releases now. However, that doesn't change the fact that Disney are trying to scatter their licenses to lots of excellent studios in an attempt at sucking all the oxygen out of the space like they did with cinema, and I don't want to willingly contribute to inflicting that on my favourite medium. So it'll be a deep discount for me.
 

Alextended

Segata's Disciple
Jan 28, 2019
5,461
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Gotta remember it's different to rate a game 7/10 and different for 7 out of 10 potential customers to recommend it (based on their own values which may be recommending a 7/10 game, a 6/10 game, a 10/10 game regardless as it's only a binary system). Just saying, since that was mentioned as almost equivalent. The Steam user rating is not a numerical value in the same way the Metacritic user (or critic) score average where they do get to rate out of 10 (or similar) is.
 
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Wok

Wok
Oct 30, 2018
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Right, the Steam user rating tells you about the chance that a customer likes the game, whereas the critic score does not tell you much if you don't know who the critic is and how he likes to rate his games. Then if you average critic scores, you end up with a big mess: it is interesting but not super informative without looking at the attached reviews.

Maybe I should look more often at the "critics recommendation percentage" on OpenCritic, instead of the "top critic average".

How is the Top Critic Average calculated?

The Top Critic Average is calculated by taking the simple average score of all numeric reviews written by top critics after normalizing the score on a 0-100 scale.
How is the Critics Recommendation percentage calculated?

This metric is calculated by taking the overall recommendation percentage of all reviews with verdicts. A review is considered to be recommended if one of the following has occurred:
  • A critic specified they would recommend the game to general gamers over other games releasing at a similar time when uploading their review metadata to OpenCritic's content management system (CMS).
  • For numeric reviews written by top critics, publications may elect to set their own threshold for what is and isn't recommended. For publications that have not made an election, the threshold is set to the publication's median review score. Reviews at or above this threshold are considered recommended. Note that this threshold is dynamic over time.
  • Non-numeric reviews written by top critics that have a clear verdict and verdict system are also included when recommended. For example, Eurogamer (Recommended, Essential), AngryCentaurGaming (Buy), and GameXplain (Liked-a-lot, Loved) have their reviews included in this metric
 
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Stone Ocean

Proud Degenerate
Apr 17, 2019
2,265
7,100
113


I hope Square Enix is enjoying this. I sure am.
It's sad that a seemingly very good game is gonna get dunked on because the people in charge of the publisher have less collective braincells than a lab rat.

As a side note, Deus Ex was released at a time Square Enix was somewhat into regional pricing and the game cost at launch about 1/3 of what Guardians costs in poorer countries. Just a coincidence, I'm sure, completely unrelated whether people are buying it or not.
 

C-Dub

Makoto Niijima Fan Club President
Dec 23, 2018
3,992
11,886
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Gotta remember it's different to rate a game 7/10 and different for 7 out of 10 potential customers to recommend it (based on their own values which may be recommending a 7/10 game, a 6/10 game, a 10/10 game regardless as it's only a binary system). Just saying, since that was mentioned as almost equivalent. The Steam user rating is not a numerical value in the same way the Metacritic user score average where users do get to rate out of 10 is.
Basically this. Steam ties a percentage to a game's community score, but doesn't allow players to score games themselves. I actually think it's a better way of utilising the full 1-100 scale as it sources positive and negative sentiment from a very large pool of people. But it's more of a clinical barometer of how many people think the game is good versus how many don't think it's good rather than attaching a numerical score to a game.

Basically, it's not analogous to a lone reviewer giving it a score out of 10 or 100, or even a metascore as the pool of reviewers is smaller and those are derived from an individual reviewer's opinion on a more skewed scale. Most of the granularity in the reviewer score scale is between 70 and 95, and the higher you go the more granular the criteria gets until it passes 95.

I like to see review scores this way:

1-65: Garbage. A game that scores 1/10 and a game that scores 4/10 are basically interchangeable inasmuch as you do not want to play them. A 4/10 may be technically playable, but still bad, while a 1/10 game is probably broken and unplayable, but the distinction is moot because they both suck.
65-74: Not good. But fans of a specific genre (especially a niche one) or series may get something out of these games.
75-80: Decidedly average. Does nothing new or exciting, but is passable, especially for fans of the series/genre.
81-85: A good game worth your time. Fans of the series/genre will be very happy with these.
86-89: A very good game that you really should check out - transcends its genre/series.
90-92: Excellent games that everyone should play.
93-94: Exquisitely good titles that really push the boundaries of the medium.
95-100: All-time greats that will survive the test of time and will be hailed as greats of the medium for decades to come.

I actually think if Steam let people score games like a reviewer, we'd probably see the average fall more in line with the established game critic scale, with most of the scores being between 70% and 100%, and then bad games just getting single digit scores because there's no nuance between a 1/100 and a 60/100.
 

AHA-Lambda

MetaMember
Oct 9, 2018
2,811
7,247
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Basically this. Steam ties a percentage to a game's community score, but doesn't allow players to score games themselves. I actually think it's a better way of utilising the full 1-100 scale as it sources positive and negative sentiment from a very large pool of people. But it's more of a clinical barometer of how many people think the game is good versus how many don't think it's good rather than attaching a numerical score to a game.

Basically, it's not analogous to a lone reviewer giving it a score out of 10 or 100, or even a metascore as the pool of reviewers is smaller and those are derived from an individual reviewer's opinion on a more skewed scale. Most of the granularity in the reviewer score scale is between 70 and 95, and the higher you go the more granular the criteria gets until it passes 95.

I like to see review scores this way:

1-65: Garbage. A game that scores 1/10 and a game that scores 4/10 are basically interchangeable inasmuch as you do not want to play them. A 4/10 may be technically playable, but still bad, while a 1/10 game is probably broken and unplayable, but the distinction is moot because they both suck.
65-74: Not good. But fans of a specific genre (especially a niche one) or series may get something out of these games.
75-80: Decidedly average. Does nothing new or exciting, but is passable, especially for fans of the series/genre.
81-85: A good game worth your time. Fans of the series/genre will be very happy with these.
86-89: A very good game that you really should check out - transcends its genre/series.
90-92: Excellent games that everyone should play.
93-94: Exquisitely good titles that really push the boundaries of the medium.
95-100: All-time greats that will survive the test of time and will be hailed as greats of the medium for decades to come.

I actually think if Steam let people score games like a reviewer, we'd probably see the average fall more in line with the established game critic scale, with most of the scores being between 70% and 100%, and then bad games just getting single digit scores because there's no nuance between a 1/100 and a 60/100.
holy hell, up to 80% is average??

For me:
1-4/10 - varying degrees of bad, who cares frankly
5/10 - meh
6/10 - ok
7/10 - good
8/10 - very good
9/10 - awesome
10/10 - GOAT
 
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Wok

Wok
Oct 30, 2018
4,923
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France
However, when it comes to Deathloop, the "Critics Recommendation percentage" is closer to the perfection than the "Top Critic Average".

:toucan:


93% Critics Recommend vs. 76% Customers Recommend.

Also, like I mentioned, the game makes a great impression when you start it out. It's everything you would want from an Arkane game. It only starts to lose steam when the repetition really kicks in.
I wonder whether this would factor in. Maybe most critics do not finish games, so they stop playing before the gameplay gets stale. :dafug:



If true, then the shorter the game, the more likely critics and customers should agree.

Edit: Or not... critics and customers have different stakes and backgrounds. So the chance that a critics recommends a game can be different from the chance that a customer recommends a game.
 
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AHA-Lambda

MetaMember
Oct 9, 2018
2,811
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Right, the Steam user rating tells you about the chance that a customer likes the game, whereas the critic score does not tell you much if you don't know who the critic is and how he likes to rate his games. Then if you average critic scores, you end up with a big mess: it is interesting but not super informative without looking at the attached reviews.

Maybe I should look more often at the "critics recommendation percentage" on OpenCritic, instead of the "top critic average".
Yeah, I really like OC's methodology.
For one it gets rid of the smoke and mirrors that MC has of weighting some outlets higher and lower.
But more importantly, I really like the percentile graphs and the critics recommend % info, it's very useful imo if a game isn't just good but also the most worthwhile for your time compared to the competition.

Just saying a game is good or not isn't enough anymore imo, you can trip over the amount of good games that come out each month.
 

Digoman

Lurking in the Shadows
Dec 21, 2018
854
2,390
93
As a side note, Deus Ex was released at a time Square Enix was somewhat into regional pricing and the game cost at launch about 1/3 of what Guardians costs in poorer countries. Just a coincidence, I'm sure, completely unrelated whether people are buying it or not.
Oh yeah... there was this little detail. Normal price for it over here is 2.3x the original Mankind Divided one.
But even making a "fair" comparison with all the other recent shitty regional prices, God of War for example is 33% cheaper.

Throw in Avengers just hitting Gamepass and you can see why people here would be questioning about paying full price for Guardians.

Still, I'm baffled by how much Square botched the marketing for this game, even by their own standards. You have a very well written game with some of the best characters in recent AAA games, but all the trailers made it look dreadful. It felt so forced in the previews, but I actually laughed several times while playing it.

Even worse, this game has also some really incredible visuals that you also wouldn't know about by looking at the trailers. And that's the part the studios are usually good at showing off.

Of course, the only "lesson" Square is going to learn here is that linear single player games bomb....
 
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AHA-Lambda

MetaMember
Oct 9, 2018
2,811
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Anime wins again.

The % recommended stats are fascinatingly wild

hereā€™s 2 random games that are both strong and only 4 points away from each other in score but a near 30% difference in recommendation
Nuts

 

Avern

MetaMember
May 14, 2020
370
1,239
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The thing that bothers me about Deathloop is that it had all the ingredients to make an Arkane immersive sim. The gameplay is exactly what you would expect from one. You can play in near total stealth or ultra violent or anything in between. You have a bunch of abilities to let you play in a variety of ways. The objectives can be completed in a variety of ways. The maps are designed to let you play in a variety of ways. They created an interesting universe with an intriguing premise as well. And then they chose to structure it as a rogue like. This is the game's biggest failing. You'll have a blast in the first 10-15 hours of the game as you thoroughly explore each of the 4 massive maps they've made. But no matter how much variety there is, you absolutely will get bored of repeating the same map over and over. You'll reach a point where you just run past all enemies straight towards your target because you can't be bothered to play the same level in a clever way on your fifth run through.
The rogue like structure also removes any sort of branching narrative paths. There is only one perfect loop which means everyone will always be funneled in to that one single way to beat the game.
I was quite disappointed by the time I reached the end.

And I have to wonder why they chose this path. The game doesn't lend itself to the usual GAAS/continuous monetization formula that publishers typically demand. Was it less work to make a game where you repeat the same maps? The 4 maps are quite huge and I reckon they'd count as a good 12 regular sized maps in a linear game. They did all the work otherwise. Did somebody think rogue like games are in vogue or something?
I think it's funny that your takeaway was that the looping was too repetitive and it was too roguelike-ish. I also had a great time at the start, but by the end, but I was disappointed because there wasn't enough looping and it didn't have enough roguelike DNA.

If the game had leaned into the looping harder and added some randomization, maybe we could have seen something where you looped over and over to really master the levels. Imsims usually have enough mechanical depth to warrant replay, and designing Deahtloop to lean into that could have made something special.

Your complaints apply equally too though. The game just kind of ended up in an awkward middle ground. Not enough meat on its bones for a one-and-done imsim campaign, but not enough systems to master (and looping required to master them) to make for a good roguelike.
 

sprinkles

Junior Member
Dec 8, 2018
613
1,173
93
Anime wins again.

I played a few more hours of Arise today (now 10-12ish hours total). Still liking the story, art and characters, but still not feeling the combat system. It is so bloated with systems upon systems, that I just do Button mashing - which works fine on Normal, until you get to the Boss fights, then it's button mashing + some consumables. I am pretty sure this won't be the first Tales game I finish, at some point I just dropped them all..
 
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