Community MetaSteam | December 2020 - Empire of Doom

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Shahem

R7 7800X3D I RTX 4080
Jan 26, 2020
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Well at least you finished it.
I wish I had the courage to sit through all of it. Too boring even by my standards. For the record I loved games like Heavy Rain, Detroit Become Human (23hours on this one).
I love single player, narrative-driven games.
 

manchego obfuscator

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Jan 23, 2020
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Yeah, I think the way the game is on last-gen consoles is kind of a "well, no shit" thing but hiding it was super shitty. No argument there.
not exactly the same but I'm kinda reminded of how 505/ArtPlay handled the Switch version of Bloodstained last year - it was publicly demoed once a few months before launch and got a negative reception due to performance, load time, and input lag issues, and they claimed that those issues were due to poorly ventilated demo units and would be fixed at launch, which seems to have been bullshit, as the Switch version shipped with those issues intact.

anyway, the game made it to launch day without any direct-feed footage of the Switch version having been released, and the Switch version suspiciously shipped a week after the PC/PS4/XB1 versions (it's never been confirmed, obviously, but it's widely speculated that the delay was to prevent a bad Switch port from tanking reviews and WOM at launch).

the right decision would have been to delay the Switch version a few more months for additional optimization, but I assume that a very high percentage of preorders/Kickstarter backers were on Switch and they (wrongly) felt they couldn't do that
 

Swenhir

Spaceships!
Apr 18, 2019
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Think my greatest gaming sin is never finishing Hollow Knight even though it was my GOTY. Tried going back to it but man I was so lost and didn't know how to play after two year break.
The true final boss is also sinfully hard. I hated a lot of the Souls-like parts of the game like the long walks back, but damn if the mood and world just didn't keep me hooked until the very end. Especially the mystery of that abyss, the deeper you go. I'm a sucker for such things.
 

fantomena

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Dec 17, 2018
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Put more money into my Steam wallet today and pre-ordered Little Nightmares 2. I only pre-order games I know I will play day 1, so now I have The Medium, LN2 and Bloodlines 2 pre-ordered. Im considering cancelling Bloodlines 2, but I'll wait for reviews.
 
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Li Kao

It’s a strange world. Let’s keep it that way.
Jan 28, 2019
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As this one is published by them
I didn't even know they were still around !

Think my greatest gaming sin is never finishing Hollow Knight even though it was my GOTY. Tried going back to it but man I was so lost and didn't know how to play after two year break.
Yeah, same. Too hard, too long. But I suppose there is hope as it's been the experience of many people and a lot of them fell in love at the second try.



That being said... Hades. Is. Incredible.
It can't help feeling repetitive, a run is a little too long, there are downsides imho. But man did they nail the progression, so generous, when you think you have seen what the game has to offer, it add some more. And that's without mentioning the great art and writing.
The combat system is really good too. I just wonder if it's just a tad button mashy, but it could be me. And when you do a run and think for a moment, the combat design is really great. A lot of the enemies prepare you for the boss move set, it's fucking elegant.

Hades. Is. Incredible.


edit -
I would say it's not totally surprising as the arena fights in Bastion showed great promise.
 

beep boop

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Dec 6, 2018
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Enjoyed Hollow Knight plenty but it was way too difficult for me. Souls was a cakewalk by comparison. Way more forgiving and more space to make the game easier. Still interested in Silksong but probably not day 1.
 
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Wildebeet

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Dec 5, 2018
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That being said... Hades. Is. Incredible.
It can't help feeling repetitive, a run is a little too long, there are downsides imho. But man did they nail the progression, so generous, when you think you have seen what the game has to offer, it had some more. And that's without mentioning the great art and writing.
The combat system is really good too. I just wonder if it's just a tad button mashy, but it could be me. And when you do a run and think for a moment, the combat design is really great. A lot of the enemies prepare you for the boss move set, it's fucking elegant.

Hades. Is. Incredible.
I'm having a great time with it also. I've gotten into a rut though where I use the gauntlets exclusively and just point and :xb_a::xb_x: until the target disappears. It occurred to me last night that the worse I became as a player the more I was rewarded with success. I defeated Meg, Hydra, and the Minotaur in a single run just by button mashing. Not that it wasn't fun, but man was it completely unskilled and non strategic. At first I liked a balance of range and slashing, but now I don't see the point when I have a monster eraser.
 
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Li Kao

It’s a strange world. Let’s keep it that way.
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I'm having a great time with it also. I've gotten into a rut though where I use the gauntlets exclusively and just point and :xb_a::xb_x: until the target disappears. It occurred to me last night that the worse I became as a player the more I was rewarded with success. I defeated Meg, Hydra, and the Minotaur in a single run just by button mashing. Not that it wasn't fun, but man was it completely unskilled and non strategic. At first I liked a balance of range and slashing, but now I don't see the point when I have a monster eraser.
Yeah, but thinking a little bit about it, that's why the game design is fascinating. It can totally be button mashy, with the right weapons and boons. BUT, then you unlock another weapon variation, and you have to radically change how you approach the fights.
I just did a run with a weapon whose secondary, or more like tertiary action is not my thing. I rarely use it and don't feel the need. Then these slick motherfuckers forced me to use it
to heal.
Even more, and without going too much into spoiler, they more or less force you to play that way. It was brilliant. Not my thing, not sure I will use this set up often, but brilliant.
 
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yuraya

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May 4, 2019
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Dear Gamers, :blobxorcism:

They really did bite off more than they could chew. Especially with the console versions.

The game is way too fucking ambitious. They took a lot of gameplay/combat elements from games like GTA, Far Cry, Dishonored, Metal Gear, Borderlands and wrapped it all up in a giant open world Deus Ex game. All of it with top notch presentation and immersion that doesn't take too much control from the player. The city is very dense and there aren't any noticeable loading screens in it either in between everything you do. No one has ever attempted a game like this tho I think Ubisoft will probably try it with a new Watch Dogs in the future.

They release the game on 8 different platforms basically as well. I don't even know how one would Beta/QA test everything without early access. They should have outsourced the console ports but with this using proprietary tech it was probably impossible for them.

Its a crazy launch but they were better off delaying console versions by 6 months. At least they were able to get a decent PC version out because otherwise they would have had a lot of backlash.
 

Kyougar

No reviews, no Buy
Nov 2, 2018
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For all it's sometimes little and big Drama (for our small size) here, I am glad that we have each other.
If I had the choice between a larger community that would result in the need for external funding (through adverts or membership subs), or staying on this level, I would always choose the latter.

A big thanks to Lashman (and any other hidden supervillains who finance and operate this board) for giving us a place to hang out.

(All too often are communities ruined by Admins who only care about the advert money and let power-hungry mods ran rampant because they at least do the work on the board and are yes-men to the admin)
 
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crimsonheadGCN

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Jan 20, 2019
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www.resetera.com

However in some more exciting confirmations, we are going to be getting PER-GAME modding tools, so we will have tools for CE, CEA, H2, H2A, H3, ODST, Reach and H4, we do not know the extent of said tools, but having more to work with than just what CE and H2V had will be amazing! We also got confirmation that MCC will support Steam workshop per-game too, so downloading mods will be painless for most people. They ended the confirmations with the fact that once they are done working on MCC (they have 2 more years planned) they want to give the community the tools to continue MCC.
 

Swenhir

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Apr 18, 2019
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Poor CDPR devs, crunching at least till February just to make the fucking thing work, and then work for DLC, multiplayer or whatever they're planning.
If I'm not mistaken, that announcement included the mention of Holidays, but yeah, the pressure has to be on.
 

kafiend

MetaMember
Dec 6, 2018
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CDPRs management will mouth worthless apologies for a while as they count their money and whip sweat and blood from their employees through Christmas and beyond. Gamers will foam at the mouth for at least a couple of days, before following up their frothy snot filled swear laden promises and threats by blindly buying the next best gaming thing. This is the way.
 

Wildebeet

First Stage Hero
Dec 5, 2018
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Yeah, but thinking a little bit about it, that's why the game design is fascinating. It can totally be button mashy, with the right weapons and boons. BUT, then you unlock another weapon variation, and you have to radically change how you approach the fights.
I just did a run with a weapon whose secondary, or more like tertiary action is not my thing. I rarely use it and don't feel the need. Then these slick motherfuckers forced me to use it
to heal.
Even more, and without going too much into spoiler, they more or less force you to play that way. It was brilliant. Not my thing, not sure I will use this set up often, but brilliant.
There are so many ways of layering up options so that you can put together an entirely custom play style. I'm not 100% sure what you mean with healing, but it sounds like it might work. Getting Darkness currency gives me health, (I think that was from the mirror, there's so much stuff like that I get confused) I choose that whenever I can. I have the second chance stuff bulked up quite a bit. There's stores and fountains. I'm not bleeding health too fast.

You must be farther in the game than I am. I just got to the last boss(s) in Elysium yesterday, so I've never made it out of Hades yet.

I've got it set up with my button masher gloves, but then I only augment the weapon with stuff that fits that style and avoid everything else. So I add something to dash and attack and forget the rest. I prefer Zeus' upgrades. Since you can usually choose what room you go into next, I'll take whatever isn't going to screw with my build.
 
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Tizoc

Retired, but still Enabling
Oct 11, 2018
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I always like it when I cheekly succeed in changing a game's voice overs by replacing files around


Also bah gawd I need to set the FOV to 75 at least....
 
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Arc

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Sep 19, 2020
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Instead of picking up Cyberpunk 2077, go and grab Sakuna and Shiren :face-throwing-a-kiss:.

If you're not screwed in the regional pricing of course.:crying-face:
Ironically Sakuna is one of the buggier games I played in recent memory. I probably had half a dozen crashes and instances where the game would stop recognizing my controller for a few seconds. Still one of the most charming games I played in recent memory though and would wholeheartedly recommend.
 
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BlackRainbowFT

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Apr 17, 2019
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I don't know if any of you use an Elgato Stream Deck (I use it as a glorified resource monitor thanks to the HWiNfo64 plugin).

I really wanted to find a way to selectively control the volume of individual apps (master volume, chrome, specific games, steam voice chat,...) and I just did.

Steps:
  • Download this freeware: View / change sound volume on Windows 10/7/8/2008 from command-line or GUI
  • Go to your Stream Deck app and add and "Open" command (the one with the rocket logo).
  • Select the SoundVolumeView.exe executable.
  • From inside the Stream Deck app, edit the path to the executable --> add quotes around the path (e.g., C:\SoundVolumeView.exe to "C:\SoundVolumeView.exe") and add the parameters (i.e., commands) you want after the path.

Examples:
  • to lower Chrome's volume by 10%: "C:\SoundVolumeView.exe" /ChangeVolume Chrome.exe -10
  • to increase Chrome's volume by 10%: "C:\SoundVolumeView.exe" /ChangeVolume Chrome.exe 10

The complete list of available commands can be found here.

I hope someone will find this useful!

Addendum: I tried to find a way to automatically find the process id of the game that was launched by Steam... sadly I only managed to find out that there's a registry key that corresponds to the currently-running game's AppID (but I couldn't find a ready-made way to link it to the name of an executable or a process id...). If anyone knows if there's a way to find the id of child processes spawned by Steam, then it might be feasible to pipe multiple commands together (or execute a .bat file that does the same thing).

Edit: of course I find the solution like 15 seconds after I post.
Here's how: use "Focused" as the app name to modify the volume of the focused app (as long as the active window is the game, obviously).
Example: "C:\SoundVolumeView.exe" /ChangeVolume Focused 10
 
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Tomasety

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Jun 8, 2020
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Sorry for hijacking the thread a bit, just posting a weeklong deal that might/might not be of interest.


btw, Jurassic World isnt bad, but you really need some of the DLC to make it fun. Otherwise much of it feels like work, and lots of repetition. forum and reviews confirm the DLC adds much needed content
 
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Wildebeet

First Stage Hero
Dec 5, 2018
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I'm only casually following the Cyberpunk performance issues on console, but what comes to my mind as part of the issue is the decades long expectation that consoles are cheap supercomputers. They can run any game in the best possible way. It has long been completely untouchable for developers to be realistic about PS or Xbox capabilities versus each other or versus PC. Here in a generation where the major technical innovation seems to be adding a SSD ... the cracks are starting to show.
 

Swenhir

Spaceships!
Apr 18, 2019
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Well, it is not like CDPR has been telling the truth for quite some time :p
Uh, have they? I mean, most of what they've showed was accurate to what was in the game. The only thing I can think of of blatant lie was the gamestar interview in german where the guy mentioned 1000's of unique NPCs and routines, and instead pulled a Sim City.

I mean, we aren't even close to NMS's level of lying there, I think this is jumping the gun a little bit :p.

Still, it can't be denied that they fucked up with the last gen version. Telling a customer "wait until February" after a purchase is simply unacceptable.
 
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lashman

lashman

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Dragon1893

MetaMember
Apr 17, 2019
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Finished the Banner Saga 3.
Loved playing through these games.
I'll be honest though, playing them with such big gaps of time between them isn't ideal, the story is fragmented in my mind.
I'm going to replay the trilogy back to back with some different choices, the games are relatively short so it shouldn't take too long. I forgot a lot of stuff between the games and even though following the main plot is easy, the game has a ton of characters and smaller events that are mentioned later and I lost track of a lot of stuff. I feel that replaying the whole thing will be worth it.
With Telltale's episodic games I always waited until the whole season was out. Much better that way.
 
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Wildebeet

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