Community MetaSteam | December 2020 - Empire of Doom

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Tizoc

Retired, but still Enabling
Oct 11, 2018
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I'm probably the wrong person to ask about shooting. I've never ever understood what people mean when they say "gunplay" or that the shooting in some game "feels good". All I can say is that it works and I have no issues with it. I generally use stealth and hacking a lot more than shooting.

Mission design is great though.
There's a lot of variety in the types of tasks you have to perform, and a huge variety in the environments (not just visually, but gameplay-wise) that you perform them in. It also interacts nicely with how you build your character, in that you will often (but not always; that also wouldn't make sense thematically) have opportunities to use the strengths you focused on to open up different ways to achieve the goal of a mission.

For example, in a recent gig I had to extract someone kept prisoner in a facility. The "basic" options are of course to go in guns blazing or to sneak around and e.g. do silent takedowns if you specced for that. What I did is get to the roof using my jumping implants, hack the various cameras visible from there (and continue from them to the other cameras), figure out where the target is kept, and then disable all enemies on the shortest path from the back entrance to that location using hacking again. Then I basically just went in and out again.

If there's one thing I miss it's an opportunity in some missions to achieve more by talking to specific people. It's possible in quite a few cases, even in "gig-level" side missions, but it could certainly be an option even more often, and that would make the game even better for me. But then again, this also isn't really the case in e.g. Deus Ex (either the original or the modern ones), and it's not a big deal.

The city is basically just a stage for the story and missions to take place in. I never expected or needed it to be more than that, and since I'm playing it as an RPG and my character wouldn't do random shit, those limitations really don't actually impact the game for me personally.
Reminds me of Deus Ex HR, which is nice. Still gonna see how this game ends up in a couple of years.
Almost 8 hours into FFVII.



Yes, this is the first time Im playing the game.
Also means that I have no problem playing old games, so that's really nice.
Are you playing with original translation?
 

beep boop

MetaMember
Dec 6, 2018
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Not sure what to do with the upcoming sales. There are only two games I'm eyeing at the moment: Sekiro and Halo 4. Don't really want to get both unless the combined sum is 30 euros, which is unlikely since Sekiro alone still hasn't dropped below that. If I go for Halo 4, I could pick up a few smaller games on the side, but I just know it'll be months until I get to those... In any case, fingers crossed for some good deals!

:steam_pigblanket:
 

kio

MetaMember
Apr 19, 2019
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Felt the sudden urge to replay System Shock 2 today but after 3h of tinkering with mods and patches and config files I can't make the damn thing run, it insta crashes back to desktop. Neither steam nor gog versions work...
Now I'm sad... maybe pc gaming was a mistake all along 🤔
 

manchego obfuscator

MetaMember
Jan 23, 2020
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Playing Gears 5 for the first time, and I gotta say, the shift to a quasi-open-world structure for large portions of the campaign works surprisingly well so far despite the seemingly odd fit for what’s a linear shooter at its core. The ice map is expansive enough to add a sense of exploration and the one-more-question-mark-to-fill-in hook, but it’s also compact and streamlined enough that you’re never that far from a new location to check out, nor is it bloated with a dozen different kinds of boxes to check a la your standard AAA open world.
 

Ge0force

Excluding exclusives
Jan 12, 2019
4,126
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Belgium
Playing Gears 5 for the first time, and I gotta say, the shift to a quasi-open-world structure for large portions of the campaign works surprisingly well so far despite the seemingly odd fit for what’s a linear shooter at its core. The ice map is expansive enough to add a sense of exploration and the one-more-question-mark-to-fill-in hook, but it’s also compact and streamlined enough that you’re never that far from a new location to check out, nor is it bloated with a dozen different kinds of boxes to check a la your standard AAA open world.
Yeah I liked it as well. Exploring was rather limited because it's extremely obvious where the interesting locations are. But it's a nice change of pace from the action packed linear levels, and riding the skiff was lots of fun for me. Excellent game overall.
 

gabbo

MetaMember
Dec 22, 2018
3,524
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Toronto
Playing Gears 5 for the first time, and I gotta say, the shift to a quasi-open-world structure for large portions of the campaign works surprisingly well so far despite the seemingly odd fit for what’s a linear shooter at its core. The ice map is expansive enough to add a sense of exploration and the one-more-question-mark-to-fill-in hook, but it’s also compact and streamlined enough that you’re never that far from a new location to check out, nor is it bloated with a dozen different kinds of boxes to check a la your standard AAA open world.
It's a big improvement over 4 certainly. I wish I had gotten past the rocket launch section to give a better statement on the overall game, but alas the gamepass version decided my pc was not worthy and I have no idea what happens after that section. The icesled sections were, up to that point, my favourite part. It didn't feel like it was open world for the purpose of fetch quests, which was nice.
 
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ISee

Oh_no!
Mar 1, 2019
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No idea what the problem with shooting in CP2077 is supposed to be.

You start pretty normal but once you start leveling up, install cyber ware, skills and new weapons the player evolves into a running, gunning, jumping death machine. A quick hack here, a bit of slow motion there, double jump to get behind enemies etc. It's pretty awesome. You can also play with cover, be stealthy & tactical.
Actually, it plays very much like I like to play Crysis. At least with my assault, hacking, blades build.
 

Dragon1893

MetaMember
Apr 17, 2019
1,681
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I'm probably the wrong person to ask about shooting. I've never ever understood what people mean when they say "gunplay" or that the shooting in some game "feels good". All I can say is that it works and I have no issues with it. I generally use stealth and hacking a lot more than shooting.

Mission design is great though.
There's a lot of variety in the types of tasks you have to perform, and a huge variety in the environments (not just visually, but gameplay-wise) that you perform them in. It also interacts nicely with how you build your character, in that you will often (but not always; that also wouldn't make sense thematically) have opportunities to use the strengths you focused on to open up different ways to achieve the goal of a mission.

For example, in a recent gig I had to extract someone kept prisoner in a facility. The "basic" options are of course to go in guns blazing or to sneak around and e.g. do silent takedowns if you specced for that. What I did is get to the roof using my jumping implants, hack the various cameras visible from there (and continue from them to the other cameras), figure out where the target is kept, and then disable all enemies on the shortest path from the back entrance to that location using hacking again. Then I basically just went in and out again.

If there's one thing I miss it's an opportunity in some missions to achieve more by talking to specific people. It's possible in quite a few cases, even in "gig-level" side missions, but it could certainly be an option even more often, and that would make the game even better for me. But then again, this also isn't really the case in e.g. Deus Ex (either the original or the modern ones), and it's not a big deal.

The city is basically just a stage for the story and missions to take place in. I never expected or needed it to be more than that, and since I'm playing it as an RPG and my character wouldn't do random shit, those limitations really don't actually impact the game for me personally.
Imo gunplay is a combination of several things that combine to create the feeling of firing a gun. The way your target reacts to the impact, the sound of both the gun firing and the impact of the projectile, the gun's animation when it fires, these things give the act of firing the weapon "weight" instead of feeling like a water gun. Surely you can feel the difference between something like Half Life and Wolfenstein TNO. In one of those games the weapons really pack a punch, in the other not so much.
 

Stevey

Gromlintroid
Dec 8, 2018
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Every single id game has good gunplay.

If it feels worse than any of them it's bad IMO
 

AHA-Lambda

MetaMember
Oct 9, 2018
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No idea what the problem with shooting in CP2077 is supposed to be.

You start pretty normal but once you start leveling up, install cyber ware, skills and new weapons the player evolves into a running, gunning, jumping death machine. A quick hack here, a bit of slow motion there, double jump to get behind enemies etc. It's pretty awesome. You can also play with cover, be stealthy & tactical.
Actually, it plays very much like I like to play Crysis. At least with my assault, hacking, blades build.
Tbh I'm 20 hours in and I still have no real idea how the hacking works, the game doesn't really do a great job of explaining it to you in practice imo and I've found no need to try.
You also aren't given much augs to begin with, they're expensive and at the start of the game you have no money.

Those aspects combined with the base shooting being good enough for most encounters cement habits, so I can see why there are complaints on the shooting I suppose.
I would like to see this Crysis/Deus Ex gameplay being described but I've not seen it and I'm guessing others haven't either.
 

Swenhir

Spaceships!
Apr 18, 2019
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Every single id game has good gunplay.

If it feels worse than any of them it's bad IMO
Gunplay is such a vague term, I'd argue that at least we may need to get into what makes a gun feel right :
  • Predictable effect
  • Satisfying animation (build-up and wind down)
  • Sound design
  • Recoil and pattern control
  • Impact animation
  • Gun placement, motion and reload animation
Usually, a lot of people who say a gunplay feels good tend to refer to guns with little recoil and a lot of sonic oomph. I'd argue CP77 does this in troves. Gunplay also ties into enemy design and input delay.
 
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Le Pertti

0.01% Game dev
Oct 10, 2018
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When I say the gunplay feels good, it's usually in games where it's just fun, like Wolfenstein and Doom, even Destiny had good feel to it. The thing is not all games need to have great gunplay, because they do so much more, like CP2077, its alright the gunplay but the whole shines with all the other things combined.
 

BlueOdin

Dec 3, 2018
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No idea what the problem with shooting in CP2077 is supposed to be.

You start pretty normal but once you start leveling up, install cyber ware, skills and new weapons the player evolves into a running, gunning, jumping death machine. A quick hack here, a bit of slow motion there, double jump to get behind enemies etc. It's pretty awesome. You can also play with cover, be stealthy & tactical.
Actually, it plays very much like I like to play Crysis. At least with my assault, hacking, blades build.
The shooting itself is fine. Nothing special but works well enough. For me though the hitscan is now more often than not off. Normally the game tells you how much damage your shot will probably do. What happens to me that if I ads for a headshot on a still standing enemy I don’t get that when moving the reticle (modded or not) over an enemies head. And when I shoot it misses. So I always have to aim slightly off for it to hit. Which is a minor thing but playing stealthy you get it often enough that it gets annoying that I almost entirely use quickhacks for stealth now.

If I had to describe the game as a whole for me than „good game with a death by 1000 cuts”. Lots of minor nuisances (also some bigger ones) here and there. And not every one can be patched.
 

Alextended

Segata's Disciple
Jan 28, 2019
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That's not my experience with headshots at all, they work reliably like any FPS, used a lot in stealth with silencers, usually guaranteed kill, and out of it. I don't have any serious issues with the basic controls and combat, it's way better than The Witcher 3 for sure, I guess it's easier to get shooting right. It's pretty plain in feel and AI reactions etc., not unlike Bethesda games (so a huge improvement from The Witcher 3 in that aspect as well, though hardly amazing still). I enjoyed sneaking around certain areas that were designed well enough for that to feel good with the amount of enemies, patrols, distraction objects etc., I have no idea what could be going wrong in your case, are you maybe using some weird gun or unclear scope/ads? The smart randomly auto aiming all over guns maybe? Action combat reminds me of the Borderlands simple feel the most, though not with those high enemy numbers/damage sponges. It's pretty decent fun.
 
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ISee

Oh_no!
Mar 1, 2019
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I would like to see this Crysis/Deus Ex gameplay being described but I've not seen it and I'm guessing others haven't either.
Sorry, I'm not following you here.
Do you want me to describe the similarities between CP 2077 and Deus Ex?
I think plenty of people have played Deus Ex and the similarities are pretty hard to not see imo,

For Crysis. It is possible to play CP2077 fast with run & gun shooting instead of tactical and cover. That's how I play Crysis 1. Hush in, hush out kill one, two enemies back into hiding, circle around them etc.

What happens to me that if I ads for a headshot on a still standing enemy I don’t get that when moving the reticle (modded or not) over an enemies head
When I'm stealthing I'm using a slienced pistol and tbh I never experienced your problems. But :shrugblob:
 
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AHA-Lambda

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Oct 9, 2018
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Sorry, I'm not following you here.
Do you want me to describe the similarities between CP 2077 and Deus Ex?
I'm talking just the gameplay not the setting etc

For me Deus Ex HR/MD had a very effective blend of playstyles between combat, stealth, hacking and using your powers/skills to navigate your environment as well as potentially around encounters and puzzles. No one really ever dominated the other in terms of what was most effective and you couldn't lean too heavily on just one.

I've barely seen that in my time with CP2077 so far, encounters have been largely straight forward combat with some sneaking.
The stuff you've described with the slow motion, double jumping, blades, hacking etc I've pretty much not seen. If all this comes from the development of your character I'd have liked more of an intro to these kinds of options as its not really presented, the hacking in particular imo has a short tutorial that I don't think sets it up well.
 

ISee

Oh_no!
Mar 1, 2019
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I'm talking just the gameplay not the setting etc

For me Deus Ex HR/MD had a very effective blend of playstyles between combat, stealth, hacking and using your powers/skills to navigate your environment as well as potentially around encounters and puzzles.

I've barely seen that in my time with CP2077 so far, encounters have been largely straight forward combat with some sneaking.
I just sneaked into an apartment by distracting the receptionist & stealing his access code. This allowed me to take the elevator into the penthouse, where I sneaked around and hacked the security system to disable the cameras. This allowed me to eliminated my target silently and I managed to sneaked out with important data. I'm hacking people, hacking equipment, I discovered plenty of different entry ways in missions. Sometimes you can force open doors, sometimes there are shafts that you can open with your tech skill, sometimes hack, sometime persuade people.

Doesn't get more Deus Ex than that.

CP 2077 doesn't take you by your hand, it's up to you to find all those opportunities.
 

AHA-Lambda

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Oct 9, 2018
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I just sneaked into an apartment by distracting the receptionist & stealing his access code. This allowed me to take the elevator into the penthouse, where I sneaked around and hacked the security system to disable the cameras. This allowed me to eliminated my target silently and I managed to sneaked out with important data. I'm hacking people, hacking equipment, I discovered plenty of different entry ways in missions. Sometimes you can force open doors, sometimes there are shafts that you can open with your tech skill, sometimes hack, sometime persuade people.

Doesn't get more Deus Ex than that.

CP 2077 doesn't take you by your hand, it's up to you to find all those opportunities.
Don't know what to say, that sounds great but i've barely seen anything like that in my time so far. So far it feels like to me CDPR's take on Fallout or Borderlands not Deus Ex or Crysis.
 
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Line

meh
Dec 21, 2018
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Gunplay is such a vague term, I'd argue that at least we may need to get into what makes a gun feel right :
  • Predictable effect
  • Satisfying animation (build-up and wind down)
  • Sound design
  • Recoil and pattern control
  • Impact animation
  • Gun placement, motion and reload animation
Usually, a lot of people who say a gunplay feels good tend to refer to guns with little recoil and a lot of sonic oomph. I'd argue CP77 does this in troves. Gunplay also ties into enemy design and input delay.
Yeah there's loads of elements. But it's not always the same ones that make a shooter feel good to play, I don't expect the same thing from a Winchester, a laser rifle or a paintball gun.
Though in all of them, doing damage that feels satisfying for the impact is quite important. A lot of shlooters really drop the ball on that, because they may look and sound good, if your shotgun removes a thousandth of the health bar, it breaks everything.

Also gunplay is nice and dandy, but it goes beyond just your character and your gun, that's why when we talk gameplay I always include level design and variety of ennemies and situations.
Having two different ennemies in corridors is not good ,even with the best game of them all.
Gunplay is such a vague term, I'd argue that at least we may need to get into what makes a gun feel right :
  • Predictable effect
  • Satisfying animation (build-up and wind down)
  • Sound design
  • Recoil and pattern control
  • Impact animation
  • Gun placement, motion and reload animation
Usually, a lot of people who say a gunplay feels good tend to refer to guns with little recoil and a lot of sonic oomph. I'd argue CP77 does this in troves. Gunplay also ties into enemy design and input delay.
Yeah there's loads of elements. But it's not always the same ones that make a shooter feel good to play, I don't expect the same thing from a Winchester, a laser rifle or a paintball gun.
Though in all of them, doing damage that feels satisfying for the impact is quite important. A lot of shlooters really drop the ball on that, because they may look and sound good, if your shotgun removes a thousandth of the health bar, it breaks everything.

Also gunplay is nice and dandy, but it goes beyond just your character and your gun, that's why when we talk gameplay I always include level design and variety of ennemies and situations.
Having two different ennemies in corridors is not good ,even with the best game of them all.
 

Swenhir

Spaceships!
Apr 18, 2019
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Though in all of them, doing damage that feels satisfying for the impact is quite important. A lot of shlooters really drop the ball on that, because they may look and sound good, if your shotgun removes a thousandth of the health bar, it breaks everything.
Excellent point! The Division problem.

Level design is also an excellent point, though on both accounts so far CP77 fares rather well. The only big issue I have is the fact that I am running it through GFN, which makes the gunplay less pleasant than locally.
 

AHA-Lambda

MetaMember
Oct 9, 2018
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AHA-Lambda
I recorded a very small, quick side job I just did for you. Nothing complex, but I hope you get the idea.
No worries there are no spoilers.
Cheers, I take from this that I really need to explore the hacking side of things more.
Like I said I haven’t found it to be well explained in the game so I’m off to google
 
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Wok

Wok
Oct 30, 2018
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Four years and a half after its release, Solitairica was updated to use the latest Unreal Engine. :thinking: Problems ensue. :kappa:


 

Xclash

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Dec 13, 2018
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Cheers, I take from this that I really need to explore the hacking side of things more.
Like I said I haven’t found it to be well explained in the game so I’m off to google
There is two types of hacking, Breach Protocol and Quickhack. Both requires Intelligence points to access better perks.

Breach requires you to play the mini game and it shows the perks you have picked up. So if the network has turrets and you input that, you should be able to disable turrets, weaken resistance on everyone, disable cameras and so on.

Quickhack requires having cyberwear that has device hacks and it's single target. Default has two slots and you can only ping, distract enemies at the start but as you get better ones, you can hold up to six slots and you can do lethal damage, non lethal, disable weapons, explode enemy gernades and many other abilities.

While it feels limiting at first, it becomes busted with enough invests. I'm personally got my perk points in quickhacks with crafting so I can access legendary versions of the quickhacks.

Edit: Forgot to add that quichacks uses up ram but you can increase your max ram with better cyberwear and frontal cortex implants.
 
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Mivey

MetaMember
Sep 20, 2018
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So C2077 is corrupting save files now? Jesus Christ.
It looks like something the game inherited from Witcher 3, except that you have mechanics that make you produce tons of unique items. Not sure how something like that isn't quickly caught in QA. You probably can't fix it in an absolute sense, but try to make the limit high enough that it becomes super unlikely for anyone to encounter it in a normal play through.
 
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Prodigy

Sleeper must awaken
Dec 9, 2018
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Cheers, I take from this that I really need to explore the hacking side of things more.
Like I said I haven’t found it to be well explained in the game so I’m off to google
The way I did that mission was take guard outside but instead of straight chocking him, I lead him to the bin and put him in there, then snuck into that room got information from a PC I hacked, went back to the bartender and extorted him to go into the back room himself and get the required object.
 
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TioChuck

More Yellow 🤷‍♂️
Dec 31, 2018
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The way I did that mission was take guard outside but instead of straight chocking him, I lead him to the bin and put him in there, then snuck into that room got information from a PC I hacked, went back to the bartender and extorted him to go into the back room himself and get the required object.
I mantis blade'd everybody ¯\(ツ)
 

yuraya

MetaMember
May 4, 2019
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The way I did that mission was take guard outside but instead of straight chocking him, I lead him to the bin and put him in there, then snuck into that room got information from a PC I hacked, went back to the bartender and extorted him to go into the back room himself and get the required object.
I messed up that cafe mission. I tried doing it like ISee but I messed up the stealth near the entrance door to that room where the eye was. I think I may have failed a breach attempt or something caused the guys to be very suspicious of me. As a result I got into a firefight and had to put down 3-4 of them including the bartender who pulls a shotty on you lol. There was also a lot more people in and around that cafe because I did it at night. The shootout caused everyone to run and scream so it was kind of amazing.

The many crazy ways to tackle simple missions in the game is so impressive. The overall stealth systems in the game are pretty good all things considered. Its not quite MGSV levels but definitely better than your typical Far Crys and other Ubisoft/AAA stuff.
 

Kvik

Crossbell City Councillor
Dec 6, 2018
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Downunder.
Do you guys think we'll get 60% off for Death Stranding during winter seal? Or should I just bite the bullet now on Indie Gala?
 
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lashman

lashman

Dead & Forgotten
Sep 5, 2018
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Do you guys think we'll get 60% off for Death Stranding during winter seal? Or should I just bite the bullet now on Indie Gala?
well ... it's already been 50% off twice, so ... maybe

:steam_cleanseal:
 
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PC-tan

Low Tier Weeb
Jan 19, 2019
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Do you guys think we'll get 60% off for Death Stranding during winter seal? Or should I just bite the bullet now on Indie Gala?
There are some places that already have Steam keys for 60% off, I think.


Also am I cool now?





Also Hektor
I am able to get that $1K USD 2B statue for around $450USD. I think I'm going for it. Hopefully it requires a signature
 

FunnyJay

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When it comes to the concept of "gunplay", I've always held thebposition that it's dependent on the feeling of "impact".

Do the enemies react to the impact, and how "realistic" is the reaction?

Here's two polar opposites from the same company:

1. Tom Clancy's The Division
2. Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Wildlands

The Division

Enemies seemingly don't react. Instead the health bar slowly drops until they are defeated.

This, in my opinion is bad "gunplay".

Ghost Recon: Wildlands

Each bullet seems to carry a punch. 1 headshot is enough, or 2-3 body shots.

This is "good gunplay".

I remember back in the day, that even at release one I'd the worst offenders was the pseudo Deus Ex sequel Project Snowblind. Enemies had no reaction what so ever in that game, then suddenly just toppled over in a canned animation.

Felt off even at the time of release.
 

Mivey

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Sep 20, 2018
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Best hair in a video game right now is in a FIFA game apparently.



Move over lara and geralt.
Impressive to see this done using normal compute shaders. Hope this technique becomes much more common this generation around. Hair and animated cloth physics is one of the few things that's still really bad looking in most games.
 
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