Community MetaSteam | June 2023 - halfway through the year

[Ge0force]

The first boss in Remnants: From the Ashes was terrible. He was constantly teleporting to random locations in a room with a complex layout, doing attacks that strike you wherever you are on the map and spawning new enemies out of thin air.

Yes it was hard and yes I beat him after a dozen of tries. But imo this was extremely cheap game design that didn't give me any satisfaction. Let's hope the rest of the game is better.

 

[Lashley]

I'm an idiot and pre-ordered ff16 on PS5

(Friend gameshared with me)

 

[fantomena]

I'm an idiot and pre-ordered ff16 on PS5

(Friend gameshared with me)

So you decided to join Square and Sonys bullshittery.

If I get it, it won't be on launch. Have so many other games to play.

 

[ZKenir]

I'm an idiot and pre-ordered ff16 on PS5

(Friend gameshared with me)

There's much worse, you could have been me and gifted 3 pre orders to friends so far...

 

[yuraya]

I'm an idiot and pre-ordered ff16 on PS5

(Friend gameshared with me)

If you have a PS5 you have to make use of it. There aren't that many big exclusives for it. Most of the games are cross gen and other titles are getting PC ports now.

The two must haves are Demon Souls and now FF16 imo. That is what I would get.

 

[Cacher]

Discussion - What are you currently playing? (Week 25 of 2023)

New week, new thread! What are you playing? I am kinda in a burnt-out of Zelda, so I switched to play my deck instead. Replaying the first Danganronpa and finished the first chapter. Such a great introduction to the whole premise. Being someone who knew the main twist, it is also interesting to...

metacouncil.com

 

[Anteater]

I'll just watch a vtuber play FF16, I won't remember the story in a year anyway.

 

[C-Dub]

finalfantasy 16fps amirite?

 

[crimsonheadGCN]

So is this lego-ish battlefield ?

It's more Roblox like Battlefield. It's good, but I wish they had gone with a minecraft look.

 

[NarohDethan]

I know that a lot of you don't read manga but why would Kodansha promote this guy?

Just look at the comment section. Next time choose a Mangaka that people actually like and whose fans don't have a bone to pick with him.

Yeah next time pick someone with actual talent

 

[lashman]

It's more Roblox like Battlefield. It's good, but I wish they had gone with a minecraft look.

and i wish they had gone with non-shit regional pricing:

 

[dex3108]

Extraction 2 was good, i wouldn't mind game based on it

 

[Lashley]

There's much worse, you could have been me and gifted 3 pre orders to friends so far...

hi, it me, ur friend

If you have a PS5 you have to make use of it. There aren't that many big exclusives for it. Most of the games are cross gen and other titles are getting PC ports now.

The two must haves are Demon Souls and now FF16 imo. That is what I would get.

Mine's legit dust covered. I'm going to clean it now actually.

 

[dex3108]

After i am done with ME3 i need to play and finish another old game that i never finished despite finishing all other games in the series XD That game is Far Cry 2. I will probably play it with this mod

Far Cry 2 Realism+ Redux file - Far Cry 2: Realism+Redux mod for Far Cry 2

1.2.5 - Bug fix 1.2.4 - Ultra shadows fixes, USAS improved, colors re-balanced, south map buddy restored to vanilla rescue location, mouse buttons in vehicle restored. Full Taxi ride, new colors, no player position on the map. 1.2.3 - DX9 ONLY - Everything...

www.moddb.com

 

[Stevey]

After i am done with ME3 i need to play and finish another old game that i never finished despite finishing all other games in the series XD That game is Far Cry 2. I will probably play it with this mod

Far Cry 2 Realism+ Redux file - Far Cry 2: Realism+Redux mod for Far Cry 2

1.2.5 - Bug fix 1.2.4 - Ultra shadows fixes, USAS improved, colors re-balanced, south map buddy restored to vanilla rescue location, mouse buttons in vehicle restored. Full Taxi ride, new colors, no player position on the map. 1.2.3 - DX9 ONLY - Everything...

www.moddb.com

Looks interesting, not played FC2 for years, will use this mod if I ever get round to playing it again :V

 

[C-Dub]

I sold my PS5 because of the lack of games, and the fact that EGS nonsense seemed to be dying down so I figured I'd be getting little use out of it.

And as a precaution, I decided to hang on to my Series S just in case. What I didn't account for was Sony being complete shitheels.

 

[C-Dub]

So my brother bought a Fire 7 for Kids tablet for his 5 year old daughter.

She was really excited to get her new tablet. However, it keeps pushing YouTube kids to the device and the first video the algorithm pushed on her was a pair of “influencers” playing with toys and eating candy.

They tried to block it but Amazon seems to push it back to the home screen no matter what they do.

Looks like the device is going back.

 

[fokkusu]

I sold my PS5 because of the lack of games

One game....

 

[Gamall Wednesday Ida]

game that i never finished despite finishing all other games in the series XD That game is Far Cry 2.

Same here (minus FC1 because the monsters scared me too much)

There were some very intriguing immersive-sim-like ideas in FC2, not all of them practical.

I think what turned me off of it was the rate at which enemy checkpoints respawned. I don't think you could capture them, and if you turned your back, poof, a new batch was spawned. The mod you linked does not mention altering that. Still, it looks full of good stuff besides.

----

I finished FC6 recently. It's not all that bad, actually (if you only use armor-piercing and EMP, headshot everyone, and ignore the whole rock-paper-scissors lunacy they tried to pull with ammo).

It was fairly solid on Linux, but did crash during some helicopter rides, so I played most of it on Windows.

I was so sure I saw the mandatory obvious gutpunchy twist ending coming that I was genuinely not prepared for the actual gutpunch. I can't tell whether that's 300 IQ meta-aware masterly writing, or just "we released the game unfinished so some of the plot threads go nowhere lol".

At 15€, it was a good vacation to the Carribeans. I wish to thank Ubisoft Connect customers for beta-testing it for two years

 

[Paul]

Has anyone played System Shock remake?

I finally started it (backed it on kickstarter like almost a decade ago it feels like). Playing steam version on TV with controller.
So far mostly good, but two things annoy me:
1) inventory controls are unwieldy with controller (gotta use analog stick as a cursor)
2) there is no toggle for running? So I have to hold down and forward the analog stick when I want to run? This is horrible.

Anyone know a fix, for the second point specifically? I checked ini files but did not see anything there :/

 

[MomoVideo]

One game....

I don't know why...

 

[dex3108]

Same here (minus FC1 because the monsters scared me too much)

There were some very intriguing immersive-sim-like ideas in FC2, not all of them practical.

I think what turned me off of it was the rate at which enemy checkpoints respawned. I don't think you could capture them, and if you turned your back, poof, a new batch was spawned. The mod you linked does not mention altering that. Still, it looks full of good stuff besides.

----

I finished FC6 recently. It's not all that bad, actually (if you only use armor-piercing and EMP, headshot everyone, and ignore the whole rock-paper-scissors lunacy they tried to pull with ammo).

It was fairly solid on Linux, but did crash during some helicopter rides, so I played most of it on Windows.

I was so sure I saw the mandatory obvious gutpunchy twist ending coming that I was genuinely not prepared for the actual gutpunch. I can't tell whether that's 300 IQ meta-aware masterly writing, or just "we released the game unfinished so some of the plot threads go nowhere lol".

At 15€, it was a good vacation to the Carribeans. I wish to thank Ubisoft Connect customers for beta-testing it for two years

Mod also fixes respawn for the outposts.

Our most exciting new feature is a fix for the annoying outposts, which are infamous for respawning as soon as the player leaves the immediate area. The talented Scubrah has written a newscript where once all the enemies in an outpost have been killed they will only respawn once half an hour real-time has passed. We are so pleased to finally have a solution to this absolutely renowned issue with Far Cry 2, and very grateful to Scubrah for letting us adapt his mod for Realism+ Redux.

 

[Ge0force]

I'm an idiot and pre-ordered

You can stop there

 

[Lashley]

You can stop there

 

[kio]

Has anyone played System Shock remake?

I finally started it (backed it on kickstarter like almost a decade ago it feels like). Playing steam version on TV with controller.
So far mostly good, but two things annoy me:
1) inventory controls are unwieldy with controller (gotta use analog stick as a cursor)
2) there is no toggle for running? So I have to hold down and forward the analog stick when I want to run? This is horrible.

Anyone know a fix, for the second point specifically? I checked ini files but did not see anything there :/

I played and finished it last week. It's an almost 1:1 modernized replica of the first game with a few tweaks and many QoL improvements that the original game desperately needed. It's a very solid remake.
Can't realy help you since I played with KB+M and the controls were prety standard, nothing out of the ordinary (hold shift to sprint for instance).

 

[Stallion Free]

I preorder all Sony games to convince them to give me faster ports. And I’m an idiot.

 

[NarohDethan]

My PC warms my room and it’s 112F today, no PC for me

 

[lashman]

My PC warms my room and it’s 112F today, no PC for me

 

[Lashley]

Thankfully the 4090 is the size of a mini fridge so it cools my room

The 5800x3D sadly does the opposite

 

[lashman]

I asked developers to explain why PC ports in 2023 run like garbage

Nearly every major PC port has run into issues this year. Why? I asked some developers to find out.

www.digitaltrends.com

 

[Aaron D.]

Man I’m starting to get super hyped for Shadow Gambit.

After Shadow Tactics and Desperadoes 3, Mimimi have my full confidence.

Can’t wait to spin the demo tomorrow. It’s reportedly quite beefy. YouTuber Nookrium’s preview of the same code is almost 3 hrs. long!

 

[Blu]

Out now

 

[Li Kao]

The first boss in Remnants: From the Ashes was terrible. He was constantly teleporting to random locations in a room with a complex layout, doing attacks that strike you wherever you are on the map and spawning new enemies out of thin air.

Yes it was hard and yes I beat him after a dozen of tries. But imo this was extremely cheap game design that didn't give me any satisfaction. Let's hope the rest of the game is better.

Funny I started the game yesterday too, and had pretty much the same experience with the first boss. Pretty certain it’s the origin of a lot of people complaining about mobs spawning behind the player’s back.
The rage inducing encounter could have been lessened by using something else, anything, than exploding / stunning adds.

I’m not sold on the game yet. Ambitions are clear but the budget wasn’t on par. Getting several case of inverted maps or reused room structure, like we are playing some Mario Kart mirror course isn’t helping. And yeah, unfair difficulty spikes.
Not to mention the pathetic loot.

On the other hand, it’s a small AA doing exactly what it says it will, TPS x Dark Souls. It’s not horrible, it’s just not enough, for now I’m not hooked and while nice enough to play, it feels extremely forgettable.

 

[FunnyJay]

I remember having some difficulties in the first sewer (before the first boss) in Remnant. There was some elite enemy that gave me some real problems until I managed to figure out how to take him out. Took several lives to do that.
I think it was an elite version of the hunter

https://remnantfromtheashes.wiki.fextralife.com/Hunter+(Enemy)

 

[Li Kao]

I remember having some difficulties in the first sewer (before the first boss) in Remnant. There was some elite enemy that gave me some real problems until I managed to figure out how to take him out. Took several lives to do that.
I think it was an elite version of the hunter

https://remnantfromtheashes.wiki.fextralife.com/Hunter+(Enemy)

Yeah, took me several attempts to understand how to deal with him, too.

Now one other variant I rarely encountered but still not sure how to handle is the ‘hugging hunter’.

 

[Ge0force]

On the other hand, it’s a small AA doing exactly what it says it will, TPS x Dark Souls. It’s not horrible, it’s just not enough, for now I’m not hooked and while nice enough to play, it feels extremely forgettable.

This shows once again that hard but fair boss fights are extremely difficult to design. The Surge 2 is my favorite souls-like, but I don't like most of the boss fights in that game as well.

I've defeated two more bosses in Remnants and these were less frustrating. But yeah it's obvious this game had a low budget. I can live with the (very) repetitive environments, but encountering the same enemies over and over again becomes really boring after a while. The diversity in enemies is one of the major things that makes From's games so amazing.

My PC warms my room and it’s 112F today, no PC for me

It actually rained here yesterday. Told ya.

 

[Nano]

Out now

 

[Gintaro]

The first boss in Remnants: From the Ashes was terrible. He was constantly teleporting to random locations in a room with a complex layout, doing attacks that strike you wherever you are on the map and spawning new enemies out of thin air.

Yes it was hard and yes I beat him after a dozen of tries. But imo this was extremely cheap game design that didn't give me any satisfaction. Let's hope the rest of the game is better.

For me since I'm playing with my friends most of the bosses is pretty acceptable except for the final boss, I've pretty much stop playing at the final boss and haven't revisit the game at all.

Spoiler

The final boss just feels like it's designed for a single player since the other players can't really do much in that boss fight

 

[spindoctor]

I played Remnant just a few months ago but I've already forgotten almost all of the boss fights. Is the first boss that is causing all this trouble the one in the subway that keeps replicating itself? I remember that was quite hard for me and I barely managed to finish it while playing in co-op with two others.

In general, I feel like Remnant makes a pretty average/poor first impression and it takes a long time for that to dissipate. It gets much better after you have upgraded your gear quite a bit and gotten better new guns. The starter guns are all completely terrible in my opinion. And I started to appreciate the design a bit more when I realized how much content the game actually has which I could not experience on my single save file.

For those who are not aware, there are a huge number of bosses, weapons, dungeons, items, events and areas in the game. When you start a new save file, the game chooses a certain number of these things that will occur in your save. So for example, if the side dungeon that contains the assault rifle is not in your save file, you will not be able to get that gun until you reset your save or find it in someone else's game. A certain quest can only be completed if a particular miniboss is available. A particular weapon can only be obtained if you kill the boss in a specific way (cut off their tail before killing them etc.). Any weapon, item or upgrade that you do obtain will persist across different playthroughs. The idea behind this is to keep things fresh for replayability and to strongly encourage co-op multiplayer. There is a server browser in the main menu which shows all public games around your player level (multiplayer is very active even now, 4 years after the game released). You can drop into someone's game, help them out with whatever they're doing, find weapons or dungeons or quests that have not spawned in your game and when you disconnect and come back you will keep all the rewards.

I find this is an interesting and stark contrast to a Fromsoft Souls game. Let's say there are 10 hidden sidequests in a particular Souls game. All of those 10 quests will be available to everyone when they start a new game. The upside is that you are able to experience all of them within a single playthrough. The downside is that sometimes you need to go and visit a particular NPC at a particular location after a specific boss fight and if you miss that (because you didn't know you had to do that), the quest is gone from the game and you cannot do it until you replay the whole game again. In Remnant, only 3 of those 10 quests will be available in your save file. So you cannot experience all the sidequests on a single save even if you wanted to. But the upside is that you can randomly drop into anyone's game and you will find new sidequests (and dungeons and weapons) and generally new things to do. Or you can eventually reroll your own save to find new things to do there itself. Which of these two approaches is better is a matter of personal preference. I think both are different and interesting ways to present the game to a player.

Last thing to mention is that yeah, it's a low budget game and you can tell. I would put this somewhere between an A and AA game in production values. It was a pretty risky game they released after the prequel to this game bombed completely. In fact, this prequel (Chronos) only came to Steam after the sequel (Remnant) blew up in popularity the way it did. The game has procedural generation which in reality means they made 30 different unique environments/rooms per biome and then the game just stitches them together to present a somewhat randomized level. The visual variety improves as you get further into the game. Different acts are in different biomes and you will go to desert levels, swamp levels and so on later.

Anyway this wall of text is because I think it's a pretty good game. Constrained within it's budget but with some unique and interesting ideas. A game that does not reveal itself fully until you understand the systems going on behind the scenes.

 

[crimsonheadGCN]

I just need a second opinion on something that isn't related to Steam and gaming. If someone says a slur in a discord community that I run and one of my moderators is baited into repeating that slur then should I reprimand the moderator as harshly as the person who originally said the slur? And I have evidence that makes it seem like the mod was baited.

 

[Li Kao]

I must say that the second biome does Remnant a world of good. It's not incredible but grey post apo and sewers get old FAST.

 

[Pixieking]

I just need a second opinion on something that isn't related to Steam and gaming. If someone says a slur in a discord community that I run and one of my moderators is baited into repeating that slur then should I reprimand the moderator as harshly as the person who originally said the slur? And I have evidence that makes it seem like the mod was baited.

I wouldn't reprimand the mod as harshly, no, but I'd also keep an eye on them more closely in the future than any other mod, just in case.

 

[thekeats1999]

This is something I have never understood. Why, with the boundless imaginations creators have, do we always get drab, grey overcast apocalyptic worlds.

give me something that looks like Annihilation (the Netflix film). A bio diverse green alienscape merged with Earth. Give me something like war of the worlds when the Martians start to terraform earth with the red weed.

even something like The Last of Us should be more interesting than it is, nature would be well underway in reclaiming the unpopulated areas.

Edited to clarify I mean apocalyptic worlds.

 

[Li Kao]

This is something I have never understood. Why, with the boundless imaginations creators have, do we always get drab, grey overcast worlds.

give me something that looks like Annihilation (the Netflix film). A bio diverse green alienscape merged with Earth. Give me something like war of the worlds when the Martians start to terraform earth with the red weed.

even something like The Last of Us should be more interesting than it is, nature would be well underway in reclaiming the unpopulated areas.

At first glance I would say that you may be giving creators too much credit (or I'm just cynical). What if most creators' imagination wasn't boundless, what if most creators were just 'okay' makers. I don't see that as an insult, just that your primary example comes from some particularly bonker creator (Vandermeer), not everyone will be a his level.
Then there may be an element of risk aversion, when you create grey urban ruins, I sure hope you realize you are making something mediocre, but maybe you also think that this mediocrity is familiar to the audience, while something more daring could be rejected ?

I'm just spitballing ideas in relation to your point, let it not be said you are wrong or I'm against some fucking creativity.

 

[lashman]

 

[yuraya]

Yea that first Remnant boss was bs. I got him after 3 or 4 tries. You need to run into the corner of the area somewhere and kinda trap his bs spawn points. So that you can get him in a straight line alongside all the other enemies. Its easier to pick everyone off that way and use walls for cover. But yea it was an annoying fight. It felt like fighting a more aggressive pinwheel from Dark Souls in some giant factory maze. Oh and he is also shooting shit at you nonstop.

This is something I have never understood. Why, with the boundless imaginations creators have, do we always get drab, grey overcast apocalyptic worlds.

give me something that looks like Annihilation (the Netflix film). A bio diverse green alienscape merged with Earth. Give me something like war of the worlds when the Martians start to terraform earth with the red weed.

even something like The Last of Us should be more interesting than it is, nature would be well underway in reclaiming the unpopulated areas.

Edited to clarify I mean apocalyptic worlds.

I really hope the modding community blows up for Starfield like it did for Elder Scrolls and Fallout. There are so many fascinating visual and graphics overhaul mods for Skyrim. Imagine if we get similar stuff for all the procedural generated planets in Starfield. We can get a bunch of dense forest planets like Endor or something from the movie Predators. It will probably take some time and we may need to wait for the next generation of GPU/CPUs but it would be amazing if that is the case. Also hopefully Bethesda themselves were able to handcraft a few interesting planets that you have to explore for the main quest. Something that really stands out or it could even be in future DLC if they didn't have time to do it for the base game.

 

[Kyougar]

If you have a PS5 you have to make use of it. There aren't that many big exclusives for it. Most of the games are cross gen and other titles are getting PC ports now.

The two must haves are Demon Souls and now FF16 imo. That is what I would get.

that's sunk cost fallacy
don't throw good money after bad money.

 

[Mivey]

The most obvious reason form me to buy consoles (and therefore console games) was to get my hand at exclusives, and that's really no longer a strong reason with either Xbox and Playstation stuff anymore. Only Nintendo, and yeah, I don't think I will see them changing course in my lifetime.

 

[Lashley]

Only reason I get consoles is for coop with friends.

Switch is incredible for that, truly.

PlayStation is needed because sadly a lot of games still do not support crossplay.

My friends would love PC's but it's just too expensive.

 

[curi0usBystander]