Burrito of Peace wrote on Sep 22, 2023, 12:07:
Look, I just want a game where I can drive a .308 in to some asshole and watch him drop like a stone. No slots, no super secret squirrel stones of power, and no traits horseshit. Just straight, accurate ballistics and damage. "A zone" hit at 100 yards? Someone is having a very bad day unless they are rocking Level III or III+ armor*. "T zone" hit? Game over.

*Even with either, you're still going to be having a bad day. Just not a very bad day. You'll probably get away with deep tissue bruising or broken ribs.

Rainbow Six through #3 and the first Ghost Recon (plus xpacs) were very much my thing for this reason. They didn't have the best ballistic modeling due to when they came out, but to date they're still my favorite style of modern shooter. Unfortunately this style of game very much died when consoles got involved (there are plenty of multiplayer-centric ones now, but nothing single).

Sheik Rattle Enroll wrote on Sep 20, 2023, 22:01:
25% of all players haven't even left the tutorial world yet.

FWIW this is likely due to bugged achievements as I finished a playthrough on steam, but apparently never left the starting planet.

I really enjoyed my first playthrough, but I'm not sure when I'll get back to the game. It felt like pretty much everything in Starfield was either done well or poorly without much inbetween.

The combat felt like it didn't scale really well, but otherwise it was actually really good (both space and on foot). There were several side quests that are really fantastic. I like what they were doing with the main quest the most, but I don't think they quite stuck the landing.

I really wish they'd figured out how to do planetary transitions like NMS and also allowed flight on planet. Gear disappearing from certain ship storage (100% reproducible thus never should have been an issue) and the apartment randomly wiping are pretty huge bugs. Though maybe they were trying to force people into using the outpost system (which doesn't have snapping) in a twisted fashion.

It'll be interesting to see what sort of changes they make along the way as they get to expansion time.

IgWannA wrote on Aug 26, 2023, 07:05:
Because in the stage presentation he expressly said it would work across all DX11 and 12 games at a driver level. No dev implementation required. Per Euro gamer article: "AMD Fluid Motion Frames (AFMF), which is a driver-level frame generation option for all DirectX 11 and DirectX 12 titles". He also said it would work with "thousands of games". Also, I'm reading conflicting articles where some say it will be available on 5000 series radeon and above, and also RTX 2000 and above, so not limited to 7000 series radeon.

There are two different things they're talking about. AFMF is the driver level implementation for AMD cards in the HYPR-RX driver package.

FSR 3 is the superior implementation and it has to be done at the per game level. This is the one which will work on any vendor card.

MrDevinoch wrote on Aug 21, 2023, 20:22:

WannaLogAlready wrote on Aug 21, 2023, 07:20:
Of all the dev's talking about BG3, Josh Sawyer comes sort of dickish putting down BG3 about interface, etc.
May be right but the game came out in a good state not 3 weeks ago, and is being patched and fixed famously even as the date of launching on consoles approaches.

What about Sawyer's own Pentiment, PoE (the unnecessarily looong texts on everyone to get valuable info -or get none at all- !), Alpha Protocol interfaces, all fixed yet ?.

Just because Sawyer's guilty of the same mistakes doesn't mean he's not right here. Don't get me wrong - I am *loving* my time in BG3, with some 30 hours put in thusfar, but Sawyer is spot on about the UI being an overload of buttons with zero tutorial. The game offers you an insane amount of options right from the very start and doesn't explain basically *any* of them. The game has zero tutorial and almost seems like it's actively discouraging you from learning how to do things in some points. This is pretty obvious because there's been literally *dozens* of articles/YT videos about "Things I wish I'd Known When I Started BG3" and "Things BG3 Never Tells You About." I was several hours in before I realized I could jump to places I couldn't path to.

First of all I largely agree with you on this one. One thing I noticed while playing is that they do have popups and explanations for a lot of stuff, but most of the ones I've seen disappear from the screen really fast. It makes me wonder if this behavior is intentional, and of course there are also loading screen tips that should really just be in a popup or something in game. Some of the stuff they don't explain was from DOS/2 which they didn't explain there either so I'm a little surprised they didn't make changes.

FWIW The "things I wish I knew" are endemic for every popular game. Their usefulness usually depends on how many mechanics exist in the game and this one has a lot.

Orogogus wrote on Aug 25, 2023, 18:32:

• Remote Play, streaming from my desktop PC to the downstairs TV or Steam Deck.
• Big Picture mode.
• I used Remote Play Together in the past to play some same-screen co-op games like Overcooked, but since I switched from cable to wireless Internet it hasn't worked so well.
• Family share to let my brother and father play (most of) the games in my library.
• Global controller remapping, including for VR.
• I didn't think I'd use Steam Notes, but it actually came in handy in the System Shock remake since you can't write on the map.
• Not something I use, but Valve sells physical gift cards, allowing for cash-only purchases.

Thanks! I knew of some of these, but didn't really consider those I did as selling points.

Sepharo wrote on Aug 25, 2023, 17:13:

thestryker wrote on Aug 25, 2023, 16:57:

Verno wrote on Aug 25, 2023, 16:33:
I thought you were actually asking in good faith but pretty clear that’s not the case.

You gave nothing but bad faith reasoning so you shouldn't be surprised by my response.

I assumed that he detected that you were one of these people who will pretend to be oblivious to Steam's myriad features.
Or if you're willing to acknowledge their existence, will just claim they're useless.

If you only see these as game launchers or as an obstacle between you and the game... then you won't possibly be able to understand why someone would prefer the feature-rich Steam over another launcher.

What features are these which positively impact the playing of a game? Everyone always says "features" but never actually says what they are. I use steam's chat features predominantly and they're great, but I use them whether I'm playing a game through steam or not. Workshop makes mods easy which is a good convenience aspect, but it existing doesn't prevent me from using the same mods on a non steam copy. I'm sure there are a bunch I don't use which is why I've asked what they are and nobody ever seems to have an answer.

Slashman wrote on Aug 25, 2023, 17:34:

Sepharo wrote on Aug 25, 2023, 17:13:

thestryker wrote on Aug 25, 2023, 16:57:

Verno wrote on Aug 25, 2023, 16:33:
I thought you were actually asking in good faith but pretty clear that’s not the case.

You gave nothing but bad faith reasoning so you shouldn't be surprised by my response.

I assumed that he detected that you were one of these people who will pretend to be oblivious to Steam's myriad features.
Or if you're willing to acknowledge their existence, will just claim they're useless.

If you only see these as game launchers or as an obstacle between you and the game... then you won't possibly be able to understand why someone would prefer the feature-rich Steam over another launcher.

That's basically what it comes down to. You don't care...other people do. A LOT of other people from the looks of things...and that's what matters.

Did the lot of you also NOT buy Diablo 4 because of the horrible reputation Blizzard has over the things it has done to employees for years. How many of you did not buy an EA game because of the wrongful things it has done to its employees. How about Ubisoft? No?

For some strange reason...Steam is the whipping post of the day because they are bigger than Epic and deserve to be taken down because how dare they stop making games you want and run a successful online store? The horror!!!

I'm not sure who you're responding to here, but personally I don't buy actibliz or ubi games anymore because of exactly that. Do I like their games? Sure some of them, but I'd rather not support companies that don't appear to have any interest in changing. EA is a bit of a different animal as their wrongdoings (at least that I'm aware of) are more along the lines of standard US corporate terrible. They're not a good company by any stretch, but they also aren't any different than any other big publisher in the ways they're bad. I don't get many of their games, but that's because I'm not interested in most of them.

I don't think there's anything wrong with Valve they're just not better than anyone else in the space either.

Verno wrote on Aug 25, 2023, 16:33:
I thought you were actually asking in good faith but pretty clear that’s not the case.

You gave nothing but bad faith reasoning so you shouldn't be surprised by my response.

Verno wrote on Aug 25, 2023, 14:16:

thestryker wrote on Aug 24, 2023, 18:14:

Verno wrote on Aug 24, 2023, 14:13:
Anyways to address your other point, it's not the job of consumers to directly reward creators, this isn't Patreon. I'm not directly paying someones salary, I don't have that agency in decisions when I decide to purchase a game. It's a product that I buy, that's the beginning and end of that relationship.

Out of curiosity why don't you care about the creators getting maximum revenue from the sales of their product? I started buying games published by indie developers on EGS (I totally get not caring about giving big publishers extra money, devs will never see a dime) simply so they get more of what I spend because it costs me nothing. I'm not demanding anyone do the same as it's a personal choice, but I'm curious what reason someone wouldn't.

I'm an end consumer purchasing a product, I'm not an investor and this isn't children in sweatshops assembling phones or something. If I wanted to determine who gets paid what then I would purchase shares in the company. Let me ask you a question - do you take that even further and make sure that the revenue split actually goes to the people who make the product instead of dividends to executives, publishers or a shareholder who controls the whole company? I bet you don't. I wouldn't expect you to either, it's not reasonable to ask or expect consumers to weigh these things when they're just buying a simple product. I buy a game wherever I want based on a variety of factors - price, features, availability, marketing and so on. I don't sit there going "well golly if I bought Civ VI on Fanatical, the dev gets 17% instead of 15% on Steam". I don't have that information at hand readily and there are way too many platforms and storefronts for something that is not a purchasing factor for most consumers. Revenue splits are a business concern between respective parties.

You could have just said apathy instead of this entire paragraph. You obviously know they get more money from EGS and once you know that you've simply chosen to not add it to the metrics you use to make purchasing choices. I was mostly curious if there was an actual reason, but it doesn't seem like there is.

Verno wrote on Aug 25, 2023, 14:16:
I only purchase games on the Epic Games Store when they beat the price on Steam because in most other respects it lacks feature parity. As a result, I don't buy many games on there because more often than not, they aren't cheaper.

What features are these that impact your playing of any game?

AMD is back with the confusing pricing: 7800 XT is $500 with the 7700 XT at $450. With that small of a gap even if it does make sense from a performance standpoint the higher end one has 16GB VRAM rather than 12GB which makes it the only logical choice given the ~11% price increase for ~33% more VRAM.

Edit: I don't get frame generation at all either it's obvious in fast paced games and not necessary outside of them. Sadly DLSS, FSR and XeSS are likely to become more and more important if the initial UE5 games are any indication.

Kxmode wrote on Aug 24, 2023, 18:33:

thestryker wrote on Aug 24, 2023, 18:08:

Kxmode wrote on Aug 24, 2023, 16:27:

Slick wrote on Aug 24, 2023, 12:18:

Kxmode wrote on Aug 24, 2023, 12:02:

You have golf equipment and your house has at least 3 closets.

Closet 1 stores the bag and clubs
Closet 2 stores the golf balls, tees, divot repair tool, and ball markers
Closet 3 stores the specialist golfing rain gear, scorecards, and rangefinder

To golf, you can grab this stuff from three separate closets... or you can consolidate them into one for ease.

Which do you prefer?

Do you belittle those who want to store all their golfing gear conveniently in one place?

That's an analogy full of fallacy if I've ever seen one. I click an icon and my game loads it doesn't matter what storefront it came from. I dunno how you do it, but if your closet comparison is any indication do you only have one storefront per computer?

It's not a fallacy. It's a metaphor for how humans are naturally inclined towards physical and virtual conveniences and, by extension, tend to organize and consolidate things for that purpose. It's tough to break people free from that innate behavior.

There's no real convenience advantage for steam here though which is my point. Steam isn't winning because they're more convenient or better, but rather they were first. In fact if I had to guess I'd bet most sales happen simply because steam is the only thing a lot of people have used and they may not even know any alternatives exist.

Kxmode wrote on Aug 24, 2023, 18:33:
So if EGS isn't offering something better than what Valve has, it's an uphill battle for them regardless of all the freebies, 12% commission removal, etc. That's on the customer side of the equation. The Steam vs. EGS total customer numbers directly affect where a publisher sells their product (regardless of whether they want to). The publisher sees that EGS has 62M MAU* vs. Steam's 120M (current figures). Selling their product in a location with lower customer engagement and excessive dependence on "gifted" funds would be unwise. This doesn't contribute to their long-term success, and the exclusive arrangement with EGS could ultimately harm their reputation and bottom line.

*Nonetheless, that's quite an impressive figure considering EGS's relatively young age.

Exclusivity is how they got there, and it's sad that this is the only realistic way to do it.

A lot of people forget that when Valve launched steam with HL2 they also decided to start locking Counter-Strike (and anything else MP being updated) behind steam. This was an absolutely horrible choice which damaged a lot of good will, but people didn't have any other option if they wanted to keep playing. Perhaps that's why I don't care at all about exclusive deals or barebones stores. The beginning and ending of my caring as far as that's concerned is "does it just work?".

Verno wrote on Aug 24, 2023, 14:13:
Anyways to address your other point, it's not the job of consumers to directly reward creators, this isn't Patreon. I'm not directly paying someones salary, I don't have that agency in decisions when I decide to purchase a game. It's a product that I buy, that's the beginning and end of that relationship.

Out of curiosity why don't you care about the creators getting maximum revenue from the sales of their product? I started buying games published by indie developers on EGS (I totally get not caring about giving big publishers extra money, devs will never see a dime) simply so they get more of what I spend because it costs me nothing. I'm not demanding anyone do the same as it's a personal choice, but I'm curious what reason someone wouldn't.

Kxmode wrote on Aug 24, 2023, 16:27:

Slick wrote on Aug 24, 2023, 12:18:

Kxmode wrote on Aug 24, 2023, 12:02:
"Location, location, location!" Publishers are well aware of the optimal digital space to market and sell their games.

I get your point, but the location is my PC. If people are too lazy to double-click a different icon on their desktop, that's not a valid excuse.

The Playstation Store is a "location"

The Apple Store is a "location"

My PC is the only "location" I need. This platform rules specifically because it's not dominated by any storefront. Someone should remind gamers of that.

You have golf equipment and your house has at least 3 closets.

Closet 1 stores the bag and clubs
Closet 2 stores the golf balls, tees, divot repair tool, and ball markers
Closet 3 stores the specialist golfing rain gear, scorecards, and rangefinder

To golf, you can grab this stuff from three separate closets... or you can consolidate them into one for ease.

Which do you prefer?

Do you belittle those who want to store all their golfing gear conveniently in one place?

That's an analogy full of fallacy if I've ever seen one. I click an icon and my game loads it doesn't matter what storefront it came from. I dunno how you do it, but if your closet comparison is any indication do you only have one storefront per computer?

Pr()ZaC wrote on Aug 22, 2023, 20:00:

thestryker wrote on Aug 22, 2023, 19:06:

Pr()ZaC wrote on Aug 22, 2023, 15:09:
I'm still on the 30X0 wagon so SCREW YOU GUYS!

If you're referring to the DLSS 3.5 part it's compatible with all RTX GPUs nvidia has just royally screwed up at marketing as Frame Generation (which is all they should have called DLSS 3.0) is still RTX 40 series+ only.

I want to believe.

https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/news/nvidia-dlss-3-5-ray-reconstruction/

GeForce RTX 40 Series users can combine Super Resolution and Frame Generation with Ray Reconstruction for breathtaking performance and image quality, while GeForce RTX 20 and 30 Series users can add Ray Reconstruction to their AI-powered arsenal alongside Super Resolution and DLAA.

Ray Reconstruction is a new option for developers to improve image quality for their ray-traced titles and is offered as part of DLSS 3.5. Rasterized games featuring DLSS 3.5 also include our latest updates to Super Resolution and DLAA, but will not benefit from Ray Reconstruction due to the lack of ray-traced effects.

Pr()ZaC wrote on Aug 22, 2023, 15:09:
I'm still on the 30X0 wagon so SCREW YOU GUYS!

If you're referring to the DLSS 3.5 part it's compatible with all RTX GPUs nvidia has just royally screwed up at marketing as Frame Generation (which is all they should have called DLSS 3.0) is still RTX 40 series+ only.

I've always heard these stories, but never have had it happen to me (of course I also shut down my PC and it seems like a lot of people don't). I thought all of the update issues were relegated to Win 10 Home edition where you had to jump through hoops to manage it. Assuming you're running Pro it should be easy to control update behavior through the Windows update settings. Worst case scenario it should give you a popup warning a reboot is imminent.

This comment was edited on Aug 18, 2023, 19:17.

Welcome to the world of displayport on windows which has always been a mess and seemingly not a priority for Microsoft.

Jivaro wrote on Aug 12, 2023, 23:39:
The nagging problem wth my system is that it badly needs a processor/mb upgrade. Probably either during the Black Friday sales or after Christmas I will dive in.

I have a question for the studio audience: I have a Nvidia 2060 Super currently, the MSI one. (I tend to go with MSI or Asus) Should I get a second one and go dual cards, sell it and get a 40X0, or wait until whatever comes after 40X0 and get that? Thoughts?

I'm pretty sure that the 2060S doesn't support SLI, but it's something you shouldn't really consider anyways. Support for it has been dumped across the board so getting it to work is few and far between.

If you are thinking of getting a new card I think it mostly comes down to how long you're hoping to hold onto it, how much you want to spend, and what resolution you'll be running.

Sadly unimpressed with what I saw from the trailer and 30 minute gameplay walkthrough. I really wanted to like PoE, but the two times I really gave it a go (once on beta/alpha and once years later) I just didn't enjoy myself at all. The animations and art design were junk and I didn't enjoy the gameplay mechanics they employed. It seemed like as the game went along they found an audience and it just isn't for anyone else.

What they've talked about for 2 so far appears to be putting bandaids on some of the more restrictive gameplay mechanics rather than just changing them. Was really hoping with a divergence from 1 there would be more significant changes. Diablo 2 and Grim Dawn are the only two ARPGs I can think of that I kept going back to and that doesn't seem to be likely to change here.

Jonjonz wrote on Jul 29, 2023, 06:36:
Maybe action hack and slashers like it, but I can't stand games that use this mostly gray palettes with a spash of color to highlight only a few things look.

Unsold here.

Honestly I never liked the art in the first game, and like this one just as little. I don't know if it's the semi realistic style they go for or what but it just doesn't work for me.

Nucas wrote on Jul 25, 2023, 18:53:
i'm mech-curious but this being a fromsoft game means, i assume, it will be locked at 60fps and won't support ultrawide resolutions.

PCGamer said 30/60/90/120 for frame rate modes, didn't see any word on ultrawide though. It sounded like basic options still so I certainly wouldn't bet on it and the cynic in me assumes we're only getting 120 because consoles are (I don't know if they are or not).

RedEye9 wrote on Jul 20, 2023, 14:07:

PropheT wrote on Jul 20, 2023, 14:04:

RedEye9 wrote on Jul 20, 2023, 13:46:

Jim wrote on Jul 20, 2023, 13:43:

Rhett wrote on Jul 20, 2023, 13:36:
Nice! Got the ultimate edition for essentially base game MSRP (GMG), and I never get ultimate editions... Looks very promising.

what region? I (US) show the same prices as steam

CheapShark is showing Cheapest Ever: $69.99 on June 8, 2023 for Ultimate from GMG
https://www.cheapshark.com/search#q:Remnant%202

It's $57.39 right now on greenmangaming for the Ultimate version.

Hrmmm, showing $69.99 when I followed your link. weird

Some of their pricing is gold xp exclusive, but others just require being logged in. I also got 20% off which was the gold xp discount, but it was 18% off for everyone at the time (don't know if it's still the case or not).