I’ll give my example and I think I’m going to get a lot of hate for it. I DESPISE Dark Souls 3. It is such a mediocre game when it comes to the actual gameplay. There is like zero build diversity, the combat isn’t indepth and, while the other souls games have at least decent RPG mechanics and exploration can make things easier, DS3 just demands you rolly polly your way to victory. There is no weight to like anything, you feel so floaty and light, and you fold like a peice of paper when you get hit. And so many attacks don’t care about your positioning, and instead only if you mashed the dodge button at the correct time, something Elden Ring kind of does too, but it adds a jump button to retain some offense and I find that I’m able to out position bosses and enemies more often in it without actually dodging.

Dark Souls 3 is such a mindnumbingly boring game for me, I feel zero excitement playing it.

Love DS1, DS2, Bloodborne and Elden Ring though, great games all around.

And the music for DS3 is amazing and I do love the Pontiff Sullivan fight.

  • knokelmaat@beehaw.org
    4·
    19 hours ago

    Did you ever give Slay the Spire a go? I was also quite sceptical about roguelikes, but now it is by far my most played game ever at a whopping 600 hours.

    The beauty of it is that it is quite easy to understand, but with an incredible amount of depth to it. You’ll start out having trouble winning your first ever run, but that’s when the fun begins. There are 4 characters, each with their play style and cards, and there are 20 ascensions to unlock, each being a more difficult version of a standard run. In the end, you’ll gain such a deep understanding of the balancing and tradeoffs at play that you can’t not be amazed at this achievement in game design. Baalorlord is a great YouTuber and Twitch streamer who is also one of the best players in the world. He was able to do a consecutive winstreak of 20 wins on the highest ascension, showing that this game is RNG based but has a tremendous amount of skill involved too.

    • OmegaMouse@pawb.social
      1·
      8 hours ago

      Is there a certain tactic to winning Slay the Spire? I’ve played a decent number of hours across multiple characters but I’ve never managed to beat the final boss on the standard difficulty. I remember reading once that binning your default cards is key?

      • knokelmaat@beehaw.org
        2·
        2 hours ago

        Most certainly! I’ve been playing this game for ages so I 'm unsure what advice is beginner friendly and what not, but let’s see…

        1. Indeed, use any opportunity to throw away one of your starting Strikes (and to a lesser extent, the Defends). Strikes are by far the worst non-curse cards, dealing only 6 damage for 1 cost and taking up a slot in your five card draw each turn. You’ll obtain way better cards and want to increase the chance of drawing those, which is why you really want to remove bad cards as frequently as possible. (At shops and events).
        2. Do not avoid elites! These are the special looking enemies on the map and they are the only fights who drop Relics. Having good Relics and building your deck around them is essential to winning this game!
        3. Don’t pick a card at the end of every fight, only pick the cards that you really want. A small but predictable deck is way better than a massive deck full of OK cards. Seriously, this is one of the most important things I learned, the skip button is there to be used.
        4. Pick cards and relics that increase card draw. A big issue in Slay the Spire is drawing a bad hand and not having the necessary cards for that turn in hand. Lots of cards, relics and potions will allow you to draw extra cards during your turn, which can often make the difference between life and death in this game. Especially towards the end when you have more energy, it becomes extremely important to be able to spend it on good cards, and increasing the cards you draw per turn gives you more options to play good cards.
        5. Finally, keep trying. Different enemy types attack in their own pattern every time. Even when you lose, you start to learn their mechanics and how to best counteract those. There are three elite types per act, and three end boss types per act. For the end bosses, you can actually see on the map which one you will have at the end of the current act! So in total, there are “only” 9 different bosses* and 9 different elites. Once you get to know them, you’ll realize their strengths and weaknesses!

        There is a tenth secret boss at the true ending, but let’s not dwell on that for now :). Suffice it to say that the pro players have win streaks of 20+ on the highest ascension difficulty (ascension 20) while always taking on this extra final boss. So this game is insanely tactical and almost any run can be salvaged to win even on the highest difficulty!

        Enjoy your journey :). Oh, and start with Ironclad, he’s the most straightforward character!

    • Megaman_EXE@beehaw.org
      2·
      19 hours ago

      I’ve heard of it and seen that people enjoy it, but outside of that, I don’t really know much about the game. I’ll have to maybe give it a try one day. I do really appreciate when games have a carefully crafted gameplay systems

      • knokelmaat@beehaw.org
        1·
        2 hours ago

        This is an ideal scenario for piracy I feel. I pirated it at first, unsure if it would be for me. Now I own it on both Switch and Steam :).