What are you playing?

[Raging Justice]

Sigh

Only five hours into Chained Echoes and it's already throwing cheap and overpowered enemies at me. I feel like I need to start grinding to account for how unbalanced the game is. If this keeps up, I may lose my motivation to keep playing

God, why is so hard for people to make games with balanced difficulty these days? Everything is always too easy or too hard. The true art of game design is finding something neatly in the middle and it seems few people are capable of that.

Sigh, I need to get back to movie watching.

[Raging Justice]

The overdrive system is cheap, bullshit, because the enemy can raise the meter as well as your party. This puts you in situations where you are close to overheating (or already overheating), and you have no way to reduce the meter because the game has randomly decided that none of your abilities will lower it, so all you can do is defend, which only reduces your meter an incremental amount, then the enemy gets three turns where they increase your meter back into overheating again. This just turns into a perpetual cycle that you CAN'T do anything about.

[marurun]

God, why is so hard for people to make games with balanced difficulty these days?

Because it's a hard thing to do. Game developers are constantly playing and interacting with their games, so they know their own systems in and out. They should, they designed them. It means that their internal calculus for how hard something is is usually pretty far off. They might think they're shooting for reasonable difficulty when that's actually too hard, because they lack enough external perspective. Or they might attempt to counter that bias by making things easier, but they are probably just guessing, so the results can be very hit or miss. For large companies with huge teams testers can help a lot with this. For much smaller teams they rely on a few friends, maybe, or just some kind of internal compass, which, again, is often misaligned due to proximity to the game.

tl;dr getting challenge right is a REALLY hard task.

[Note]

I'm in the middle of a few games right now. Earlier in the summer I started Demons of Asteborg on the Genesis, got through about 80% of the game, but had to pack up my things for a bit. Now that my gaming area is setup again, I can get back to it and hopefully can finish it in the next week.

I'm also in the middle of Ys Book II on the TGCD. I just completed the Mine area and think I need to grind for a bit before tackling the next dungeon. This game might take me a bit more time to complete, but hoping to finish it in the next few weeks. This game's great!

Also, my partner and I have started up a campaign in Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance II on the PS2. We've only played for about two hours, but have enjoyed it so far. I chose the cleric character and she went with the necromancer.

[Raging Justice]

God, why is so hard for people to make games with balanced difficulty these days?

Because it's a hard thing to do. Game developers are constantly playing and interacting with their games, so they know their own systems in and out. They should, they designed them. It means that their internal calculus for how hard something is is usually pretty far off. They might think they're shooting for reasonable difficulty when that's actually too hard, because they lack enough external perspective. Or they might attempt to counter that bias by making things easier, but they are probably just guessing, so the results can be very hit or miss. For large companies with huge teams testers can help a lot with this. For much smaller teams they rely on a few friends, maybe, or just some kind of internal compass, which, again, is often misaligned due to proximity to the game.

tl;dr getting challenge right is a REALLY hard task.

Yeah, you're not wrong. I just got annoyed with Chained Echoes being one of those rpgs that sends you into areas with enemies you're not supposed to be strong enough to fight until later. Didn't expect that so early in the game.

[Melek-Ric]

Party Animals. It's a lot of silly fun. Website

[marurun]

I am STILL playing Tears of the Kingdom. I'm currently still grinding away at upgrading all the armor and I intend to get all the Bubbul gems. I will not be completing the compendium or tracking down all the koroks. But I'm also missing a small number of shrines, I think... I've matched shrines below with shrines on the ground and I don't think I'm down any, but maybe my counts are off. I'm just not sure. I mean, I definitely have enough health and stamina, so that's not a problem. Either way, I'll sort that out once I've dealt with the gems and armor and then I'll finally beat the game. I'm hoping to wrap up before the end of the year so I can FINALLY get on with playing something else.

[prfsnl_gmr]

I am STILL playing Tears of the Kingdom. I'm currently still grinding away at upgrading all the armor and I intend to get all the Bubbul gems. I will not be completing the compendium or tracking down all the koroks. But I'm also missing a small number of shrines, I think... I've matched shrines below with shrines on the ground and I don't think I'm down any, but maybe my counts are off. I'm just not sure. I mean, I definitely have enough health and stamina, so that's not a problem. Either way, I'll sort that out once I've dealt with the gems and armor and then I'll finally beat the game. I'm hoping to wrap up before the end of the year so I can FINALLY get on with playing something else.

Me too! I have four shrines to go, I think. I know where two of them are, and I suspect at least one is in the big thundercloud I’ve been saving for the end of the game. I also plan on tracking down all the bubbulfrogs and obtaining all the armor. I’ll likely also finish all the quests, which will involve filling out the compendium - complete! - and finding all the wells- not complete! I’m also not going to attempt finding all the korok seeds or earning all the monster medals, though, because that would be nuts. (I received the gleeok and molduga monster medals yesterday, though.)

[Raging Justice]

Still playing Chained Echoes after my little rant. I do this with a lot of games

Also checked out Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster. Can I just say how cool it is to have EVERY Final Fantasy game available on PS4 with full trophy support? I haven't even played the earlier ones before, I jumped on with FF 6 a.k.a. 3 on the SNES

[Note]

I started playing Lufia & the Fortress of Doom the other night on the SNES. I've heard mixed things about the game, but I'm really enjoying it so far!

I've played about seven hours and just completed the cave containing the Dais Key.