Cbirdsong

Members
  • Content count

    289
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Posts posted by Cbirdsong


  1. Also far from an expert, but I think those pro cards are implemented differently, and prioritize accuracy over speed. For gaming you can safely cut corners on certain calculations, but if you're doing more serious computing or rendering you need it to go all the way. I obviously don't actually know in detail what those are and could be totally wrong, but this is the impression I've gotten from hearing about extremely expensive "pro" video cards over the years.


  2. This episode got me to return to the game after falling off halfway through and check out the Donkey Kong DLC. It's a very good distillation of the base game, but all the problems I had with the base game remain present to some degree

     

    I really like that you can just respec your skill points as much as you want and experiment with builds, but it really doesn't feel like the UI and skills themselves were designed around that. It would be better if there were less granular skills that you can more easily rearrange, as configuring your team around the level is clutch for the really difficult post-game challenges. (Those also really make me wish for a rewind mechanic like Invisible Inc.)

     

    I still feel like the world map traversal and puzzles are largely a drag on the game, even though they removed the base game's truly terrible timed challenges. I imagine they felt like they needed to break up the crunchy tactical levels somehow, but the puzzles are at best annoying to complete, and I can't ignore them because sometimes (rarely) you get skill points instead of a meaningless collectible. I hope they come up with something different if they make a proper sequel. Maybe a light city builder kind of thing?

     


  3. All of the Jackbox games are on Switch, and I know at least some of them have a "no PG-13 prompts" checkbox. Definitely put them on the list if you will have internet access and everyone will have phones/tablets/whatever to play with.

     

    I'm not sure Snipperclips would be the best option, because it's more of a fiddly slow-paced thing?


  4. I wouldn't mind if they ditch the episodic payment model, but I really enjoy the episodic release model. Doling the maps out over a number of months really encourages you to fully explore each one in a way you might not if you just have all of them available to play right away.


  5. Battlestar Galactica Deadlock sounds like a cool Flotilla-ish thing, but what I imagined when Nick said "exactly what you'd expect a Battlestar Galactica game to be" was some kind of Crusader Kings-ish civilization management thing where you have to deal with the realities of managing a society of space refugees, and the killer robot spaceships are just one problem of many.


  6. It mostly works for keeping me churning through different options, but by the midgame I definitely found myself hoarding certain weapons, like powerful elemental swords. I think those kind of specialized effects would've been better served as some kind of expendable item you could apply to a weapon instead of taking up inventory slots.


  7. Is this show just straight up bad now? :frown:

     

    Spoiler

    It feels like everything is just on fast forward based on how the writers would like the plot to go, with no concern about internal consistency or logical character action. There are massive logic gaps present in basic plot mechanics. They have utterly dispensed with geography/travel time/timelines being a realistic concern in any way. Characters are making terribly stupid decisions and other characters/the show are just going along like they are fine ideas, and none of the character beats/interactions have enough time to breathe and develop like they might have in the previous slow-paced seasons. 

     


  8. On 4/2/2017 at 4:11 PM, miffy495 said:

    33.66%? What the hell? I got EVERY shrine, took photos of almost everything I could, had all 4 beasts, and beat Ganon. What is this percentage counter nonsense?

     

    The percentage thing is a bit of a joke:

     

    Quote

    Dungeon Clear (Boss Defeated) = .08% x 4 = .32%
    Shrine Discovery = .08% x 120 = 9.60%
    Location Discovery = .08% x 226(?) = 18.08%
    Korok Seeds = .08% x 900 = 72%

     

    http://gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/303124/do-shrine-treasures-count-toward-the-completion-percentage-on-the-sheikah-slate


  9. On 3/17/2017 at 3:10 PM, Chris said:

    I don't actually care how the buttons are labeled. That's irrelevant in the face of how they're actually mapped in a game. My difficulties in Zelda are with the specific mapping choices (for instance, run and jump positioned oppositely rather than adjacent), which would persist no matter what labels are put on any of those buttons.

     

    I think the reason BOTW isn't optimized to let you run then jump is that the stamina loss from even a tiny bit of running is actively detrimental for gliding long distances, and running into a jump does not actually give you much forward momentum compared to just walking. It just feels really good to run into a glide.

     

    23 hours ago, SecretAsianMan said:

    Button placement is one of the many outstanding issues I have with most controller designs.  I've long been irritated that for almost all controller actions are located on the front of the controller where sticks/d-pads are.  The introduction of triggers and shoulder buttons helped some but that still leaves four (or three depending on how you hold it) fingers that could be doing something, ANYTHING else.  Stuff like the Steam controller or the Xbox One Elite controller are better still in that they have paddles on the back that can also activate face buttons, but I want a controller with all buttons on the back.  Things like how I position my hand on the controller shouldn't have such a large impact on how I actually play the game.

     

    Paddles make a ton of sense conceptually, but I imagine they're less intuitive for novice gamepad users, and getting used to paddles really does take some brain rewiring after 20 years of SNES-derived controller designs.


  10. 4 hours ago, Nick Breckon said:

     

    I did. I have. I am. Sorry! The next episode of Thumbs has some explanation. But yeah, the vial farming was burning me out a little bit. I may stream another game for a week and come back to Bloodborne when I'm feeling more fresh. Or I may just play Bloodborne more sporadically than I played Dark Souls, to kind of spread out the farming, haha. Not sure. I'll definitely beat it, but yeah, I wish it had Dark Souls' health system. :/ 

     

    You have to pick up drops from enemies, and seek out pickups in the environemnt. You rarely cared about that on your Dark Souls streams, but these are how Bloodborne makes blood vials acceptable. (Not good, just acceptable.)


  11. 4 hours ago, Badfinger said:

    I am the confirmation of Nick Breckon's hypothesis about Dark Souls. I was offered a choice of a few things as a birthday gift, and chose Dark Souls as that gift after deciding to give it a try when the entire gaming world wouldn't shut up about it 4 or 5 years ago. I made it past the gargoyles (?) and quit forever. I am literally repulsed by those games. I'm physically capable. I could beat them. But I won't because I find the entire dark souls industrial complex repellent.

     

    I think the spirit of the reader's question is "can anyone who wants to beat a Dark Souls do so?", because otherwise it's just a stupid thought exercise that ends with silly hypothetical scenarios, like the one explored on the cast. If anything, you're proof of the opposite. You could do it, but you don't want to, and that's fine.

     

    Here's a nice writeup about the LP Chris mentioned: http://kotaku.com/how-a-total-novice-built-a-solid-youtube-following-beat-1769744851