Chris

Idle Thumbs 259: Breckon's Similar Sausage Face

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Idle Thumbs 259:

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Breckon's Similar Sausage Face

You roll the sausage along the ground. In the far distance, lumbering beasts wage ancient battles, and a naked multicultural society roams the prehistoric plains. You roll the sausage on to a grill, and it acquires a satisfying char. Beyond the horizon, teams of highly-armed warriors fight lightning-quick pitched battles and acquire ever more advantanced technology. You drop the sausage into the ocean. Crap. Isn't something supposed to, like, happen?

Games Discussed: Dark Souls III, Doom (2016), Overwatch, Team Fortress 2, Stephen's Sausage Roll, Rust, Resident Evil, The Legend of Zelda

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You have to get past the first section in order to understand Stephen's Sausage Roll. After that it's starts dropping its mind-blowing moments.

When you clear the first section, the blue box dissolves to reveal that there's a sausage on the overworld. You then start using sausages as bridges in the overworld turning navigating to the next puzzle a puzzle in itself. The second section introduces a new mechanic that completely changes the types of puzzles that are possible. It just keeps going from there, and it does actually scaffold you pretty well into the new challenges.

That's what people are really excited about.

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This is the Oscars season of Idle Thumbs episode titles. Really gotta get in some classic ones before the Wizard Jam.

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Watching streams where someone is playing differently than you can be extremely frustrating. I remember several Xcom 2 gameplay videos that I couldn't watch because of how the person interacted with the UI.

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The MMO Black Desert online does exactly what you wanted regarding gender and classes at the end of the pod. You can only be a hunter if you're a female elf, paladin has to be a male human, etc etc. Pretty cool.

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The new Unreal Tournament game will hopefully be what you guys want in terms of just bring a bare bones fast paced arena shooter. The Alpha lacks exp bars, classes etc. It does have some cosmetic unlocks but considering that user made skins were part of earlier games it doesn't feel out of place.

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I wish I could find the image re: Zelda's top down physics. But there is a hand drawn image of what link would look like slashing down a hill and his arm is impossibly long and the enemies are terrified of his inhuman ability to become death from above.

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You could maybe take luck man slightly further into the game, but it's almost like doing a no levelling challenge run which gets very difficult (everything will kill you in one hit eventually). You're not too far from being able to respec actually, but there's a fair amount of challenging stuff in between. Also, people said you should explore more because there was quite a lot to the first two areas that you never found, including two Estus flask upgrades (that give you one additional use of it each). Most of them are not hidden, and you don't need to find them all, but having say 10 flasks instead of 5 makes a huge difference, so it really pays off to look for them.

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Chris: I've generally found getting summoned into someone's world for Souls game co-oping is a really low-committment experience. Usually, you will help someone clear a boss/die trying and be done fairly quickly, and summoned help failing doesn't really affect the host. You guys should drop a summon sign during the next stream, because no matter what happens it will be entertaining.

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While listening to the podcast I was intrigued by the idea of using "similar face" to create a hideous visage. I was sad to find this forum thread didn't contain an image, or link to an image, of said character. I'll have to go look through the stream on youtube for my SimilarFace fix.

 

I must know.

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Mass Effect 2 is a good game, but it doesn't hold a candle to the sense of exploration and discovery in the first one, nor does it have a good threat or overall narrative. It does refine the combat a lot, and sure, the Mako was annoying to drive in the first one, but man. I loved the first game so much, and the sequels were both disappointing to me.

 

Getting to bone Garrus was really the best thing the sequels brought to the table.

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While listening to the podcast I was intrigued by the idea of using "similar face" to create a hideous visage. I was sad to find this forum thread didn't contain an image, or link to an image, of said character. I'll have to go look through the stream on youtube for my SimilarFace fix.

 

I must know.

 

Watch the Dark Souls 3 Monster Factory

 

 

Mass Effect 2 is a good game, but it doesn't hold a candle to the sense of exploration and discovery in the first one, nor does it have a good threat or overall narrative. It does refine the combat a lot, and sure, the Mako was annoying to drive in the first one, but man. I loved the first game so much, and the sequels were both disappointing to me.

 

Getting to bone Garrus was really the best thing the sequels brought to the table.

 

Agree on all counts.

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I really wish people would stop focusing on the difficulty/brutality/etc of the Souls games. It's very apparent it puts people off the games, and makes them go in with often incorrect preconceptions. You shouldn't be afraid to explore systems.

That YouTuber who went through without having played them before put it very well:

“Dark Souls doesn’t hold your hand, but it points you in the right direction and says, ‘I’ve given you all the tools you need to survive. Use them wisely.’ You go that way, and there are land mines. But Dark Soul gives you a manual for disarming them. But then the manual is in Swahili. But Dark Souls also gives you a Swahili dictionary. It expects you to listen, and to learn, and to improve. If I could do it, anyone with patience could. I don’t think Dark Souls is brutally hard; it’s challenging in a good way. I wish more games found this balance.”

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While listening to the podcast I was intrigued by the idea of using "similar face" to create a hideous visage. I was sad to find this forum thread didn't contain an image, or link to an image, of said character. I'll have to go look through the stream on youtube for my SimilarFace fix.

 

I must know.

 

I went through the stream and found it. I was truly horrified at what I found. Behold!

 

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Actually this is it, the true monstrosity:

 

post-35265-0-20298700-1461260820_thumb.png

 

I enjoyed how adding a face tattoo to this goblinesque creature was somehow a step too far. His mother would never allow his beautiful face to be marred by an ugly tattoo!

 

If the previously mentioned Dark Souls Monster Factory video manages to create disfigurations worse than this, then it has earned its title.

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Chris: I've generally found getting summoned into someone's world for Souls game co-oping is a really low-committment experience. Usually, you will help someone clear a boss/die trying and be done fairly quickly, and summoned help failing doesn't really affect the host. You guys should drop a summon sign during the next stream, because no matter what happens it will be entertaining.

 

Yeah, I wanted to note to Chris and Nick that multiplayer in the Souls games, especially the more recent entries, is really quite open and friendly in its structure. If your character is not embered, which causes them to glow like a hot coal, then you are effectively playing a singleplayer game. Once your character is embered, which also boosts maximum health by thirty percent, you will be able to see glowing signs in a flowing cursive on the floor, especially near bonfires and boss rooms. White and gold signs are people who will join your game and fight alongside you until you beat a boss. Red signs are people who will join your game with the intent of killing you. Purple signs are people who can attack both enemies and you (I'm not entirely sure what the point of them is, the number of available signs is never going to be low enough for them to be worth the risk over a white or gold sign). Also, while embered, you are vulnerable to being invaded by red phantoms of other players anywhere, especially if you've recently summoned a white or gold phantom, and certain areas also have hostile blue phantoms from covenants that are charged with "defending" those areas from embered players. Finally, there are blue phantoms that will be summoned to protect you if you're a member of a certain covenant, the Way of the Blue, although I hear that not many people are part of the latter covenant, probably out of a sense of rugged individualism, and therefore the scene there is pretty dead.

 

If you want to join other people's games, you can buy the white soapstone from the Maiden at the Firelink Shrine and use it to inscribe your own white sign on the floor. People will summon you to their games and you'll get to keep a quarter of the souls that are earned from defeating a boss. There is no penalty if you or the host dies, besides time spent and the end of your tenure together. If you feel like playing conservatively and keeping risk low, it's a good way to explore an area and learn a boss without risking any of your own souls.

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I'd love for you guys to stream some more Dark Souls - and while it's clearly up to you, I'd recommend setting Similar Face aside in favor of Breckon Jr., only because the game is already tough enough as it is, especially streaming, and it'd be great for y'all to see as much as you can. Something about the Souls/Bloodborne games makes them incredibly interesting to watch others play, even after hundreds of hours of playing them myself. It's probably seeing someone working through the learning process, discovering the game's ins and outs, and ultimately getting better (to one degree or another).

 

Chris, you mentioned Kay's Youtube channel, and indeed her evolution from trying to remember where all the buttons on the controller are to thoroughly and effortlessly destroying everything in the game, all the while being observant and analytical, is incredibly satisfying to witness - especially in games like these (although she records video for, and is really good at, many other types of games). Hers are definitely my favorite Let's Plays to watch.

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When I hear someone say "explore more" in a Souls game, I take that more as try to look and poke around everywhere you can and less internalize everything. There is a lot of stuff tucked away in these levels. Hidden weapons and armors and items, rare enemies, optional bosses, unique NPCs and quest givers and vendors, shortcuts and sometimes entire swaths of levels. All of this and more you can miss out on if you don't explore, which is a large part of why I love these games. I like digging around for stuff and trying every possible path at least once. Even as a stubborn explorer type who is still not close to done with the game, I've missed a lot of stuff in Dark Soul 3 the first time through this world. A few days ago I went back to some of the initial larger areas and explored some more (with less fear of being killed as I had leveled up my guy and weapons some) and ended up finding hours of content I had straight up missed. And I was fucking thrilled. This game is amazing.

 

I haven't done a lot of coop in DS3, but I did a ton of it in DS2. There's nothing to worry about there. It's a great way to become embered as well if you are short on ember consumables and want that extra health or the ability to summon folks. If you put your sign down and are summoned to someone else's game and beat the boss, you are sent back to your world embered and with some extra souls. And if you die and fail, you're just put back to where you were summoned with no penalty. It's not like dying in your own world. There is literally no downside to joining coop. Hosting coop is a bit different when you die - it's the same as normal, but know that the people you summon have no penalty on failure as mentioned. If anything, getting them in your game will help them learn the fight for their own world in a stress free scenario, possibly get them some extra souls, or if successful, embered status. The only downside to coop is the bosses are given more HP, but with 2-3 people hitting them instead it evens out. There are also some NPCs you can summon for various boss fights when you are embered. You can even re-do bosses you have already beaten by putting your sign down and helping others, again a great way to get free ember or earn some extra souls. You'll know the fight so it will be easier, and if you die it doesn't matter at all.

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I found myself nodding in agreement so much during the discussion of older shooters' lack of an XP grind or various other "incentives" locked behind hours of playtime. That felt very fresh to me in 2007 with CoD4, but anymore, it just has an incredibly chilling effect on me maintaining any long-term interest in keeping up with the game. I feel a level of pressure to keep up that usually instead just means I drop the game entirely since I know I don't have the stamina to reach the higher levels. And of course, if I don't persist with a game off the bat, I can look forward to being plowed over by all the folks that are willing/able to put in that time commitment...

 

I'm very hopeful that Overwatch will allow me the opportunity to get into a game where everything is available up-front again and where I really can have a game that is the equivalent of a casual game of golf or chess.

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I found myself nodding in agreement so much during the discussion of older shooters' lack of an XP grind or various other "incentives" locked behind hours of playtime. That felt very fresh to me in 2007 with CoD4, but anymore, it just has an incredibly chilling effect on me maintaining any long-term interest in keeping up with the game. I feel a level of pressure to keep up that usually instead just means I drop the game entirely since I know I don't have the stamina to reach the higher levels. And of course, if I don't persist with a game off the bat, I can look forward to being plowed over by all the folks that are willing/able to put in that time commitment...

I've never liked the idea of it. Last fall, when the new Battlefront came out, I remember critics complaining that you could get to max level and unlock everything in a short amount of time, with the implication "then what?". What about playing an MP game for the fun of the game? It boggles my mind when people complain about the game not trying to manipulate their psychology.

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The Rainbow Six: Siege system of earning unlockables through play is perfectly balanced for me, but dependent on enjoying playing the game.

The playable characters you select have unique abilities and different weapons/defense-measures available to them. These operators are split up into groups and unlocking one will raise the required experience-points to unlock another in the same group. So it only takes playing 15 or so matches to unlock enough operators to be on an even footing with everyone else, but there is a huge incentive to unlock them all of them just to have them all available. It's also worth noting that the abilities often enhance the abilities of other characters mechanically (for instance Castle can put up armored doors and Mute can put radio-jammers near them so that breach-charges cannot be used to destroy them).

If you buy the non-premium version of the game, you have three challenge-slots available to you. Every day a you get a new challenge if you have a slot free. You free slots by completing the challenges (you can't just dismiss ones you don't want to do). When you complete a challenge, you receive the equivalent of winning a match in experience-points (which averages to about a 45-minute investment if you win half your matches).

So in this circumstance, I already really like the playing the game but knowing that a win will get me closer to filling out my roster does raise the stakes is an engaging way. Additional to that, knowing that I have a potential 900xp waiting to be won in challenges if I haven't played in three days is sometimes a tipping-point to get me to load the game up. Once I'm there, I remember how fun it is. Also, the challenges often require me to play as characters I am less familiar with and I appreciate that diverse playstyle requirement since I'll just stick with my mains otherwise. I typically hate xp-systems in multiplayer games (especially Battlefield's), but in this case it helps me enjoy more parts of the game more intensely.

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With all the talk about gravity encouraging emergent mechanics, how did you guys not bring up grenades rolling down hills

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On the Souls stream, if either of you really wanted to keep Lord Similar rolling, you're fairly close to an area where you could get the only innately Luck scaling weapon in the game.  You would have to kill a somewhat important NPC to get it, but it is a thing you could do.  Much later in the game, the ability to enchant any weapon as a luck scaling weapon would become available (there are different coals you can give the blacksmith that let him enchant weapons in different ways, and the coal that allows for the Luck scaling enchantment is I think the last or next to last coal that you find).  There's also a respec option that you're not terribly far from, though that would somewhat break the charm of Similar. 

 

If you wanted to see a variety of PvP fight stuff, you or someone who watches the stream could set up a fight club.  Up to 6 players can be in a world simultaneously.  With a fight club, one host will intentionally summon multiple invaders through the red signs Gorm mentioned earlier, and then those two will fight one another, and the victor will fight the next challenger in line, so on until they lose.  A lot of times fight club hosts will set up a ring with glowing stones you can drop on the ground, and may give rewards to players who win a certain number of fights.  Fight clubs are great for a lot of reasons, but a big one is getting to see a wide variety of gear and playstyles one after another. 

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