In DA2’s defence, the game went from concept to release in 16 months. With a development cycle that fast, it’s a miracle it was even playable; I wouldn’t call its rampant copy-pasting “lazy”. I’d call it many bad things, because that game had tons of problems, but that’s what happens when the beancounters have an unexpected success and want to capitalize on it yesterday.

instead of just playing the game as intended.

I feel like you just unwittingly hit on the problem many series veterans have been having.

People are approaching bosses in Elden Ring like they’re Dark Souls bosses, and in my thousands of hours across the series, the only bosses I summon help for is Sister Friede and the Demon Twins. Everyone else I was eventually able to defeat on my own, because that’s how they were balanced.

But in Elden Ring, you have the open world to grind in and Spirit Ashes and crazy weapon arts that are far beyond any that were in Dark Souls 3, and the bosses are balanced around these things. It’s harder to make a good guess at how powerful a player is at any given time in Elden Ring, so in order to counter the player’s bullshit, the bosses need bullshit of their own.

This, naturally, throws a wrench into the plans of veterans who are used to bosses that are tough but fair and approaching them in that manner. They then promptly get their shit pushed in because they aren’t using the things the encounters are balanced around having simply because they didn’t used to need them.

It makes the bosses binary. Either you get your ass kicked, or you summon help, use a Mimic Tear, and run a train on them. They’re either frustrating or boring, and fights that are frustrating or boring just aren’t fun. I’m not having fun getting comboed to death or just pelting the boss with spells while my goons beat them up.

The magic is gone. Bosses used to be the highlight of Souls games, and now I just want them to be over.

The only time it was challenging was back when AI factions had a hate boner for the player and ONLY the player. Like how they would leave their settlements undefended to march halfway across the map, through territory belonging to a faction they were at war with just to sack the player’s settlements.

It looks to me like they’re reusing the Link’s Awakening map, like they did for BotW.

I’m gonna pick it up, if only to encourage Nintendo to give Zelda her own full-size, mainline game.

Nah, Lae’zel is just horny.

It’s kinda funny how bitchy she gets if you turn her down.

That is a pretty good explanation of money laundering, actually.

I hated X because I found most of the characters sans Auron and Lulu to be incredibly obnoxious.

X-2 just made those problems worse by largely getting rid of the few characters I could tolerate, and somehow making Rikku even more annoying.

It says something about how good the combat was in those games that I managed to power my way thru X and a fair chunk of X-2 before it just got to be too much for me.

I hate X-2 with the burning fury of a thousand suns, and I’ll still praise the combat.

Thing is, all the other major manufacturers are just as bad or worse.

As a PC technician, HP still somehow has the best service and support, which speaks volumes about how bad everyone else is. Dell’s support tools are a generation behind HP’s, and Lenovo’s build quality is atrocious. Not to mention Lenovo’s technician support is so badly fragmented and poorly run, they default to having the customer send the device in for repair and avoid sending an on-site technician just so they can avoid dealing with technician support. Speaking from personal experience, getting to the right person when I have a problem or need to order additional parts is like pulling teeth, and even if I manage to reach someone, they’re usually equal parts incompetent and unhelpful.

And Apple doesn’t even want to service their stuff.

These days, you have to pick your poison.

Do it.

See what happens.

I’ve been getting a lot of mileage from this.

Man, Camellia’s arc is a pretty twisty one, and she’s probably the most fascinating party member in Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous. If you’ve finished your fifth playthrough of BG3 and are hungry for a different flavor, WotR is an easy recommend.

I amar prestar aen.

The world is changed.

Han matho ne nen.

I feel it in the water.

Han mathon ned cae.

I feel it in the earth.

A han noston ned gwilith.

I smell it in the air.

Much that once was is lost, for none now live who remember it.

TikTok isn’t doing anything that any other major social media company isn’t also doing. The only difference being that TikTok is owned by a Chinese company, and not a US one.

Just banning one app does little to resolve the overall privacy and information nightmare that social media is.

I’ve always said that the Railjack in Warframe really deserved to be its own game instead of a shoehorned game mode.

This looks like what that idea could be. Just being able to play Sea of Thieves IN SPACE!!! is a home-run of an idea.

Their problem was they counted their chickens before they hatched. They went on a spending spree while expecting an influx of cash from the Saudi PIF. But the deal fell through and suddenly, they were short about $2 billion.

But they may stay home, which is just as bad.

Once RIF Is Fun stopped working, my mobile browsing went exclusively to Lemmy. I still go back to Reddit for niche communities (especially for sports and specific games) on PC, but that’s probably not going to last much longer. Once they kill old.reddit, I’ll be gone for good.

I do wish there was a way to filter for language; I like occasionally finding titties while browsing, but I occasionally run into 5-6 consecutive articles in German or Dutch or something.

A live-action Avatar movie? I’d heard there was a live-action series, but there’s definitely no ATLA movie.

old.reddit is probably going to be on the chopping block, too. I only go for niche communities these days, but I’m gone for good once old.reddit is gone.