SAILERIUS'S PROFILE

Sailerius
did someone say angels
3214
Something happened to me last night when I was driving home. I had a couple of miles to go. I looked up and saw a glowing orange object in the sky. It was moving irregularly. Suddenly, there was intense light all around. And when I came to, I was home.

What do you think happened to me?
Vacant Sky Vol. 1: Conte...
I died once. (Complete Edition Act II+ now available!)

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What Videogames Are You Playing Right Now?

As soon as Horizon: Zero Dawn started, I had a pretty good guess where the plot was going and there were two plot twists I predicted but they were so lame and cliché that I desperately hoped I was wrong. Nooope, they both just happened in fast succession.

The game is beautiful to look at, but God I wish there was a disable-the-story setting because the writing is excruciating.

What is magic? What does it mean? How does it work?

For me, a magical experience is one that in some way changes the way I think about myself or the world.

Art and entertainment is powerful because it has the potential to simulate experiences and emotions in a safe space. Being in a situation where you're terrified for your life is usually bad news, but in art, you can explore that emotion without your real self being in danger. Art lets you experience a broad spectrum of emotions that you might not otherwise be able to understand, and that enriches your perspective on life and other people.

Our experiences shape our development as people, and who we are is in large part a consequence of the chain of events we've gone through up until this point. Because art can create those experiences unbound from physical limitations or consequences, it has enormous transformative potential, and as artists, it's important to understand that so that we can wield it effectively, and also to ensure we don't use that power for evil.

There have been a couple games which have had a strong impact on me and challenged the way I think about certain ideas in the real world. And I think everyone has that potential, but it's something that has to be consciously honed and practiced.

What makes a work of art magical to me is when the artist's vision is conveyed through the artistic medium and I feel as if we're communicating through it, so that their ideas and feelings are clearer to me than if they had been expressed through words.

If you want to create a powerful work that will resonate with someone, search yourself and consider what it is that's important to you, what it is that you wish other people understood, and think on how you can use your medium to communicate that to other people. Even in a flawed work, you can sense that passion, and that's what gives art soul.

What Videogames Are You Playing Right Now?

I started playing Horizon: Zero Dawn. It's a very polished and pretty game, and it tries to be a combination of MGSV + The Witcher 3, but imo it kind of takes the shallowest elements of both and ends up a kind of generic experience. I'm reserving judgment until I get further in, but so far I've been pretty let down. The writing is pretty poor, which I wouldn't normally get too hung up on for an open world action/adventure game, but it keeps insisting on these linear, story-heavy segments when it really sucks at story.

Normally the story is what I'm most interested in, but in games like this where not much thought is put into it, I'm eager to just get on with the show and enjoy the gameplay.

Whatchu Workin' On? Tell us!

Brushing up on my anatomy by modeling a bust for practice. I did not realize how terrible my anatomy was until I started on this.

Progress from the last three days:

Is humor harder to pull off in games?

I don't think you can really pull it off well without voice acting. I can't remember a time a text-only game made me laugh, but I was constantly cracking up while playing Uncharted 4 and Final Fantasy XV. Comedic delivery is a huge part of humor.

FF7 remake. It's a thing.

I'm not terribly concerned about the UI. The FFXV UI went through a dozen or so total overhauls, and it was even overhauled again between the time it went gold and the time the first patch hit. They'll probably keep iterating on it for a long time to come.


author=Feld
Which leads me to 2; XV was too easy. Part of it was because of the above, but part of it was intrinsic design, XV's gameplay didn't have as much depth as the battle system and the average playthrough in hours demanded, and after a while you really can just blast through everything.

It is certainly easy if you're a pretty experienced gamer, but I have an interesting anecdote to share. I took time off work to play through FFXV when it came out, and I pretty much powered straight through the game. When I got the achievement for clearing the game, only 2% of owners had gotten that far. The reason I mention this is on Xbox One, when you get a rare achievement, it tells you what percentile you're in.

I played the game on Normal difficulty, and a certain close-to-endgame boss had an achievement for clearing it on Normal difficulty. It was an achievement with 1% rarity. However, the achievement you get almost immediately afterwards for clearing the chapter had 6% rarity. In other words, at least 6x as many people had lowered the difficulty as people who had played through on Normal.

On top of that, if you read reddit discussions on the game, there are tons of people stuck on it and complaining that it's too hard, even on Easy.

The nature of the gaming audience has changed a lot in the past few generations. Back in the PSX era, gaming attracted a certain demographic that tended to be good at independent problem-solving. But gaming is mainstream now, and a wide array of demographics plays games, so skills that we take for granted aren't shared by everyone who plays a game.

That said, I do think that a harder difficulty would've been great.

That said, on The Witcher 3, I don't think it's a particularly good example of different playstyles and strategies. I breezed through the entire game by just constantly casting Quen and mashing attack. It becomes even more of a joke when you get the upgraded Quen that absorbs and reflects damage. I beat the final bosses by just standing still and reflecting all of their damage while healing whatever minuscule damage they dealt to me. It was even easier than FFXV - I didn't even need to move.

FF7 remake. It's a thing.

Thank God.

FF7 remake. It's a thing.

author=kentona
author=Red_Nova
EDIT:

The three ticks next to the ATB bar worry me. The modernization of FF7's combat system is... even more waiting to store up actions? I guess it could work if stronger moves cost 2 or 3 ATB ticks, but adding more wait time isn't exactly the first thing that comes to mind when I think about improving a battle system.
Reminds me of Septerra Core. While there were other shortcomings in that game, the 3 tick ATB bar was actually interesting. iirc, it basically equated to 'quick attack - medium attack - heavy attack', which translated into a bit more depth in your selection of moves (ie, a quick attack to finish off an almost-dead opponent or smaller weaker opponents vs waiting a full atb cycle)

3-tick ATB bar is on my (long) list of mechanics to explore in a developing an RPG.

That's basically how FFXIII works. You have an ATB meter with varying numbers of subsections (which you can increase per character through plot, sidequests, equipment, etc) and abilities cost a number of ATB meter segments. It was the best implementation of ATB I've seen and lent itself well toward a more dynamic feeling of action while still being turn-based.

What are you thinking about right now?

I had no idea what Nier was about, only that my friends had said it was great, so I bought it on a whim used for $5. Within a minute of even putting in the disc, I knew I was in for a trip.

FF7 remake. It's a thing.

author=Deckiller
xiii-3 is more tolerable than wannabe action game nonsense imo

very disappointing if it ends up like ff15's combat, which I found anemic, awkward, and boring

Coincidenally, anemic, awkward, and boring is how I would describe FFVII's original battle system. I don't think any of the FFs had particularly interesting combat until X. X, XII, XIII, Type-0, and XV have all had good ideas and it would be a big shame if they didn't learn from them.