What games do you guys play other than POE?

I finally dipped my big toe into the Vampire Survivors/Bullet Heaven genre last night. Saw a post on reddit self-advertising one called Spellbook Demonslayer that claimed to combine VS with PoE, specifically Headhunter's gimmick of stealing enemy powers.

Holy balls is it fun. The inspiration is clear: it has shrines, bosses with ARPG style mods that you do indeed get if you kill them and a slew of cool base spells woth quickly-gained passives. You can also spend in game currency earned through play on modifying each run, both in the rogue lite sense and in the PoE mapping sense.

Banger of a soundtrack, clean UI, compulsive gameplay loop as each death pushes me closer to total godhood.

Runs like a dream even on my poor old gtx970.

If the rest of the genre is like this, i have been missing out! My last twin stick shooter was Magicka 2, so I had no idea the genre had evolved this much.

Best thing is games of this genre are hella cheap. Cheaper than a cup of coffee at a cafe cheap. I happily threw the devs of Spellbook (Xendra) a tip or two. Might even write a steam review, which will probably be shorter than my average PoE forum post.

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Alaloth is sort of on hold. Not for lack of desire to play but because it is not a good game for gentle multitasking.

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The Adepta Sororitas aka The Sisters of Battle aka the Bolter Bitches aka The Nuns With Guns hit wh40k Inquisitor on PC today. I will likely double dip since I dont see them hitting ps5 anytime soon. For the emperor, I slay in thy name, etc etc.

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Yet to try Darktide but I did check in with Vermintide 2. Nice ps5 fps and resolution update and the free Chaos Wastes rogue-lite mode frees the insanely good gameplay from its awful gear system and clunky campaign structure. I just love the banter between the Ubersreik Five (all four of them at a time).

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We are in a mode where most of us are waiting for the second campaign.

Playing:

F.E.A.R. (2005)
Crysis (2007)
Hard Reset (2011)
Pillars of Eternity 2 Deadfire (2018)

On list:

The Vanishing of Ethan Carter (2014)
Cryptark (2017)

Tried to resist the sales.
Picked up Osiris, New Dawn for 14$ CDN.
Well, well worth it.

So as a point of comparison, I picked up Vampire Survivors as well, gave it a go. I can see why it was an almost instant classic and spawned a sub-genre, but man does it feel dated already. Mostly I wanted to see just how much of it Xendra lifted for Spellbook Demonslayers and honestly, not that much. Placement of experience bar, frequent level up pauses that exclusively modify your existing attacks or offer new ones. In terms of actual features, I'd say it draws more on PoE than VS, and I want to see them do even more of it. Because while I loathe the idea of a deep, mechanically nuanced ARPG becoming a faux shooter, I think a lot of the features in PoE lend themselves really well TO a proper, dedicated shooter.

And I'm sure some would argue there's a lot of overlap, and these days that's pretty true -- but only for ARPGs designed with controllers in mind from the start. Point and click is imo an inferior interface for a shooter because it has character immobility while using skills built into it as a carryover from the D1 days. I'm willing to bet Last Epoch will be the last 'new' ARPG made first and foremost for mouse and keyboard, given we now have PC games being developed with controller in mind (aforementioned Alaloth is an easy example). Even ARPGs, which is where the overlap is really apparent. You can't move and shoot in WH40k Inquisitor but the controller setup would definitely work for it, and that game has an unusual number of 'move-and-shoot' moves for an ARPG (but obviously not unusual for WH40k).

Anyway, I was a bit concerned that my joy at Spellbook Demonslayers was deferred joy at VS, but nope. And I looked into the other popular ones (brotato, genesia, etc) and none of them really grabbed me. They all do their own thing, but it seems a deliberate marriage between VS' gameplay and PoE's end-of-life-ARPG gimmicks was exactly what the genre needed to pull me in.

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Foreverhappychan wrote:

I'm willing to bet Last Epoch will be the last 'new' ARPG made first and foremost for mouse and keyboard, given we now have PC games being developed with controller in mind (aforementioned Alaloth is an easy example).

That is a bold claim and if this will ever become reality, it will be a really bad evolution and a recipe for tanking your PC sales. There are many PC gamers hating on Alaloth because it was designed firstmost for the controller.

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Reinhart wrote:

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Foreverhappychan wrote:

I'm willing to bet Last Epoch will be the last 'new' ARPG made first and foremost for mouse and keyboard, given we now have PC games being developed with controller in mind (aforementioned Alaloth is an easy example).

That is a bold claim and if this will ever become reality, it will be a really bad evolution and a recipe for tanking your PC sales. There are many PC gamers hating on Alaloth because it was designed firstmost for the controller.

They'll get over it. Seen plenty of people also quite pleased with the controller choice, myself included because fuck playing Souls-style combat with M+K and it's so damn easy to hook up a controller to steam now compared to not that long ago, so y'know, anecdotes gonna anecdote.

And as tempting as it is to get into the very complicated discussion of which inputs are superior/optimal/best for various genres, such a temptation doesn't override my suspicion I'd be wasting my time doing so on a forum for a game that failed to transition to controller quite spectacularly, proving its core playerbase right: PoE was made for M+K and should remain there, despite its distinct lack of concern for ergonomics and player health. Have fun with your piano simulator. :P

That said, here's a fun read for you that I went through a few days ago:

https://www.pcgamer.com/how-wasd-became-the-standard-pc-control-scheme/

I find that an interesting look at the evolution of what was essentially an ad hoc secondary usage of the keyboard and trackball/mouse, since neither were created with first person shooters in mind.

Regarding Alaloth, I'd be much more concerned about the devs' unprofessional attitude towards feedback than anything else. There's some language barrier to be sure (they're Italian and admit English isn't their first language), but they desperately need to get a CM or something who won't take it all so personally. People are going to see Gamera's prickly responses to reviews and correctly read this as a sign to stay away. It's going to cost them real sales, which is interesting given they're clearly trying to appear engaged and eager for reviews precisely to promote sales. I only hope the game speaks for itself.

Kenshi is a game I keep coming back to, it's a unique game with a great aesthetic, set on an alien moon in a post apocalyptic age. it's a sandbox game where you create your own destiny or likely die trying.

Otherwise I will try many genre of indie game or the occasional console game such as Dragon's Dogma or GTA.

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AbilityPoints wrote:

Kenshi is a game I keep coming back to, it's a unique game with a great aesthetic, set on an alien moon in a post apocalyptic age. it's a sandbox game where you create your own destiny or likely die trying.

Otherwise I will try many genre of indie game or the occasional console game such as Dragon's Dogma or GTA.

I saw a playthrough of this game on youtube like two years ago. In this playthrough a character without limbs was created that was carried by an NPC. That looked hilarious and made me laugh hard.

Very, very picky friend of mine swears by Kenshi but I have to admit when I gave it a go, I got a similar feel to when I tried Conan Exiles: there's a hell of a lot of game here and I feel completely overwhelmed by my nakedness in it. It's fucking brilliant and not at all for me.

Similar to Dominions 5 I guess. Now and then you just stumble onto something truly hidden by its necessarily simple aesthetics and think, this is jaw-droppingly good and I hope there are people who appreciate that. But it's just not for you.

I think the first game to make me feel this way was Elite on the neighbours' Commodore 64. Loading it up after playing shit like Mr. Wimpy, Paperboy and California Games was mind-blowing. I had no idea at the time I'd be revisiting it on my own PC years later as Elite Plus or seeing technology finally catch up with Braben's ambition with Elite: Dangerous (and given the overreach of Odyssey, maybe it STILL hasn't!).

And even rarer, but even more awesome, is when you find an ugly, overlooked or just poorly marketed gem and actually become one of its few devotees, savvy to its flawed brilliance but aware why others don't share the same sentiment. Buriedbornes was one. There is a series of mobile games just called 'The Quest' that function a lot like early Elder Scrolls that completely pulled me in for a while. Stranger of Paradise is definitely another, and I mostly just cope-lurk on its niche-as-fuck reddit for a reminder I'm not alone in loving a janky but wildly ambitious and technically complex Nioh x Final Fantasy Action Role-Playing Game. Disciples Liberation is yet another, a surprisingly well written HOMM-like stemming from a series I never got into. Until fairly recently, Tactics Ogre was a relatively hidden gem overshadowed by its faster, brasher, slightly more obnoxious younger sibling Final Fantasy Tactics into which I poured far too many Super Famicom hours making my units throw rocks at each other for experience. And there was NO WAY my Japanese was up to the task of even beginning to grasp the branching story of that one.

I'm always glad to look at Kenshi updates on steam and think someday I'll give that a better shot. I'm lying to myself but it's a nice, harmless lie. :)

I've recently (not refering to the last 4 seconds) gotten into No Man's Sky. Like... WAAAAYYY too into it. That thing sucks you in like it's nothing. I've rarely played a game that made me feel that way. There's so, SO much you COULD be doing there. But you don't have to either, it's your choice.

I'm currently playing with a group of friends and we couldn't be more different about our approach. One of them has built a base with automated mining systems for resources and repairs, then scraps ships to get money. Another one has been looking for ages to find the right planet to build a permanent, most likely absolutely decadent base and gets money from fighting his way through abandoned freighters.

Meanwhile, I've adopted a nomadic approach, after I got offered control over an A class Capital freighter after a space battle. Currently setting up my home there, getting upgrades for my ship(s) and making money the same way people do in PoE... trading.

And none of us are anywhere near their respective goals. I love it.