Essence_of

How do you feel about the controls on the Deck? I tried playing the classic version last year and had to put it down after a few minutes due to hand strain. One of the very few games it ever happened to me.

Many reasons:

Building the company from scratch alongside development (they started with like a dozen people or so).
Making 2 games rather than 1 (Squadron 42, the single player title, is still the main focus).
Inadequate long term planning.
A lot of stupid decisions throughout development.
Having to figure out a bunch of technical hurdles that other developers either sidestepped or didn't need to implement on this scale.
Unwillingness to learn from industry experience and insistence to go through the hard lessons on their own.

There might be more but these are the first things that come to mind.

I managed to find a workaround for my Easy Anti-Cheat issue so I'm back to The Division 2. Well, kinda.I once again ended up installing the first game and spent some time alternating between the two to compare them - it's something I do pretty much every time I'm in the mood for TD.

As much as I like TD2, I refreshed my realisation that in many aspects I still prefer the first game. I actually made a simple list last night of what I like about each game and it turned out way more one sided than I thought it would.

TD1:

Atmosphere
Game world
Enemy factions
Writing
Slightly slower pace (movement, combat. looting)
Cosmetics (UI and items themselves)
Dark Zone
Exotic weapons (in regards to looks, TD2 ones are hideous)

TD2:

Improved cover system
Armour and weakpoint systems

There are also some things I keep going back and forth on, mainly: gunplay and skills. Which game I prefer for these elements depends on how I feel and what I'm looking for at the time. This week, the first game comes out on top as well but, again, it's more of a temporary decision compared to everything listed above.

Anyway, this is just a simple comparison without much thought put into it. I'm sure I could get more into details of specific systems and add a ton of conditions on when one is better than the other but it was a fun time waster after finishing a day with both titles.

If only there was a way to play the first game on the updated engine...

Nice, I did expect it to be at least reasonably good in regards to occultism but it's great when writers go an extra mile when it comes to the topics they cover.

There's still plenty of good content in the other two seasons, it's not just downhill after S1. There is also a chance those issues won't be as noticeable or important for you as they were for me. I have an unfortunate problem where if I stumble upon something which annoys me in a specific way I quickly disengage from the thing it happened in and start judging it in a way harsher manner than I would otherwise, often unfairly.

I'd say it's still worth a shot at least. Don't let my mind goblins prevent you from checking out something you might enjoy - a lot of it is a "me" issue.

I'm not that familiar with BB and how much it focuses on details like these but this is such a specific issue I can't help to assume it was a mistake. It's easy to forget things like this once you're out of school.

Sorry for guessing since I have no proper answer. Might have to dive into some BB fandom rabbit holes for this one.

I'm still continuing my manhwa adventures and this week I'd like to talk about two series with similar concepts but pretty different executions. These series are "I'm Done Being a Hero, Even If It's Retirement" and "Sigrid".

This will be a long wall of text as I have a lot of thoughts and no one to say them to. Things might be a bit messy and incomplete as a lot of these thoughts were written down days after I initially came up with them but I'll try my best to make it readable. Worst case scenario, shouting into the void is still better than keeping this stuff banging around my head so feel free to nod and walk away at a quickened pace.

Both stories are about female knights who die, revert back in time to their younger selves and vow to change their past lives. In "I'm Done Being a Hero, Even If It's Retirement", Adelia (the main character) goes back to when she was 9, few years before her brother and father are suppose to die in battle, leaving her to fend for herself. She was a famous knight and a hero who decided to retire but died shortly after due to overuse of her holy power during her service. As the title suggests, she decides to use her return for rest and recreation, without touching the sword ever again. Things, as you can expect, don't go exactly as planned.It's a pretty light-hearted and enjoyable story. Adelia bumbles around hard to avoid getting involved with knightly and political issues but when push comes to shove, she does what she always did - acts like a hero and helps people. That doesn't mean her life is the same a previously as she uses her knowledge from the past to avoid misfortune and get close to people she never expected to befriend in her previous life. I just wish the author (dunno if it's an original IP or an adaptation) spread the story a little bit more or went with longer time skips because as is, the whole thing ends up with 9-13 year olds running the show and no one among the adults finding it weird. I'll put some un-detailed examples in the spoiler if anyone's curious what I'm talking about.

Vague(ish) story spoilers

Story revolves around the already mentioned Adelia and the Crown Prince, both within 3 years of each other. As kids they manage to:

Outmanoeuvre political rivals.
Organise and run businesses.
Fight on equal terms with older and more experienced warriors.
Expose and close criminal groups.
(Prince specific) Run war against another country, as in: decide strategy on his own, command on the field and fight on the frontlines.
(Prince specific) Flirt with Adelia like an experienced playboy.

It's... a lot, in my opinion. None of this ruins the story but it did manage to affect my suspension of disbelief and enjoyment to some extent. There's also Adelia's romance subplot, which wasn't really surprising or necessarily unfitting but I did prefer her and her partner's friendship from their old lives over them being together. That's just me though.

All in all, it was a solid read, even if not something I expect to return to in the future.

Now for "Sigrid". In this story the titular Sigrid (or Sid) returns 5 years back, when she was 20. She's a complete opposite to Adelia in many ways. Her old self was dead set on an outdated idea of an ideal knight - completely loyal to here liege, leading ascetic lifestyle, stickler to the rules and dismissive towards any other knights who didn't subscribe to this way of thinking. Instead of being a hero she became the right hand of an evil emperor, executing his orders (including murdering lots of innocent people) without second thoughts and died betrayed, as a scapegoat for the man she served. Seeing her try to wrestle with what happened and trying to get out of her rigid way of thinking is the core focus of season one and it's great.

It's an mature story - not in regards to erotic content or anything like that but rather in terms of themes and execution. It focuses on personal change, trying new things, relationships. The last one is especially great as, thanks to all of the cast being and acting like adults, a lot of issues between them get resolved not through unnecessary drama but by talking. Genuine conversations about their feelings, thoughts and experiences - it's a real breath of fresh air.There's a lot of warmth and emotional maturity in general here, leading to a lot wonderful scenes and lessons that could (and honestly should) be applied in real life.

When I got to season 2 things started really well but as I progressed, more and more cracks started to appear in certain spots. Some of the side characters started taking back seat (for understandable story reasons), Sid ended up in a similar (but even worse) position than in her previous life and we got a romance plot that makes me actually uncomfortable. It's not even because the guy Sid agreed to date is evil, he's actually a pretty good person when Sigrid isn't in the picture. When she's on his mind however... dude becomes possessive, has trouble understanding the word "no" (consent is important y'all) and there are multiple times when he says pretty hurtful things to test the waters and quell his worries about Sid's feelings towards him. He might love her, based on how the story presents their relationship, but a lot of his actions are disgusting and would be a huge red flags for any relationship in real life. This is especially disappointing as the rest of the story is pretty good at handling relationships in mature and responsible manner. It's probably the biggest let down in this series for me.Despite these issues, there's still plenty of really solid content there, enough to keep me entertained just as much as when reading season 1. Then I got to season 3 and long story short, it doubles down on the issues I have with S2 on top of some new ones, because why not?

I'd like to mention one thing that made me realise it's time to check out - not due to in-universe implications but because it made the start of season 3 feel like a soft reboot/retcon and signalled a pretty significant shift in writing for me. I'll put the rest in the spoiler.

Spoilers for the end of season 2, start of season 3

The final scene of season 2 ends with Sid's partner pretty much calling their relationship a sham, leaving her dumbfounded and hurt. It happens due to story reasons and a genuine misunderstanding between the two but it's presented as a serious step too far, especially for Sid who has zero experience with romance and is already struggling with both her feelings towards the guy and what's going in the story at the time.

So how does season 3 follow that up? They kiss then Sid asks the guy to "teach her about physical intimacy". Granted, it's followed by an escape and a little bit of crying after that but things quickly shift towards "you have to win him back" after a short talk with her friends. Reading these chapters in a quick succession gave me a heck of a whiplash, to say the least. It also made me very hesitant to keep reading for a bit which doesn't happen often.

In the end, plot went from a reasonably grounded (in universe), to an alright political conspiracy, to a simple wish fulfilment. It might be because I soured on the story as things progressed but by the time I got to the final arc my enthusiasm and interest were rather low and I only finished it because "I already got this far, might as well". I'm not even sure I'll bother reading through bonus chapters (there's 25 of them!) which is a shame because I was super excited when I saw how much side content there is before starting. There were some really good moments in both S2 and 3 but nothing could save my enjoyment by the end.

This series went from something I expected to love quite a bit, to a title I just wanted to finish and move on from. A huge disappointment.

Two somewhat similar stories, two very different reading experiences. "Sigrid" makes me especially bummed because I feel that without the romance (at least in its current form) some of the other issues wouldn't happen. At least both stories managed to avoid typical romance drama despite having multiple guys surround their respective heroines.

I wanted to come up with some conclusion to this rant but the truth is I'm still not 100% settled on my thoughts towards these titles. They were interesting enough to warrant this wall of text at least, I guess.

Was it a specific mechanic, the whole theme of the expansion or something more specific like how it was utilised with the difficulty you play on? I'm pretty sure I like all of the expansions for that game but I'm also a rather casual player when it comes to 4X games so I'm curious about your experience.

I should really give survival another shot. I played it maybe 3 times so far and while I did like it, it never managed to stick with me beyond that - I'm not sure why. Guess it's as good of an excuse to reinstall the first game as anything else.

New month is here, time for another update. This time it will be a short one as the only thing worth mentioning is that I updated the VN Patch List with newly released English translation for Kishin Hishou Demonbane.

On a slightly different topic, I've been thinking about adding some flair to the community - specifically a banner and logo to make this place stand out a bit more at first glance. I'm not 100% sure how I'd like to approach both of these yet so if anyone has ideas or suggestions, feel free to share them (either here or through a direct message).It probably won't be a quick project since I'm still busy with other things but I'd like to finally get the ball rolling on this, even just a little bit.

I actually know it exists thanks to a few cross-posts between it and !girlsfrontline@lemmy.world but I keep forgetting to check it out. Thanks for the reminder!

I never really got too deep into builds and just threw together whatever looked or sounded cool until recently. I'm finally starting to try come up with things that actually work properly within the intended mechanics though even then, I don't really care about min-maxing and popular builds and simply tinker on my own. That said, I mostly play solo so it's not like there are people who could get angry at me for not playing "optimally".

Do you also alternate between the games or did you found one that stuck with you for good?

I don't have specific numbers since some of these games were played on various platforms or outside of environment which keeps track of play time. Still, these are the things that come to mind in regards to where I spent most of my game time.

I'm putting each title into a spoiler to avoid a huge wall of text. I tend to get a bit rambly when talking about games, sorry.

Civilisation V

I never played IV and I don't really like VI, Civ V however managed to grab me in a way few other 4X game could. I haven't played it in a few years but I still remember the feeling of "one more turn" - this stuff is addicting.

The Division (both games)

I was curious about the story concept for the first game but didn't like the idea of a modern shooter with bullet spongy enemies so I avoided it for a good few years before giving it a shot. When I did jump in however, my initial hesitation evaporated pretty quickly as the atmosphere of winter New York grabbed me 100%. There are still times where enemy tankiness or firepower can be annoying but that's mostly end game issues and something I can deal with if I lock in.

I probably have more playtime in the second game by this point but I still think there are some things the first game did way better than the sequel (writing, atmosphere, enemy factions, some skills, cosmetics). It's why I tend to alternate between the two whenever I'm in the mood for more TD.

Girls' Frontline

Came for girls with guns, stayed for the story. It's a gacha game, which I know many people might scoff at, but it's from the time when the monetisation practices and tactics where very different to the current landscape (there's no premium pulls, paid weapons or anything like that, the only thing you'd really spend your money would be skins - if you want).

Gameplay is pretty simple (build your squads, traverse node based stages, partake in semi-autobattler combat and complete objectives) but it's pretty enjoyable for the most part. It also does a great job of combining stage challenges/difficulty with what's happening in the story (something its sequel is simply unable to do due to a modern, dupe based character gacha and progression).

We're two weeks from the final main story event of the game, which after more than 7 years of playing feels somewhat bittersweet. It was a fun journey though.

Gothic 2

Played it multiple times, never finished it - usually because I got distracted or just had my fill of fun.I actually like the Gothic series more than any of the Elder Scrolls titles. These games feel somewhat more alive and immersive to me, to the point that even the unusual control scheme, preset protagonist (I really like making my own characters) or lack of "forever fun" aren't enough to make me lean the other way. There's some "magic" in Gothic that's missing from TES games for me, even if they're great in their own right.

I finally managed to finish the first game a few months ago so I hope I'll do the same with this one "soon". I'd like to scratch it off of my backlog, if only to give myself some closure in that regards.

Skyrim

I don't really like Skyrim. I find it to be pretty shallow and boring in its vanilla state and the only reason I spent as much time on it as I did is mods. I pretty much use all Elder Scrolls and (modern) Fallout games as a base for a modern life-sim experiences where I just do whatever I feel like at the time - anything except for being the hero. So yeah, it's just a backdrop but I guess it counts.

I wish Cyberpunk 2077 had as big modding scene as Skyrim. It's another title I like to use for my "be whoever, forget the story" playthroughs and one I vastly prefer in pretty much every aspect.

Team Fortress 2

I haven't touched it in years but it's still one of my most played multiplayer titles ever (or at least it feels like it). I tried going back to it a few times over the years but modern TF2 is simply not the same. I also really don't care for PvP these days so while I was curious about the classic mod/rework released some time back, I never even gave it a shot. I think I had my fill of competition.

There are probably a few more titles with similar play times but I don't want to make it look like I had no life as a kid (I didn't). I love games man.

It's yet another example of CIG living in their own imaginary world instead of learning from the last 20+ years of industry experience. With higher blueprint tiers and item quality leading to linear stat increases across the board people will always default towards min-maxing.

If they stuck with the old idea of tweaking and modifying, which would require crafters to pick and choose specialisations and buffs/debuffs of modified items there would be some room for unique and personal builds but this? Pretty much everyone but some role-playing weirdos (that's me) and complete casuals (in non derogatory meaning of the word) will be chasing the numbers, especially with open world PvP being always possible.

Rich will get richer, PvP and hardcore players will widen the power gap over the PvE mains and casuals even more, and CIG will once again pat themselves on the back because "metrics say everyone love it". Ugh...

I took the time to finish part 1 tonight. It's pretty good and even if there are a few parts I don't really care for, they are relatively insignificant. Well, mostly - there is one thing I need to rant about cause it SUUUUCKS.

Last node spoilers

What the heck is this new Igla design?! Such a terrible change for no good reason. Sextans at least got a cool new outfit but her? They did her so dirty man.

I understand they didn't want her to look like the distinguished and always in control butler she was before but this? This ain't it. She looks even more like a generic evil hot lady from any other gacha on the market. I just hope that if she ever ends up as a playable unit they'll redesign her again.

Is it an overreaction? Maybe. It is however my genuine reaction to the scene as I was reading it which, even despite my numerous issues with the game, happened only once before so far (when I saw what they did with Nemesis' upgrade). Man, unit/enemy design in this game is so hit and miss it's not even funny.

Alright, rant over. I promised myself I'll stay away from the community instead of bringing the mood down by posting angry comments about meaningless stuff but I was disappointed enough I had to scream into the void for a bit. At least the rest of part 1 turned out better than expected.

The Division 2

I'm back to my semi-regular Division grind. I was thinking about the game due to the recent, time limited, addition of the realism mode (no gear levels or bullet-spongy enemies, limited ammo etc) but couldn't join in at the time because I forgot how to make Ubisoft Connect work on Linux. I finally figured it out again (use GE-Proton-9.27 and set Windows to 10, otherwise it won't launch for me) and I also managed to snatch the latest DLC for less about 55% off so I decided to jump back in.

I'm not done with the DLC yet so there isn't much I can say about it other than "it's more TD2", even if in smaller package. Some missions are better than others in terms of design and how they fit my game style so things tend to alternate between "this is cool" and "I'm in pain, help". One thing that really caught me off guard however was when a mission finale turned into a desperate defence section - the surprising part wasn't the change itself but the fact that this short part managed to actually make me feel like the situation really was as dire as the story wanted you to think.

It's an excitement and engagement that doesn't really happen often as writing and set pieces in TD2 tend to fall flat for me for the most part. It was a nice change and I hope there'll be more moments like this in the future.

Now if only devs would let us replay all of the past manhunts in full instead of in their shortened version, that would be nice. I'm still missing part of the story after taking a break when they jumped the shark with Keener's "death" during Warlords of New York and I'd love to know what's going on.

Edit: Welp, yesterday's updated broke Easy Anti-Cheat for me and now I can't even launch the game. This sucks.

Yakuza 0

I'd like to finish this game some day. I've been on my first playthrough for 7 years now. I've been on THE SAME CHAPTER for 7 years now. Granted, most of this time was me not playing the game but still - I have saves from multiple years, all stuck on chapter 7. Why is it all sevens?!

Alright, I came back to the game with the plan to finally finish it so how did it go? Well, I started the game and went back to spending most of my time on the hostess club mini-game. This playthrough might take another 7 years to finish at this rate...

At least I'm having fun, I guess.

Huh, it's been a while since we had such a long federation delay between ani.social and lemmy.world. Seems like things are back to working fine again but I almost made an alternative post since this one didn't populate on my side. Good thing I checked the main instance first.

I'm not ready to write about anything new today so instead, I'd like to talk about some series I've been following for a while now. Call it a "catch up update" or something.

Mary-sanSimple idea, great execution, still going strong. While it doesn't always land perfectly, even the "worst" chapters never fail to make me smile so I'm always happy to see another chapter being released.
The Guy She Was Interested in Wasn't a Guy at AllThis series has been all over the place since the time skip and I'm only reading it through sheer inertia at this point. I hope things will get back on track relatively soon as I'm starting to get pretty bored with the current arc. The art is still pretty at least.
Unexciting DateProbably the biggest surprise of the year and one of my favourites, which is surprising since I really didn't expect it to have so much staying power. Despite simple premise and pretty limited joke list (used in a great way) it's a really solid series and with a good pacing too!
Fool NightI finally took the time to catch up with the last few chapters and it looks like I can breath a sigh of relief - the spy action arc seems to be finally done! Having the story go from a slow(ish) paced, relatively down to earth and personal topics to a full-on espionage thriller with gang war elements was not something I wanted from this series so hopefully things will go back to the former approach to story telling.These first few chapters of the new arc look promising but I'll wait a while longer before forming opinion on that. If things can slow down again that would be great, if it's just a short break before another bout of action however I'll probably drop it for good. Action is not what grabbed my attention when i first heard about this series and it's not something that can keep me interested.

I think I wanted to write about something else as well but it looks like I forgot so... yeah. Oh well.

No, you did not open the wrong series. This is where we are now - the true end game of Damedol.

As preparations for Squadron 42’s release continue in the background, we’ll keep taking a closer look at systems like buybacks and share more as we have updates.

Sure you will. Days after making another set of semi-random changes to catch people by surprise.

I have no horse in this race since my only pack is the Digital Mercenary from 2013 but CIG once again making sweeping changes without informing anyone and then waiting days before making any announcements about what's going on is as trashy as all the previous times they did things like this.

Sure, you're CAN change it on w whim, however if it works one way for a decade (?) and then you "fix the mistake" without a word then don't be surprised people are pissed. I'd say I'm disappointed but I honestly don't expect anything better from them at this point.

Sucks for those who really did want to rebuy their SQ42 packs though I won't be surprised if most of them just grumbles for a bit then buys the game for full price anyway. That'll show 'em!

I'm not a fan of the fact that choice and consequence is only intended at the highest tier of crafting. This should be the default experience, not the stupid linear improvements with no downsides. I was hoping the current approach is just a placeholder for T0 but this? This ain't it, chief.