I remember my last run in Darkest Dungeon. It was going as well as a run can in that game, all is fine. Then I got into an encounter, an enemy crit my damage dealer, he went into a panic, my damage dealer smacked my healer, which sent her into a panic, she refused to heal, the aforementioned damage dealer was bleeding out and it was all awful. Then the next turn my frontliner dies, ending the run. They all died because one guy got a random crit.
I have the same feeling with roguelites. Spelunky 1 was my favorite game until I beat it. Trying to beat the hell level just took the wind out of my sails. When I tried Spelunky 2, I ended up refunding it after three hours (thanks Steam!) because I wasn't having any fun.
I’m glad to hear that I’m not the only one. These days, I tend to just completely avoid roguelites. It’s too bad that these make up such a big part of the indie game sector.
Regarding PoE, I've put a lot of time into it also, and I think I'm done too. I did keep up with the leagues (though not all of them), but usually stopped when I had a couple characters around level 90 or so--I never actually beat the real challenging bosses. Generally if I want to play it there has to be something mechanically interesting about a character; but a there's so many skill to play with! It's hard to complain about a game no longer being interesting after 100s of hours.
I did like the blight mechanics, but mostly because of the reward and intensity from them; real-time and tower defense are two flavors that don't work so well together. Click on an upgrade, and oops you're dead.
Roguelikes are a genre I've shifted into pretty hard; my default gameplay lately is Monster Train 2, and I can still get value from Slay the Spire 1. I think it's the mix of randomness and mechanical exploration; every play through is like opening presents and getting new toys.
The genre I find myself tiring of is RPGs, be they japanese or western. The gameplay is usually less interesting than other genres like arpgs or roguelikes, or at best it's that same mechanical exploration but dragged out with far too much repetition and wandering. And the stories are okay I guess but no longer enough to slog through the rest. Sad, because the classic squaresoft games I'd still rate very highly.
Game I sometimes wish I could tire of: Civilization, in my case V modded with vox populi. It's frustrating how appealing it is to hop into a quick six hour game on a saturday morning and immediately want to spin up another.
I felt the same way about PoE - every time I decided to give it a shot, I'd find myself going through the early stages, thinking about how to build my character, then get to a point where I realized I'd have to spend two hours looking at build guides in order to understand how to properly get my character to the point where it could engage with whatever the new endgame loop was. And even if I did that, if I stepped away again and came back, that new endgame content would be obsolete and all the time I'd spent with it would basically have been wasted. There are a bunch of things they could've done to make that work better but I think their focus was on the whales who basically ONLY play PoE, and they trapped themselves in a loop of only making new endgame content FOR those devoted players, to the detriment of anyone just picking the game up or playing occasionally.
Which brings us to D2 - have you played Resurrected? How do you feel about them adding a new character via DLC, new endgame content, and re-structured drop rates after like two decades? Personally, I've enjoyed going back to D2 but even though the endgame is more accessible than ever I still prefer just remaking fresh characters and doing runs up through Hell to 'beat' it rather than grinding out runes and perfect bases.
I haven’t played Resurrected as Blizzard is dead to me since the Warcraft III Reforged disaster. I know that the remake has been well received, but I don’t like that they changed the original so much. In general, I don’t think that reworking a game a lot after release is a good thing.
Diablo 2 is a good example for this as the game has changed so much over the years. The original release was drastically different compared to LoD. LoD itself then changed completely with the changes rolled out in patch 1.10. Now, it has changed again in the remaster. What version is the “real” Diablo 2? Which is most in line with the vision Blizzard North had during development? Nobody knows.
For me, the “real” version is 1.10+, as this is version I played most. So, when I get the itch for some Diablo 2, I use PlugY to unlock the ladder rune words in single player, as well as d2dx for higher frame rates and resolutions. That’s enough for me and eliminates any need for the remake.
I was also disappointed in Diablo 3. D2 is one of the greatest of all time, so hard to follow up on. I still need to give PoE a shot. I haven’t tried it yet.
I finished Darkest Dungeon's Ironman (or whatever it's called in DD) vanilla run, and had a great time, but yes - it ends up being an absolute grind and you've got be OK with losing hours of progress, building it back up, and losing it again. I loved the game, and that tension is a big part of what makes the game great, but man - if it didn't have such an amazing narrator and wildly fun plot I don't think it'd work.
I've taken a stab at the game with the Crimson Court DLC (I think my successful run was technically with Crimson Court turned on, just late in the run). When you try CC from the start... it's too much research. The "everybody dies" potential takes a massive jump, and you have to stick with a guide to have any realistic chance of making it through without constant slaughter.
So I don't know. I really think the game is a highlight of games - very different, incredibly well designed, but the RNG frustration is strong with this one
It definitely is a great game. Speaking of the need for guides: I think that’s an unfortunate side-effect of how punishing the game is. As the consequences of a failed run are so great, it’s very risky to go into a boss fight without any prior knowledge. So, players have a strong incentive to read guides.
I remember my last run in Darkest Dungeon. It was going as well as a run can in that game, all is fine. Then I got into an encounter, an enemy crit my damage dealer, he went into a panic, my damage dealer smacked my healer, which sent her into a panic, she refused to heal, the aforementioned damage dealer was bleeding out and it was all awful. Then the next turn my frontliner dies, ending the run. They all died because one guy got a random crit.
I uninstalled and never looked back.
Yeah, that’s Darkest Dungeon, all right. The developers wanted the game to invoke powerful emotions. They probably overdid it.
I have the same feeling with roguelites. Spelunky 1 was my favorite game until I beat it. Trying to beat the hell level just took the wind out of my sails. When I tried Spelunky 2, I ended up refunding it after three hours (thanks Steam!) because I wasn't having any fun.
I’m glad to hear that I’m not the only one. These days, I tend to just completely avoid roguelites. It’s too bad that these make up such a big part of the indie game sector.
Regarding PoE, I've put a lot of time into it also, and I think I'm done too. I did keep up with the leagues (though not all of them), but usually stopped when I had a couple characters around level 90 or so--I never actually beat the real challenging bosses. Generally if I want to play it there has to be something mechanically interesting about a character; but a there's so many skill to play with! It's hard to complain about a game no longer being interesting after 100s of hours.
I did like the blight mechanics, but mostly because of the reward and intensity from them; real-time and tower defense are two flavors that don't work so well together. Click on an upgrade, and oops you're dead.
Roguelikes are a genre I've shifted into pretty hard; my default gameplay lately is Monster Train 2, and I can still get value from Slay the Spire 1. I think it's the mix of randomness and mechanical exploration; every play through is like opening presents and getting new toys.
The genre I find myself tiring of is RPGs, be they japanese or western. The gameplay is usually less interesting than other genres like arpgs or roguelikes, or at best it's that same mechanical exploration but dragged out with far too much repetition and wandering. And the stories are okay I guess but no longer enough to slog through the rest. Sad, because the classic squaresoft games I'd still rate very highly.
Game I sometimes wish I could tire of: Civilization, in my case V modded with vox populi. It's frustrating how appealing it is to hop into a quick six hour game on a saturday morning and immediately want to spin up another.
I tried dota 2 once, but it was way to confusing compare to lol. So went back to lol again for a time haha.
All the other games I have never played.
I felt the same way about PoE - every time I decided to give it a shot, I'd find myself going through the early stages, thinking about how to build my character, then get to a point where I realized I'd have to spend two hours looking at build guides in order to understand how to properly get my character to the point where it could engage with whatever the new endgame loop was. And even if I did that, if I stepped away again and came back, that new endgame content would be obsolete and all the time I'd spent with it would basically have been wasted. There are a bunch of things they could've done to make that work better but I think their focus was on the whales who basically ONLY play PoE, and they trapped themselves in a loop of only making new endgame content FOR those devoted players, to the detriment of anyone just picking the game up or playing occasionally.
Which brings us to D2 - have you played Resurrected? How do you feel about them adding a new character via DLC, new endgame content, and re-structured drop rates after like two decades? Personally, I've enjoyed going back to D2 but even though the endgame is more accessible than ever I still prefer just remaking fresh characters and doing runs up through Hell to 'beat' it rather than grinding out runes and perfect bases.
I haven’t played Resurrected as Blizzard is dead to me since the Warcraft III Reforged disaster. I know that the remake has been well received, but I don’t like that they changed the original so much. In general, I don’t think that reworking a game a lot after release is a good thing.
Diablo 2 is a good example for this as the game has changed so much over the years. The original release was drastically different compared to LoD. LoD itself then changed completely with the changes rolled out in patch 1.10. Now, it has changed again in the remaster. What version is the “real” Diablo 2? Which is most in line with the vision Blizzard North had during development? Nobody knows.
For me, the “real” version is 1.10+, as this is version I played most. So, when I get the itch for some Diablo 2, I use PlugY to unlock the ladder rune words in single player, as well as d2dx for higher frame rates and resolutions. That’s enough for me and eliminates any need for the remake.
I was also disappointed in Diablo 3. D2 is one of the greatest of all time, so hard to follow up on. I still need to give PoE a shot. I haven’t tried it yet.
I finished Darkest Dungeon's Ironman (or whatever it's called in DD) vanilla run, and had a great time, but yes - it ends up being an absolute grind and you've got be OK with losing hours of progress, building it back up, and losing it again. I loved the game, and that tension is a big part of what makes the game great, but man - if it didn't have such an amazing narrator and wildly fun plot I don't think it'd work.
I've taken a stab at the game with the Crimson Court DLC (I think my successful run was technically with Crimson Court turned on, just late in the run). When you try CC from the start... it's too much research. The "everybody dies" potential takes a massive jump, and you have to stick with a guide to have any realistic chance of making it through without constant slaughter.
So I don't know. I really think the game is a highlight of games - very different, incredibly well designed, but the RNG frustration is strong with this one
It definitely is a great game. Speaking of the need for guides: I think that’s an unfortunate side-effect of how punishing the game is. As the consequences of a failed run are so great, it’s very risky to go into a boss fight without any prior knowledge. So, players have a strong incentive to read guides.