Blizzcon lol

[mad bum]

Already have it after they finally cracked the more recent versions. It needs some polish and better end game.

[rabidtictac]

I'd rather replay X-Men Legends 2.

[VoiceOfReasonPast]

Speaking of ARPGs: Before the most excellent Weeaboo Xanadu, there was Xanadu Next:


(Don't bother reading the short Wikipedia entry. Most of the gameplay stuff is for the original N-Gage version and makes it sound like a completely different game.)

Gameplay spergShow

It's pretty much a Ys game that controls like a Diablo clone (I know it's a Xanadu game, but Ys is my closest point of reference here). It even has a classic Ys-style damage formula that makes you immediately aware of being underleveled and/or -geared by virtue of dealing fuckall damage.
It also reminds me of Mystic Quest (the prequel to Secret of Mana, not baby's first Final Fantasy) in that dungeon progress is tied to having enough generic keys, though there are more ways to get new keys in the field. For the love of God make sure to have at least 100 gold with you when you talk to that waifu adventurer. You do not want to miss the opportunity to buy the bone-carving knife (which lets you create new keys from dopped monster bones).

What this gameplay video is sadly not showing is that all enemy attacks are telegraphed enough that you can dodge them by just moving out of the way, which also synergizes with another Ys staple: you deal more damage if you attack enemies from the sides and especially the rear.
This also applies to enemy attacks, so while only having like 1-2 enemies on screen is pretty easy, you have to carefully outmaneuver larger enemy groups, carefully exploiting their recovery animations while not trying to expose your ass.
All in all, it might control like Diablo, but you're expected to actively avoid attacks. Sure, you have a dodge chance and a block chance if you've got a shield equipped, but expecting to just automatically tank hits and chug health potions like crazy won't get you far here.
You can basically complete entire dungeons without losing a single HP. That is unless the dungeon has these asshole lava slimes which explode if they die and damage every fucking thing in the entire room.

Stats are kinda lenient in this game. You basically have to raise everything sooner or later to hit the requirements for the next tier of armor, but you can always rearrange stat points until the next level-up (where everything you've got assigned atm is set in stone), and if you've really fucked up you can actually level down (which becomes extra useful once you get a nice little something that gives you more stat points per level-up).
Being able to rearrange stats comes really handy if there's some weapon you only want to equip for a while? Why only for a while? 'Cause this game is similar to at least one other Ys title (Ys Seven) in that skills are initially tied to a specific weapon. Master the weapon, and you've learned the skill for good. Magic spells on the other hand are found in chests or bought from shops.

So, anything special about skills & spells? Well, there's no global MP bar that powers everything. Instead it's kinda like Dork Souls in that every skill/spell has its seperate pool of uses. The higher the tier, the fewer uses you get.
Skills/Spells you wanna use are put in one of 4 hotkey slots, but unlike any Diablo-clone I know of you also have to put passive skills into a slot if you wanna active them. You kinda have to juggle between having lots of strong passives vs having an active attack for any situation at hand.

Finally there's "Guardians", which provide a stronger passive bonus that goes up as the Guardian levels. You can only have 1 Guardian active at a time, and they basically act like classes.
Wanna actually tank hits? Take the Guardian that boosts your HP.
Wanna be a wizard? Take the Guardian that boosts magic damage.
Wanna spam shit? Take the Guardian that boosts your number of skill usages.

And to round everything up, there are some puzzle elements, mostly dealing with moving boxes around and hitting them once to make them shorter so you can climb on them.

[Complicity]

I'm desperate for a new APRG but path of autism is fucking trash and I've already played all the others ones out there.

I've also forgotten that this one has been out for a while:



I quit it and forgot about it because the faggot developers did the body type shit, and because of the exposition dump after the first mandatory death.

[VoiceOfReasonPast]

At least the faces look a bit less retarded than they did in Salt & Sanctuary?

[Le Redditeur]

This time it's not Blizzard per se, but one of their direct competitors: GGG released a new patch for Path of Exile last Friday and it's a glorious train wreck. Player retention fell off to 33% just a few days after release, streamers and big league players are screaming "foul!" to the skies, and even the longtime shills had to admit that the game is fucked:

• They reduced loot drops to ungodly low levels (some estimate 80-90%), while hiding whatever half-decent loot you can find behind monsters that can roll a bunch of random, powerful modifiers to their difficulty that stack with each other and usually result in unkillable enemies, a mechanic that players hated ever since it was implemented in the game, but the designers think it's the greatest thing ever;
• On the other hand, they completely gutted one of the crafting mechanics players thoroughly enjoyed, but the designers hated (Harvest), and they did it under the guise of making the system "better" and "less intrusive";
• The new league mechanic (the titular Lake of Kalandra) has completely underwhelming rewards despite wild promises during the pre-release hype;
• In an effort to realize the lead designer "vision" of people crafting completely random garbage items and being happy with it, they modified how high-end currency work while making it less available than ever, completely ruining the game's economy in the process, in a nice game example of what State intervention does to real economy (surely there's a paper to be written about this; economists, enjoy).

After a weekend of the player base completely despairing over what they did to their beloved Diablo 2 clone, Monday comes and GGG releases a statement acknowledging some of the problems, but in a completely tone deaf way, they promise solutions that won't even begin to address the problems, while tacking a sales pitch for their new lootbox microtransaction at the end of the post. The players revolt even more, streamers drop the game en masse, all the hype people had from the past week is completely gone and replaced with anger, and then they release another statement/patch announcement to try and salvage something from the shitfest, which still doesn't address the players' main grips with the game and reeks of desperation. They even have to rollback the patch after deploying it because it was bugged (no wonder since it was probably done by some very tired codemonkeys over the weekend, with the boss screaming at them because of the awful release).

The game is currently in shambles, the /r/pathofexile subreddit is in open revolt against GGG and lead designer Chris Wilson, the official forums are getting bombarded with criticism and the jannies have working overtime deleting all the toxic language, and they're holding up on announcing the ticket sales for their 2023 convention because of this fiasco, after hyping it up to the moon and back in the past week. GGG managed to implode their cash cown in record time, and their implosion has been more fun than playing Path of Exile ever was.

[Complicity]

Something something you were supposed to destroy the cucks not joining them.
The signs have been there for years, they have become too big, too arrogant and also too greedy (60 Euros for a costume, really nigga?) for their own good.
Back to muh boy Grim Down Syndrome, always liked that one more anyway.

[wulfenlord]

GG, GGG.

BTW, how is PoE2 coming along? :3

[VoiceOfReasonPast]

How about implementing your amazing changes in chunks, and not all in the same patch?

[rabidtictac]

LMAO, more proof none of these corporations are your friend. I saw a lot of PoE shilling during the Diablo Immoral shitfest.