Saigot's recent activity

  1. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    Saigot
    (edited )
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    For horizon, the combat doesn't really get going until after you are through the mountain, I also found the mechanics really meh until I put the difficulty at the highest, where the stealth is...

    For horizon, the combat doesn't really get going until after you are through the mountain, I also found the mechanics really meh until I put the difficulty at the highest, where the stealth is more about single surprise attacks (and thinning out the weakest enemies) and you really have to use every part of your elemental abilities.

    1 vote
  2. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    Saigot
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    I'm on a rhythm game kick. Played Hi Fi Rush, a new game from Bethesda that seems to be flying under the radar. It seems like a good game to introduce people to the rhythm fighter genre, the...

    I'm on a rhythm game kick.

    Played Hi Fi Rush, a new game from Bethesda that seems to be flying under the radar. It seems like a good game to introduce people to the rhythm fighter genre, the timing is very forgiving even on the highest difficulty. The game's story is very self aware and the art style is a beautiful comic book style, there's lots of meta jokes, particularly about plotholes (like returning to the base when it doesn't make sense within the story). The game has great personality and while there are very few licensed songs the few that do play are done to great effect. I'm not sure I'd listen to the OST by itself, but it also wasn't terrible, It lacked any standout tracks. I did find that the rhythms I was hitting in game seemed pretty disconnected to the music that was playing which was understandable but somewhat disappointing.

    Gameplay wise it was pretty enjoyable, I found the 2d platforming a bit finicky at times, and there was something about the targeting that got me frequently attacking enemies I didn't mean to attack. The mid game I found quite button mashy. The main loop is that you have to hit (bigger) enemies to build up their stun gage before attacks cause them to flinch, you have a series of friends that go attacks and break through certain defences and do a small amount of dmg, one of the characters increases the amount of stun enemies recieve, which means you can spam each helper character over and over again to fill up the bar super quick and keep them stun locked, combined with a dash ability that also stuns the enemy and many enemies don't ever get a chance to attack. Your friends being OP was very thematic and it resulted in horrible score multipliers so it wasn't a devastatingly experience but I still don't know what some of the mid tier enemies attacks do. by the final boss and much of the post game content they managed to mitigate this somewhat and force you to use actual timing and attacks. Speaking of post game the game has a climb the tower style post game mode that I really enjoyed, there's a countdown that goes up when you perform perfect combos so it strongly incentizes using more of the flashy hard to pull off combos that you don't really need in the maingame. Overall It's a solid 6/10 for me, a good diversion that is worth the money, very bug free too. Took me about 15hours to beat the story and another 5-6 to do the tower game (I'm not sure I'll bother with some of the other post game content). I hope they make a sequel with a bigger budget.

    The second game I sunk my teeth into was returning to Bullet's per minute. This is a rhythm shooter roguelite on the complete other end of the spectrum. At least how I had the game set up it is punishingly hard, it took me several hours before I could even get past the first floor, if you panic and miss the beat you can end up spending what feels like an eternity missing beats and consequentially doing absolutely nothing. Once you do get into the flow of it it makes time fly like no other! The art style is an acquired taste, everything is monochrome, in a way that made things often hard to see, but after a while of getting used to it, it really adds character. The music absolutely slaps, every song is a brainworm. I listened to the shop theme on repeat for a whole work day more than a few times. Unlike Hi-fi I found that, (especially as I was learning) the beat of the song was really in line with the combos I was hitting, for instance if I had a gun that could be shot on 8th note beats I would (at first at least) only hit shots on beat with the song, which made the occasional flourishes in the tracks where they hit 8th notes feel like cool moments where I could shoot really fast in time to the faster beat, and when low on health it plays a heartbeat sound helps you hit notes more consistently which is a nice comeback mechanic. It also gave each floor a unique feel. I really like the decision to make the beat the hard part and let the aiming be very generous.

    While I said the game was hard, it also is very bang or bust. Some items (like no relaoding, double damage or explosive shots) can be extremely OP. There's also a special door to a bonus level on the first floor that can set up your entire run with some extremely op rooms. This isn't necessarily a criticism, I really loved the runaway runs and the dopamine hit of finding my favourite power ups, but I wish more was done (like special enemies or bosses) to give certain builds strengths and weaknesses rather than all strength. usually found that if I could get past the second level or so I would almost always get all the way to the end, I wish there was a few more late game enemies and those enemies had more unique attack patterns. that said I'm still playing on the more medium difficulties and the easier characters (in true rogue lite fashion there are characters that die in one hit). I wish there was a way I could test run the weapons before purchasing them as they can completely define a run, and depending on your build and how much you know the unique rhythm for shooting and reloading a weapon that is OP is one situation can be trash in another, yet there is no way to know how the gun handles except through experience. I give the game a solid 9/10. If you like challenging, runaway roguelites, hard rock and shooting to the beat this game is the sugarrush you need. I have played 30hours so far and have beat the game with 3 or 4 characters on the hard difficulty (note that you more or less have to beat them on easy first to unlock useful abilities), definitely plan on playing more, there's a character that dies in one hit that I know will be a very rewarding challenge.

    1 vote
  3. Comment on Stadia is shutting down in ~games

    Saigot
    Link Parent
    Sort of. The controller worked with stadia via wifi. It has bluetooth as well, but It is only used for setting up the device, and can't currently be used for actual gaming (and I suspect it's not...

    Sort of. The controller worked with stadia via wifi. It has bluetooth as well, but It is only used for setting up the device, and can't currently be used for actual gaming (and I suspect it's not a good enough bluetooth module to support low latency gaming). So the controller functionally can only be used wired. I personally prefer using a wired controller, but I suspect most of the people who are likely to buy stadia do not.

    3 votes
  4. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    Saigot
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    It took me 1500 hours but I finally 100% the binding of Isaac and I don't really know what to do anymore. Truly my favourite game of all time, I don't think it ever really felt like a slog. Been...

    It took me 1500 hours but I finally 100% the binding of Isaac and I don't really know what to do anymore. Truly my favourite game of all time, I don't think it ever really felt like a slog.

    Been trying to get into Noita, I've bounced off it a few times, I find the beginning to be too slow a start, the part of the game I enjoy, tinkering with cool wand builds doesn't really seem to take off until the 3rd level or so, and I'm not good enough to get there often (i think the furthest I've gotten is lvl5). I'm hoping something will click to make the early game more fun, because I really enjoyed the few runs where I've gone far.

    8 votes
  5. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    Saigot
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    I've been playing indie game called dV: rings of Saturn. It's mechanically a combination of the classics asteroids and Lunar Lander, you are a miner mining and exploring the rings of saturn trying...

    I've been playing indie game called dV: rings of Saturn. It's mechanically a combination of the classics asteroids and Lunar Lander, you are a miner mining and exploring the rings of saturn trying to make a living. It has an (intentionally?) difficult control and UI scheme, that imo really helps you feel like you are actually piloting a space ship. It's a zen experience that rewards patience. It also is extremely customizable, there are endless sliders to tweak the behaviour of of the ship flying and there are many side-grades you can buy, including ones that change the UI layout.

    In a lot of ways it reminds me of elite dangerous, mechanically it's very different (2D vs 3D) but it has the same grindy, immersive, slow simulation feel.

    I would really like this game to get more attention, I think it's a real hidden gem. It's been getting extremely frequent updates and It has a free demo too!

    5 votes
  6. Comment on PC cases without transparent side panels in ~tech

    Saigot
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    I use the fractal r5 define for my media server. I bought it because it has far more harddrive bays (with easy swapping) than any other case I could find. It's really quiet and really stable (very...

    I use the fractal r5 define for my media server. I bought it because it has far more harddrive bays (with easy swapping) than any other case I could find. It's really quiet and really stable (very hard to tip over). I use it as a footrest and I cannot tell when it is powered on by sound alone (although that's without a GPU).

    Biggest downside is that the power button is on the top. I disabled it's functionality in bios after 1 too many unintentional server shutdowns. I can't say too much about the thermals, it's never been under much load.

    2 votes
  7. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    Saigot
    (edited )
    Link Parent
    Yeah this game was really nice in the first couple hours. I was particularly impressed with the alert system which felt more realistic and fun than other stealth titles. The lore sucked me in and...

    Yeah this game was really nice in the first couple hours. I was particularly impressed with the alert system which felt more realistic and fun than other stealth titles. The lore sucked me in and the weapons felt good.

    However after the first loop or so I had all the most powerful guns and abilities and just sort of ran through the levels. I think it would have been better to lean into a more rogue-like direction and not have more weapon variety and no residium or whatever it's called, although that might be my bias for roguelikes. I agree there was a lot of filler near the end, where I would just jump into a level sprint to some location and read a text log to progress the game.

    The multiplayer was really bad. Bad connectivity and matchmaking issues, unfairly balanced, easily gameable (seriously if colt gets salty he can just quit and face no consequences, or he can turn invisible in a corner for 3 hours). It sold itself as more than just a 1 on 1 fight, but I never got much of a chance to really sabotage or be sabotaged, it was more just camp the thing you have to hack and then fight it out, which almost always devolved into a game of knifing each other in the back. They clearly put the single player experience first, which is a good call but makes the MP useless. Not worth losing the ability to pause over.

    The game felt kind unfinished? Not in a cyberpunk kinda way (although I had a number of annoying crashes) but more that it didn't feel like there was enough to shake the core gameplay loop up., and many aspects only seemed to get used once (e.g the power stuff felt under-used, and there's only one "class-pass" locked door that I encountered).

    Spoilers for the last scene of the game The game's ending was extremely unsatisfying. There were tonnes of unanswered questions and colt brushes them off saying he doesn't care. Then boom I shoot Julianna, jump off the cliff and the game just... ends. It made the rest of the game leading up to it seem worse.

    I think maybe they are saving stuff for DLC? that's the only way it makes sense.

    for me the game is a 6/10. Now that I've finished it I don't see myself ever going back. I have high hopes for a deathloop 2 though, the series (if it becomes one) has real potential.

    6 votes
  8. Comment on What to do with NFC tags in ~comp

    Saigot
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    Scan to silence your alarm in order to force you out of bed in the morning.

    Scan to silence your alarm in order to force you out of bed in the morning.

    5 votes
  9. Comment on What is something you've changed your mind about recently? in ~talk

    Saigot
    Link Parent
    Personally I think the official git manual is the best way. Reading the book cover to cover or least the first couple chapters (ch9 and 10 in particular aren't very useful for users) is extremely...

    Personally I think the official git manual is the best way. Reading the book cover to cover or least the first couple chapters (ch9 and 10 in particular aren't very useful for users) is extremely useful. It may not be the fastest way but it's very obtainable and very thorough.

    I read it over 4 months during my (very boring) first internship and while I don't remember every detail it has been extremely helpful.

    https://git-scm.com/book/en/v2

    5 votes
  10. Comment on Video game giant EA steering players into loot-box option in popular soccer game, insider says in ~games

    Saigot
    Link Parent
    I think we need some sort of tiered system ideally. In a game like Counter Strike, the loot boxes are sold and traded really openly, you get a ~$1 crate which you open with a ~$5 key for the...

    I think we need some sort of tiered system ideally.

    In a game like Counter Strike, the loot boxes are sold and traded really openly, you get a ~$1 crate which you open with a ~$5 key for the chance of either a 30c item or a $500+ item., all but the cheapest items are impossible to get without spending money. These items are also gambled by 3rd party sites based on the results of the pro league, it is transparently sports gambling. I've seen very young people in game with inventories worth 4digits at least. I see no difference between this and traditional gambling and it should be regulated exactly like gambling, it is appalling that it is allowed to continue and I'm surprised at how little flak Valve gets for it.

    Overwatch on the other hand has no way to trade or sell any part of it. you can only buy the boxes from overwatch, directly (no fake currency or key system). Every item is obtainable through play, and in my experience the vast majority of players seem to have most of the items they want through play. There's a theoretical max amount of money you could put into the game, and I think it's very telling that overwatch has had to have multiple revenue generating streams (a sanctioned pro league, the base cost of the game and non-gambling based cosmetics for sale) whereas CS was able to go free to play. I think this sort of thing shouldn't be completely regulation free, but it's a very different thing to the above with very different addictive properties and I think they can be somewhat less regulated.

    I'm not really sure exactly what those regulations should be, and I think most politicians are even less likely to be able to understand the problem properly, so it's probably going to have to be an all or nothing type of thing, but I think it's at least discuss the idea.

  11. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    Saigot
    Link Parent
    I'm a long time Isaac fan and yeah I feel like many of the problems with Afterbirth have been remedied, and the game has been made significantly longer. I feel like when I'm losing it's much more...

    I'm a long time Isaac fan and yeah I feel like many of the problems with Afterbirth have been remedied, and the game has been made significantly longer. I feel like when I'm losing it's much more because of bad skills or bad decision and almost never bad luck. the game is also practically twice as big as afterbirth, with a significant difficulty increase near the end game content to keep me busy. Most refreshing of all is that I feel like every game mechanic is worth using a substantial amount of the time. It's going to keep me busy for a very very long time that's for sure.

    2 votes
  12. Comment on How do you choose a desktop wallpaper? in ~talk

    Saigot
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    Whenever I see an appropriately big wallpaper I like I add it to a folder that I have cycling always. I have 113 currently. I try to choose ones that have something interesting to say about them,...

    Whenever I see an appropriately big wallpaper I like I add it to a folder that I have cycling always. I have 113 currently. I try to choose ones that have something interesting to say about them, art from a game/TV show I liked, interesting moments in history/science/math. it can be a good conversation starter.

    2 votes
  13. Comment on <deleted topic> in ~books

    Saigot
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    The Martian by Andy Weir was really comforting read when the isolation was getting to me. It reminded me of how much worse it can be, and the importance of being goal oriented at a time like this.

    The Martian by Andy Weir was really comforting read when the isolation was getting to me. It reminded me of how much worse it can be, and the importance of being goal oriented at a time like this.

    4 votes
  14. Comment on Any fans of regular non-smart watches? in ~hobbies

    Saigot
    Link Parent
    It sounds like you might like a hybrid watch. They have the mechanics of a regular watch but with the tech of a smart watch (minus the screen) and a much longer battery life.

    It sounds like you might like a hybrid watch. They have the mechanics of a regular watch but with the tech of a smart watch (minus the screen) and a much longer battery life.

    4 votes
  15. Comment on Are there any viable alternatives for Facebook? in ~tech

    Saigot
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    Facebook is a very early social media, I don't think it has the same focus that modern social media has. It's a lot of different things to different people. For me and people in my circles...

    Facebook is a very early social media, I don't think it has the same focus that modern social media has. It's a lot of different things to different people. For me and people in my circles facebook functions as an address book and a Lowest common denominator chat client (large group chats where no one is close enough to be on the same messaging platform). Right now the newest post on my facebook feed is 4 days old simply because the people in my social group very rarely want every single person they know to know any particular thing, the intersection of things I'm happy for my friends, old highschool acquaintances, work and family to all know is astonishingly small. In short the purpose of the platform for me comes entirely from it's ubiquity, for anything specific there are specific social media platforms that are better.

    However to others Facebook is a games platform, or a political platform, or for hobbiest groups. If facebook is ever going to die (and I believe it is well on it's way to that) it will be death by a thousand cuts, as users replace different aspects of facebook with a different platforms. The use of facebook as a public photo album has already been mostly consumed by intagram, and the days of short "whats on my mind" posts have mostly migrated to twitter. I believe going forward we will see other parts of facebook entirely die in favour of more focused social media.

    Gone are the days of a single monolithic social media, now we each subscribe to many social medias that cater to our specific use cases, I don't think any social media is even trying to do that anymore.

    4 votes
  16. Comment on Cyberpunk 2077 epileptic PSA in ~games

    Saigot
    Link Parent
    Fortunately it appears to be fixed now.

    Fortunately it appears to be fixed now.

    2 votes
  17. Comment on Cyberpunk 2077: What do you think? in ~games

    Saigot
    (edited )
    Link
    I'm about 5hrs in, 1 story mission and 3 side quests in basically, so I don't think I've really explored the mechanics much at all. I'm running on pc with 5700xt. Buggy-ness wise I'm pleasently...

    I'm about 5hrs in, 1 story mission and 3 side quests in basically, so I don't think I've really explored the mechanics much at all. I'm running on pc with 5700xt.

    Buggy-ness wise I'm pleasently surprised. There's a few of the usual open world snafus (corpses behaving weird, multiple people in one chair) but nothing that took me away from the experience. There's also the annoyance of occasionally while using ctrl to crouch the game will detect I'm not crouching anymore and trigger all the alarms, this is annoying but not too common. I did however run into 3 full system crashes at seemingly random, but they went away when I updated to the latest drivers. I was expecting a LOT worse.

    Performance wise I'm also somewhat impressed, I'm running on ultra ( minus motion blur) at 1440p 1080p (ops, i guess it's less great, still good enough for me though Update2: I am now running at 1440p and getting a solid 60fps) and managing a decent 70fps, although I may need to lower it a bit in the later levels I suspect this is pretty great.

    Gameplay wise it seems rather generic open world afair. I enjoy the guns being a little more rpg-esk than the likes of GTA and the melee system seems a little more interesting than press click repeatedly that Skyrim and the like have. It's still rather shallow and focuses more on empowering the player than providing a challenge or encouraging creativity. I think I'd sum it up as the better parts of the systems of fallout, GTA and Skyrim. It's adequate but nothing revolutionary.

    story seems boring so far, but I am very very very early on in it so I don't think it's fair to judge yet. having finished the game the story is great

    Overall it's a slightly better than average for the bland, but pleasent experiences I've come to expect from AAA games. No where close to a goty for me, (for that outerwilds takes the cake)

    3 votes
  18. Comment on How Nintendo has hurt the Smash community in ~games

    Saigot
    Link Parent
    I don't think Nintendo wants to have eSports on its platform. Nintendo seems to want to be family friendly, kid oriented and accessible to people of all skill levels. eSports is perceived to be...

    I don't think Nintendo wants to have eSports on its platform. Nintendo seems to want to be family friendly, kid oriented and accessible to people of all skill levels. eSports is perceived to be contrary to those ideals, and alienating to their base. They want to distance themselves from the Gamerâ„¢ culture as much as possible.

    I think this is a misstep by them by I am also completely unsurprised.

    3 votes
  19. Comment on 2020 US Presidential Election Day - Discussion Thread in ~misc

    Saigot
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    No 538 gave Biden a 29% chance of winning a blowout (defined as double digit margins), you can see it's one of their highlights of their forecast here. Look at the chart I just shared again you...

    Are we just going to ignore that the vast majority of the simulations are showing an utter landslide?

    No 538 gave Biden a 29% chance of winning a blowout (defined as double digit margins), you can see it's one of their highlights of their forecast here. Look at the chart I just shared again you can see the biggest hump, the one that is most likely, was at around 413 electoral votes, a blowout. however, recall that the area under the graph represents the probability that any of those events take place. Which has a higher probability, the area between 200 and 350, or the area between 350 and 500?

    Except they're wrong about Georgia, North Carolina, Florida, and Pennsylvania

    Georgia, Pennsylvania and NC are still very much in play.

    along with races much closer in other states than predicted.

    The votes have not finished counting yet.

    11 votes
  20. Comment on 2020 US Presidential Election Day - Discussion Thread in ~misc

    Saigot
    Link Parent
    I take issue with your first point. Just because it is likely that Biden will win does not mean it is likely that Biden will win by a large margin. The current result seems right in line with...

    I take issue with your first point. Just because it is likely that Biden will win does not mean it is likely that Biden will win by a large margin. The current result seems right in line with 538's predictions, the only surprise for 538 was Florida which was a tight race to begin with but also has a large impact on the winner. I don't know about the rest of American coverage but a tight election that hinged on pennsylvania is what 538 and my local (Canadian) media predicted.

    There are of course pundits on all sides who say stupid things, they are the ones who are really useless.

    13 votes