I’ve definitely had some coworkers that in retrospect we should not have hired. But I’ve also had people I was iffy on that turned out great. Hiring is hard.

I think having areas with weaker or stronger enemies is fine. Good, even. So long as you can tell by looking at them what you’re getting into.

Dark Souls generally does this. A rotting skeleton is a low threat. A giant knight in black armor and man sized sword is a bigger threat.

Oblivion will often have dudes that visually and behaviorally are the same, but hit way differently because of the numbers assigned to them. You can’t really look at a scene and understand what you’re getting into.

Other games also do a bad job here. Borderlands for example will have identical looking bandits, but in this area they’re indestructible level 100, and that one they’re push over level 5. The ass-creed Viking one did the same thing. Archers on one side of the river you could ignore, but the far side would one hit you.

I think a lot of studios don’t want to invest in the extra art assets and stuff when it’s cheaper to just use the same monster model and assign it different numbers.

I feel like trying to combine

• high vertical power growth
• non linear “open world”
• power fantasy

all together is just fundamentally at odds with itself.

Personally I’d prefer to see less vertical power growth. I’d rather have the numbers stay somewhat constrained.

Like, let’s say the most damage you can ever do with a lightning spell is 100. Work backwards from that to figure out how much health things should have. We want a master mage to be able to blow mooks up in one zap, mid tier in 3, and big scary shit in 6.

A novice mage zaps for 20. We want mooks to take 3 hits, mid tier stuff maybe 10, and big scary stuff a lot.

Mooks: ~60hp Mid tier: ~210 Bosses: 600

If your gameplay is then deeper than a simple stat check, a novice can persevere and win against a big challenge.

I really super dislike it when you have stuff that looks like a mook or a boss, but is statted otherwise. I remember in Oblivion some witch lady was oddly high level, and she kept fighting despite having like 50 arrows in her face.

Something like that, but with more thought put into it than a Lemmy post from the couch.

Oblivion was kind of really bad though. It had the worst level scaling of the genre.

I think the spell crafting was also toned down and more gated than Morrowind. And the equipment I think was overly simplified.

I… I played a lot of guild wars 2. It’s a good game!

But about 40 games total. I don’t want to be a mono-gamer so that’s nice.

Nine Sols is squarely in the “good but not fun” category for me. It is well executed but I did not enjoy most of it. Also the story is a bummer.

I reinstalled Sekiro after finishing it to see if my memory was rose tinted. No, sekiro is still like music. Even cleared the “you should lose this fight” tutorial boss.

Path of Exile 2 is pretty good. Wasd movement and a dodge roll are nice. Some parts are still rough, but it’s been out like a month.

I don’t really trust that just anyone will make something new and fun. Something that tries to extract money, sure.

Seems kind of bland, but I guess we’ll see

I don’t think I’ve ever desired to have speech as an interface for a device.

Yeah, I could yell at it “Open the browser and go to uhh the order of the stick comic index page” and maybe it would get it right. Or I could just… click on the browser, type oot and pick it from the drop down. Faster, no error, no expensive processing.

I don’t drive (cars are a bad form of transit and I’m lucky enough to not need one) and I’m not hands-full in the kitchen often.

I’m pretty sure sleep more uses more energy than turning the machine off when it’s not in use

Seems like a waste of electricity to me

As someone else said it really depends on what they’re actually asking for.

If they’re like “how do I make the screen turn off after an hour?” then telling them to switch to Linux is a bad response.

If they were like “I cant upgrade to windows 11, and I don’t even want to, and I don’t want to spend money. I just want a web browser and steam with security updates” then talking about Linux is a viable conversation path.

The little old lady next to me says hello and sometimes let’s me know if there’s a package waiting for me.

The people on the other side I don’t know. They don’t seem especially friendly or unfriendly, but I’m happy to live and let live.

I see no need to install an app for what is essentially a web site.

I really liked midnight suns. I enjoyed picking what cards to use. I enjoyed the gameplay where you can use your cards, environment, and movement to win effectively. I even liked the socializing parts. Yes, I want to play videogames with Spiderman and hang out with Captain marvel.

Thinking about it, a combination of “You need good gear to win” AND “You need good player skill to win” might not be my cup of tea.

I only have ~250 hours in Path of Exile 1, but I never got really deep into theory or build craft. I don’t really love the spreadsheet and forums mode of the genre that much.

I guess we’ll see!

Remember that jury nullification exists. If you’re being asked to convict on something that’s bullshit, you can just say not guilty and the court can’t tell you that you gave the wrong answer.

This is a double edged property. It can be used as easily to shield some guy smoking pot from jail as a hate crime.

Just don’t tell them you’re nullifying because they’ll remove you.

This sounds more my taste. I played a fair amount of PoE1, but a lot of it ended up feeling like I was just running my stats around. I’d win or lose because of gear. Like, I could hand control over to someone who’d never played before and they’d do mostly fine.

Contrast with like Sekiro where handing someone the controller they’ll probably just get stomped, since it has a bigger player skill factor.

A balance of those two extremes sounds nice.

No. I never really used it much. Facebook is bad and everyone should delete it. Staying in touch with friends can be done with email, chat, or federated services.

It is a peeve of mine in a game where it’s like

• go to a cave. It’s empty
• go to a town. Guy says cave is haunted please clear it out
• go back to same cave. Now it’s full of ghosts and skeletons!

I feel like this has become less common in the last decade though