@thepanzini: But you're talking about people upgrading from XB1 to Series X/S, when my point was simply that backwards compatibility made it all the more unlikely for anyone to switch from MS to Sony or vice-versa. MS handily lost gen 8, and in going to gen 9 the backwards compatibility makes it that much more desirable not to change ecosystems. You just said yourself that Xbox has half Playstation's MAU, that's the point, with backwards compatibility now being a thing it's all the more likely to stay that way. No one with years of free PS+ games and other purchases on Sony's side is going to be all that interested in buying an Xbox, whereas in previous generations it mattered less because there was a clean break, the new system didn't play the previous gen's games. If MS had shit the bed a generation earlier then theoretically they would have had a better chance to recover. Now they're stuck with half Sony's MAU with no clear path to closing the gap. IMO I'm just stating the obvious here.
AtheistPreacher's forum posts
Grubb and Gerstmann have both talked about the potential of consoles to turn into a phone-like device where, rather than there being concrete differentiators between generations of them, they become devices that instead get spec bumps and redesigns every once and a while but otherwise function the same much like phones or tablets do these days ( i.e. outside of specific, small changes, the iPhone 12 and iPhone 14 largely function identically. One just has a faster SoC and better camera setup than the other). Microsoft has already been doing this to a certain extent since the Xbox One and it wouldn't be surprising to see Sony doing the same in the future. It makes sense too. It's not like the old days where each platform was dramatically different under the hood, making porting games from one platform to another or to the PC a complete nightmare.
This just reminds me once again how deeply hilarious it is that Microsoft did the whole Xbox One debacle at exactly the wrong console generation. Current-gen consoles both toted almost total backwards compatibility with the previous generation as a major feature, and it was because, as you say, the new ones were basically a spec bump. But backwards compatibility just locks you in all the more to whatever console ecosystem you find yourself in, and Sony so squarely won gen 8 that Microsoft was always going to be completely screwed for a backwards-compatible gen 9. How do you convince people to abandon their entire digital catalog of games from the other ecosystem in order to switch to a new one that is nearly identical? Good luck with that.
It's become increasingly clear that not many people actually care about all of the graphical bells and whistles that the new consoles enable. Only a small minority of PC gamers play in 4K, and on consoles most people would be more than content with upscaled 1080p or 1440p rather than native 4K if it meant consoles and games were cheaper (that's ignoring that the extreme majority of people couldn't tell the difference between native 4k and upscaled 1080p in the first place). The lion's share of popular games are available on the older consoles still. As Gerstmann said on his podcast yesterday, if you are a mainstream game player who only plays games a few hours a week, why would you buy a PS5 when you can keep playing COD or Fortnite with your buddies on your old PS4? Sure the games look a bit better on the PS5, but outside of that the experience is largely the same. On the PC side of things, cheaper GPUs are massively more common as well. Unless you have specific needs or are a nerd, it's extremely hard to justify buying anything more powerful than a 3060/4060 when cards like those will competently run pretty much every popular game under the sun right now. Most of the current drive for faster and shinier consoles and PC GPUs comes from an extremely loud but ultimately small minority of gamers who increasingly don't represent the average person who plays games anymore.
I don't know if I really have a point here, but in reading this last paragraph of yours my mind went immediately to phones. Because to me it seems like everyone always wants whatever the hot new phone is despite my not understanding at all how they're actually different. I've only ever owned one smart phone, given to me by my brother and mother in late 2016. After 7.5 years, I just replaced the protective case because too many of the little rubber bits around the buttons and ports had fallen off. Phone still works fine, I can't think of a reason why I would want or need a new one.
Whereas to me the new gen consoles do still have value. You could say that I just like the "console experience" as you put it, since I'm definitely not fully utilizing it. My TV is still a 37-inch 1080 from 2009 (for that matter, my PC monitors are also fairly old and definitely not 4K). But the load times are way nicer, there are still some exclusives I do care about, putting together a good PC rig is still generally more expensive, and the console "walled garden" does help keep down the number of hackers/cheaters in multiplayer games (provided you've turned off crossplay). I recently got a promotion and a nice pay bump, and sometime in the next year or so I'll probably put together a higher-end PC gaming rig for the first time in my life (after using low- to mid-range ones for many years) simply because I have a bit more money to burn, but even then I suspect I will continue to default to the PS5, because I don't actually care that much if my PC has some extra oomph over the PS5. I kinda just like the consoles, it's what I'm used to.
IDK, I think the real question is how many people are still somewhat irrationally attached to the console environment and will buy the new one just because it's the new one, in the way that so many people seem irrationally drawn to getting new phones for (so far as I can tell) very little real benefit. I suspect that number is still pretty large; whether PC gaming has gotten easier won't necessarily affect it that much. It's the momentum of a lifetime of habit. And the people who grew up with consoles are at the point in their careers where they're starting to make a bit more money, and will probably be happy to continue to prop up that habit in the form they're used to experiencing it in.
I do think it's obvious that the longer length of the eighth generation is definitely the new normal. As you say, the decreasing growth in GPU power and of games flexing themselves graphically has made the differences between generations less noticeable. But I think plenty of people will still be buying PS6's in the late 2020s and I'll be one of them. I guess we'll see.
@gyratyne: Ouch, that sucks. I haven't experienced any crashes myself. All I've run into is minor bugs with boon interactions etc not working quite correctly.
BTW, I thought it was funny that I found that Staff of Momus + Poseidon Special build independently, and then in looking for recommendations for builds to beat Fear 32 (to get Skelly's last statue), I found a Steam thread in which everyone was pretty much agreeing that that was the easiest and safest build in the game. The icing on the cake is that the Momus Aspect can also heal you back to half using its Omega Specials after every encounter. God forbid you get Aphrodite's "Healthy Rebound" at 50%, then you can just heal to full after every encounter. It definitely feels brokenly strong right now, especially since it requires basically no mana. I think they're going to have to nerf it at some point. So I'm glad I've already exploited it to complete that pair of Fear 32 runs before that happens, and can go back to something more reasonable. Now that I'm done with that, there's no gameplay reason to go higher than Fear 20, so far as I know, which is a lot more doable.
Whereas, speaking to your earlier post, I feel like the biggest consensus balance-wise in the community is that the Torches really do need a buff, or need to be redesigned completely. I've seen almost no one saying they like the Torches right now.
For weapons, I feel that the Witch's Staff is well balanced; decent at both close and long range. I like to use the Aspect of Circe, which grants a burst of magic regen after a number of strikes. This lets me worry less about getting a good boon for that.
Whereas I've been going for the Aspect of Momus, which goes all in on the Special spam, since at max upgrades it gives a flat increase to Special damage of +30. Considering that default Special damage is 10 and this bumps it 40, thrown in Poseidon and you're pretty well flattening things, even without that x2 tracking Hammer.
The Moonstone Axe is the strongest weapon with massive damage and area of attack. The blocking is less useful than the Aegis Shield since it can't be held for long, but it's still nice to have the option. I recently unlocked the Aspect of Thanatos, which seems even more busted by increasing crit chance after omega hits.
The effect definitely sounds good, but I've been seeing reports that it's bugged with a lot of things right now. E.g., if you pick up the Hammer that throws the spinning omega attack forward and adds +80% damage, each individual hit of the spin not longer counts as a hit for the Thanatos buff, instead it's only +1 for the entire spin duration. I'm sure that stuff will be fixed, but it sounds like it's less reliable in practice than it should be right now.
Funnily enough, for Axe I've lately been using Charon even though the unique interaction it offers between the standard cast and omega specials is not something I ever use. Instead, I use it simply because of the extended cast time (+3 seconds, which I think is actually double or almost double the normal length?). This does a few things I like. First, it makes more relevant the arcana card that increases damage to enemies inside your cast, since it actually gives you time enough to fully charge and unleash your omega attack before the cast wears off. Second, it makes Zeus's Storm Ring--which already seemed like the best cast in the game--even better, as it traps and damages enemies for that much longer.
For boons, Demeter has become the favorite that I can fall back on, like Athena used to be. Not only is freeze is highly effective crowd control, but cyclone counts as a separate curse. With proper boons, the cast alone can trigger the Origination arcana card to greatly increase damage output. I wonder if that gets patched out because it seems overpowered.
I do like Demeter a lot and for my early runs I would take her attack boon for my axe every damned time, because the freeze (especially if you get the extended duration) really helped mitigate the slow swing speed... by the time enemies were unfrozen they were either dead, or at least their armor was all gone so that they could be safely stunlocked. Also, her "Weed Killer" is a must for the axe since it relies so heavily on its omega attack. However, in more recent runs I've discovered I prefer the Aphrodite attack boon for the axe even more... it just does that much more raw damage.
My bet is that the devs are fine with that Origination interaction. Personally I haven't even been using that card at all, it generally seems a little harder to take advantage of in this game without giving up something of equal strength (whereas in the first game I was constantly using/proccing that mirror effect with the Chiron Bow, with Aphrodite causing weak with the main shot, and Demeter inflicting chill with the tracking arrows). My sense is that they want to encourage the use of these types of combos, and will focus on nerfs on boons or weapons that are stand-alone OP, at least on the first tuning pass. Though, hell, what do I know? I guess we'll find out soonish.
The PS5 controller has a battery life of about 3 hours, and that's horrific
This may be very "old man yells at cloud," but I could not care less about controller battery life because I never unplug the thing. Cords simply don't bother me, and I'm not sure why every controller needs to be wireless now. If there was an official wired DualSense I would buy it.
I prefer Sony's controllers, but that's the least surprising thing in the world considering Playstation has pretty much been my primary gaming console since the PS1 one came out. It's hard to be objective about it when those controllers are just the ones I'm used to.
It does say something that the DualSense resembles an Xbox controller more than any of Sony's controllers ever have before. In that sense I suppose MS ultimately won the battle for most ergonomic shape, they all basically look like that now. However, I will say that I've always hated both the feel of the Xbox d-pad and the placement of it further away from the outer edge. I will die on that hill, so to speak. I much prefer the mirrored analog sticks of the Playstation controllers.
Nintendo easily wins for most creative controllers over the years, they've never been afraid to try new things, but I can't say I've ever really been in love with any of them.
I'm curious if others have continued to play and have more thoughts. Per my last post, I thought that maybe I'd take a break and wait for more content, but actually I only paused for a day and then got drawn back in.
Game's real good. At this point I believe I've maxed out all NPCs on gifts for now, and also maxed out the levels of all the arcana cards I'm actually using (still plenty of others to upgrade). Did manage to beat a few runs on Fear 16 to unlock the second statue, but have not gone higher and after that have mostly been slumming on Fear 0, where it's now pretty hard to lose with the rogue-lite upgrades to Melinoe's kit and my own greater experience with the game. But I'm still finding it amusing.
What weapons have people gravitated to? I've played mostly Axe, as its ridiculous damage more than makes up for its slow swing speed... the slowdown for omega attacks mostly makes the slow speed a non-issue TBH. But I'm also not sure if the Axe really is as overpowered as it seems or it's just the kind of weapon I personally tend to gravitate to. Still, wouldn't be surprised to see a nerf in the first balance patch.
Eventually I went back to the Staff just to do something different, and fairly quickly discovered that it's actually pretty easy to turn it into a really powerful mana-less ranged weapon. Its "normal" (non-omega) special attack normally only does 10 damage, so %-based boons suck on it, but take Poseidon's flat damage boost (40 at Epic level) and suddenly your weak little pew-pew gun begins to hit like a truck. If you then manage to find the Hammer that changes your special so that it fires 2 tracking projectiles instead of just 1, you can pretty much just steamroll over everything for the rest of the run.
The other three weapons have not grabbed me. I dislike the extremely short range of the Sister Blades, the ammo retrieval on the Skulls is annoying, and the Torches feel underpowered. But maybe they're just not my style.
That first patch came out and fixed the gold display problem I mentioned earlier. It also made it so that the tool you pick is a "focus"--resources for the tool you pick just appear more often than other resources, but you are able to collect them all. So the game will no longer taunt you with resources you can't pick up. Probably a good change?
Besides the Axe in general, the other thing in the game that feels kinda OP to me is Zeus's Storm Ring, which blasts a single foe in your omega cast for insane damage, and pretty much always feels like the best option. In fact, if you get that and a boon that changes the cast to a projectile, you can almost ignore your primary weapon and just keep spamming your cast.
Anyway, I'll be interested to see how the game evolves. I came to the first Hades late, so I don't have a good sense of how things changed from the early days, but it seems likely that this one will change less now that SuperGiant has a formula to work from.
@gtxforza: I guess Sony just doesn't see the relatively small amount of additional sales as worthwhile for the hassle of breaking out the online components into a separate thing?
FWIW I did a bit of Google searching and found this video about Xenoblade Chronicles X, I think that's the one I was remembering. It does seem like it was a very horny game and has the kind of "armor" I was talking about. But it also apparently had various things censored outside of Japan. I guess they assume other countries are more prudish in general?
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