New World Season 1

For Real, Maybe

Two more days of waiting; 4/4 for the Season 1 launch in New World.

Steam Backlog: Bejeweled 3

How did this get in here?

 Next on the journey into my Steam backlog is Bejeweled 3.  I don't ever remember buying this game or even remember wanting to buy this game.  But it's in the backlog so it must be played!

 

  The game is a straight forward puzzle game.  Swap gems and line up three.  Get lucky (or plan strategically) and an avalanche of combinations is possible.  Line up more than three and get special gems that explode or have other effects on the board.

 I put in my hour of playtime and feel satisfied enough to check this one off my Steam backlog checklist.  My final score:

This post is part of my running series: My Steam Backlog (see all MySteamBacklog tagged posts). 

New World Season 1

Still Delayed

Looks like we'll be waiting a few more days for New World Season 1.  April 2nd is the new target.

New World Season Pass

Complete the pass in 2-3 hours?

 I came across a video by Lemoni that explains how to complete the New World Season 1 pass. According to Lemoni, the pass can be completed in just two to three hours, which is significantly less than the "50 hours to complete" quoted by the developers in a recent video on seasons. Watching Lemoni's video has left me wondering where the developers got their estimate of 50 hours from, and why the pass is structured in this way.

 Video embedded below:

 To speedrun the Season Pass, the key is to pre-stage objectives and have items ready to turn in, which many regular players likely already have. Once the player has prepared, they can use a 2x season experience potion and turn in all the pre-staged objectives to receive double the experience. This way, players can maximize their returns within the short time the potion is active and quickly complete the pass. While it may not be possible for every player to complete the pass in just a few hours, this method demonstrates how players can make progress much faster than the estimated 50 hours. 

 I'm not against maximizing return in a video game, but I think this shows a poor design to the season pass where experience is rewarded lump sum and the potions apply to those lump sums.  This is counter to pretty much every "battle pass" I've come across. Just using the Battlefield 2042 Season 4 pass as a comparison; any experience boost only applies to passive experience gained for actions taken.  Any mission completed that rewards experience is not affected by the pass.  Also you can't save up to "turn in" a mission later on; it just completes when you reach the criteria.

 The main two issues with the New World season pass as I see it: passive experience is negligible and there is too much tied to the moment something is turned in (aka lump sum).

 Passive experience is what is gained by just playing the game.  Kill a wolf; get season experience.  Complete an arena match; get season experience.  For some reason New World decided passive experience was going to be so small that it would be impossible to use just passive experience to complete the pass (even though they try to say it's possible in their video).  Yet, in the "card" system player's can get a lump sum reward for things as simple (and dumb) as eating 10 stacks of food.  Not even eating 10 stacks of food over normal play where you have to let the food buff expire; you can just ram down 10 in 10 clicks and be done!  Yet going on an open world adventure and fighting through hordes of enemies will barely be noticeable on the progress bar.

 Since passive experience from just playing the game is not the way then what is the way?  That is the lump sum card system where players get a literal bingo card of objectives to complete (like the eat 10 food).  However, the bingo card spots don't autocomplete.  Player's get to choose what part of the bingo card are completed after fulfilling the requirement. This is why Lemoni's method works: you just keep saving up completed items to cash in during the boost.

 There are also lump sum reward challenges for the season; quite a few as Lemoni notes in his video you can get ready ahead of time since they are all turn-in related actions and thus you can cash in with the double experience.  It is so bizarre that lump sum rewards get doubled by the boost potion.  Unaware players are going to be punished for not knowing and those that do know are going to progress faster than the developer planned 50 hours.  No doubt speed runners will then complain about a lack of content for the season.

 The sensible way for this to have worked is that players get passive experience for almost all of their activities and the boost potion doubles passive experience gain for a short period.  Lump sum rewards should be static and unaffected by the boost.  This would mean players get more rewards for just playing the game instead of putting together a shopping list / completing a task list and lumping it all together for one giant boost.

 Also while I have not played the pass on PTR myself just watching the videos I am not a fan of the bingo card system.   The game didn't need another system to define objectives; it needs to drive players to existing structures such as town boards.  The season story quest line and challenges are fine, but the addition of the bingo card as the proposed main way to progress is overly complex compared to just rewarding us for playing the game.

 Season 1 is still delayed from the original planned 3/28 launch so we still have some time to wait.  What are your thoughts?

The Role of PvP in Online RPGs

Insights from Elden Ring

 I came across an interesting infographic from Elden Ring that sheds light on the state of PvP in online RPGs. One of the standout data points was that out of the 9 billion+ deaths in the game, only 2% were caused by other players. Additionally, there have been over 1 billion summons, but only 12% of those were invasions (i.e. the PvP mode).

 These figures are not surprising since Elden Ring is primarily marketed as a single-player RPG. However, they highlight the fact that most gamers tend to prefer cooperative play over competitive play when it comes to multiplayer games.

 Even though 12% of a billion and 2% of 9 billion may seem like small percentages, they still translate to a considerable amount of PvP gameplay. In fact, it may even exceed the amount of PvP gameplay found in some PvP-focused RPGs.

 From my perspective, this data underscores the importance of solid PvE and cooperative play as the foundation for multiplayer RPGs. While PvP can be added to the mix, it should never detract from the main focus of the game.

What are your thoughts on this topic?

 

 

 

 

Original image source: https://i.redd.it/zdwlwdh5sxoa1.jpg

No Rodgers News

Where is the Aaron Rodgers trade!?

Still no Rodgers news so I guess the answer to the question I posed before vacation, "I wonder if we'll have final Rodgers news before I get back?", was a no.

Trump was also not arrested as he told me he would be.

New World's Season 1 update was also delayed from March 28th to March 30th.

Diablo 4's beta actually ran a day longer than expected so I got to give it a whirl.

I guess I should say thanks for the universe pausing while I enjoyed not catching any fish while on vacation.

 

Conflicted: Thoughts on Diablo 4 Beta

Hackin'n'Slashin'

 The Diablo 4 beta ran longer than I thought so I was able to grab a download after getting back from vacation and give it a whirl (of hacking).  I am conflicted about the game.

 I have to admit there is an addictive quality to the game.  I found myself saying "just one more level" or "one more dungeon" before I had to finally cut myself off late into the night morning (oh, the sun is almost up).  I haven't binged a beta like this since New World.

I started as a Barbarian but found melee to be rough in this game.  Ranged attacks seemed like the way to go and after a few jaunts through the Diablo 4 sub-reddit and a couple YouTube videos it was clear ranged was the way to go so I restarted as a necromancer.

heartlessN - N for Necro!

 It was playing as the necromancer that the game grabbed me and didn't let go.  A satisfying drip drip drip of loot flush with constant upgrades.  Ranged combat that was far more manageable than up close melee.  A map filled with points of interest and "go here" indicators.

 There was also a story which from the community accounts is pretty good, but within 30 minutes I was back to "skip".  It is the rare game that catches my attention for story and in an "action RPG" the last thing I am diving into is story.  It was also a beta and I needed to avoid FOMO on the beta rewards for reaching level 20.  I still got the gist of the story.

 Action combat and story aside there is a lot else going on in Diablo 4.  There is "crafting and gathering" in a sense as you can upgrade gear and gather nodes throughout your adventures.  It does not seem like there is a cradle-to-grave crafting system and it's mostly focused on upgrades.

 There are "open world" zones you inhabit with other players; a little MMO to go with the action RPG.  These zones can have dynamic events where multiple players can participate, but rarely did I run into that scenario.  Towns featured other players and the lag to go with them.  I am lukewarm on this feature and not sure it fits.

 While the game was binge-worthy there were some things that didn't sit quite right with me and in my post-binge clarity have kept me from hitting that pre-purchase button.

 Chief among things that didn't sit quite right was the theme.  The opening cinematic (along with some of the early story) is pretty gruesome.  This is not a game I would feel comfortable playing in front of my 13 year old or letting him play.  Maybe it is old age, and I am not sure what I expected from a game in the Diablo franchise, but I have a hard time saying I am going to sit through this dark and drab world for hundreds of hours.

 The other major issue I had was the zoom level; it is way too close.  There were multiple boss battles where I legitimately could not see what was going on.  Playing as a necromancer with lots of pets I often found my pet skeletons at the edge of the screen chopping down what was next.  I would jump in with ranged attacks at screens edge with little idea what I was even hitting.  The game needs to zoom out.  

 Also I found a lack of reward in getting rewards.  The constant drip of loot is great and the pace at which upgrades come is excellent (at least in the early leveling we got in the beta), but other than some numbers going up I found little in the way of variety.  Sword better than the wand you had?  Equip it.  Scythe better than the sword and shield you had? Equip it.  While that can be satisfying it also meant that I was never really attached to anything.  

 Maybe this changes with the legendary loot (see Dragon Spine of Empowering Reaper on right) and the special ability it comes with (which you can extract and stick in other gear), but as it stood in the beta I never got a sense of being rewarded for my play style.  There was a distinct lack of attachment to the weapon and armor I was obtaining and thus a distinct lack of feeling rewarded.

 Last, a quick note on balance.  The classes were not balanced for this beta.  RIP anyone trying to play on harder difficulty as melee.  Melee is weak.  Playing as a necromancer was a cakewalk in comparison to barbarian.  I trust they will tune this up for launch, but it is worth noting because it was that imbalanced in the beta.

 I haven't paid attention to Diablo in a long time and had mostly written off Blizzard since the Activision merger.  So I was not keeping tabs on the game coming and it was honestly only through some streamers I follow that my interest got piqued.  This was a similar trajectory that brought me to New World (where I've spent thousands of hours now).  There was a lot to like about Diablo 4 and it's on my "possible" list, but I do struggle with the theme and whether I really can stick that out for any length of time.

 Diablo 4 comes out in June so I've got some time to think on it.

Missing out on Diablo 4 beta

Still on vacation so probably going to miss the open beta for Diablo 4.

Steam Backlog: Batman: Arkham Asylum

Dark... Black

 Batman: Arkham Asylum, of which I played 9 hours, was fun.  It landed at a point in my life where I had just become a new father and I started spending more time in singleplayer offline games than I did in online multiplayer games.  I never beat the game, but do have fond memories of it.

 Like other games I did not choose to revisit Arkham so just going to share some thoughts (see past posts tagged Batman:AA).

 The first memory that jumps back to me is "dark... black".  The game hit the mark for the cliche Batman "black".  Everything is dark and brooding.  I don't think "daylight" or "bright light" exist in the Asylum.

 I also remember the combat and it was fun; albeit I do remember it being a little harder to master on keyboard/mouse than I expected.  That did push me away from finishing the game (as well as having a young kiddo taking up my free time).  With more time this is one I'd probably revisit to finish at some point.

This post is part of my running series: My Steam Backlog (see all MySteamBacklog tagged posts).

Steam Backlog: Bastion

Narrator Narrates

 I played Bastion for six hours when it came out and I loved every minute of it.  It is not a game I chose to revisit and play as part of my Steam backlog journey but it brought back lots of fond memories (see all posts tagged Bastion).

 The most memorable aspect of Bastion was the narrator.  It narrates every action the player takes and makes it feel like it was designed commentary when it is actually dynamic; ever-changing based on what the player is doing.

 "The boy moves forward to smash the thing."

 "The boy smashes the thing."

 I didn't have to smash it.  Did it know I was going to smash it?  Was it leading me along?  The narration is phenomenal in that regard and I can still hear the voice in my head.  The game world, story, and combat itself was a ton of fun, but the narrator put it over the top.

 At one point the game had me thinking hard about MMOs as well.  Narration was a big idea; Bastion showed me that dynamic narration can work and that is exactly the type of narration an MMO would need.  Then more aspects of the game spilled out of my brain into that blog post and if you told me tomorrow that a Bastion MMORPG was being developed I would be the first person in line.  So much of Bastion make sense for an MMORPG.

 Now that I've written this post I think I may have to revisit this gem!

 This post is part of my running series: My Steam Backlog (see all MySteamBacklog tagged posts).