Topic: Crimson Desert

@StitchJones ah, I never noticed those things as being an issue for me, so I wouldn't have known how best to solve it. In fact, even though they are there I barely notice them unless i'm actively trying to press a button to interact. People's eyes do focus on different things though.

To me the game is weird enough and stupid enough to make up for any things I don't like as much. The annoying boss aggression on revives, for example are insane, but I get a lot out of the game in all the other moments.

Like my last session (i've only played the game maybe 2 times in the last 3 weeks) I was literally fighting a thousand enemies, conquering a giant castle, and then a minute later I was finding 3 pieces of meat for a guy who doesn't like vegetable stew 😂

I still don't know whether playing the story first or doing side content is right. You can literally be 60 hours in and stumble on a tutorial quest 😅 but I think that adds character to the game.

If you ever go back to it, hopefully you find some of the things that make it worthwhile to you. But if you can't get past the start as it is, it might just not be for you. Unfortunate, but it happens :/

@Metonymy have you played it much lately? As I eluded to above, I am kind of treating it like a live service game I can just dip into for a standalone session now and again at the moment, and it is working out okay for that.

I think you mentioned Kuku pots last month and I was going to reply I think they basically contain all the orbs and power cores you can pick up with your tele-hand. Some puzzles need electrical inputs so you can pop out an orb as and when you need. I believe they will be used for crafting weapons too, but I havent experienced that yet. I've not met any mechs or advanced science stuff yet. I've still barely left Hernand tbh. Main quest took me into Pailune slightly, but I left it there and started doing some Hernand exploration.

I truly have no idea of a logical order to play the game, but I don't think it matters much.

@Ravix Sounds like we’re playing similarly, then. I really do enjoy existing in the world, exploring and solving puzzles, building up the camp, fighting hordes of enemies and all that stuff. I’ve long accepted that there are certain aspects I just don’t and likely won’t care about (like characters or story) but Pearl Abyss continue to improve the experience and with how ridiculously huge the world is, I’ll continue to play it for as long as it holds my interest, even when I dip out for other experiences as they come. It really is a fascinating game in so many ways.

I still think a Phantom Liberty-esque update with a well written and well considered campaign could turn this thing into something truly special but I’m having a good time with it as is. I’ve been mostly pre-occupied with Saros and Pragmata but with wrapping those games up, I’m looking forward to putting a more concentrated effort into CD again.

@StitchJones Yeah, a lot of the design aspects here are frustrating, and honestly, quest design is rarely interesting either. It’s all about the exploration and discovery for me. PA have crafted a truly interesting and vast world here. How many games let you tear a tree out of the ground, crush a huge swath of enemies with it, pick the apples that fell from it up off the ground before something else does and then chop it up with an axe for materials to upgrade your shield. There’s countless examples like this of interlocking systems providing emergent moments for the player.

There’s a mad genius to the game but it’s buried under layers of abrasive and kind of baffling design decisions that have no sense of direction behind them. Yet once you’ve tasted that mad genius, it’s hard to fully pull yourself away. That said, in no world should I feel like I have to convince someone to slog through a rough 10 hours of a video game just to decide if the stuff it does well is enough to push beyond the stuff it doesn’t for another 100 hours. So I won’t 😅 you have my respect for giving it try!

@StitchJones Yeah, that’s not cool at all. I have patience for performance hiccups, shoddy design or lacking narrative but consistent crashing and hard progression blocks are, as far as I’m concerned, a defective product that should warrant a full refund.

Edit: Oh, and hope Mixtape works out. I’ll be picking it up soon. Sounds awesome

I beat it yesterday and all I can say is it was an experience. When I say beat I mean main quests and the joke of an epilogue complete. Obviously it never ends I could have put 200 more hours in but Hell no. Never has a game started off so strong and become frustratingly daft as it goes on and not in a good way. No longer my GOTY after Chapters 9 to 12 dear God it was an endurance test to finish but fair play to the developers it was one of those games that you think screw this I'm finishing it rather than use the disc as a coaster. I may return in a year or two's times think the devs will polish it and maybe make said return worthwhile. Can't believe as a stauch defender of the game I'm saying this but yes maybe pick it up later. Not because of any glitches it runs perfectly on a base PS5 it's the damn game mechanics and obtuse puzzles in later levels. The dragon landing, the tank I mean Jesus wept it was bad.

@THEBrew Fair play on finishing the game. Kinda feels like a game I'll never really finish. Did you just focus on the main quest and stop doing the faction quests? I was thinking of doing the same but then the other night I fought the Staglord as part of a faction quest and this was the best boss fight so far in my playthrough. So then I started wondering is some of the best content in the faction quests? Kinda like how it's generally accepted that the side quests in Oblivion and Skyrim are better than their respective main quests. I think I want to progress the main quest more anyway because I've yet to unlock the camp management system.

@McSavage At the start I played it just wandering around. But then I kinda hit a wall where no good quests were opening up so piled into the main storyline. And some stuff only opens by doing that obviously I won't say what for spoilers. But god it was painful there were missions that made utterly no sense and had to use a walkthrough. I don't think devs should dumb a game down per se but in this case I think they really should. I think my last 20 hours of the game were about me just wanting to finish the thing rather than enjoying it. And again without saying what happens but the epilogue was utter pants not even sure what the point of it was.

@THEBrew Fair play. That's one off your backlog anyway! How long did it take to finish the game out of curiosity?

Also "jesus wept" - I'm assuming you're from Ireland I'm a Dubliner myself.

@McSavage In England at the mo (unfortunately) but my mother was Irish.

100 hours give or take, I will return to the side quests at some point but I'm planning on a few straight forward games for awhile after the beast that was CD. I suspect we'll get more stuff added though maybe the already touted multi-player. I bet they'll add more quests and likely change more things via the regular patches haven't seen one for a few days though!