Topic: The Chit Chat Thread

@Yousef- I did see your post, and hope everything is ok. There is a Mental Health Awareness/Support Chat Thread on Push Square which you may or may not already be aware of. Hope you find it helpful if you do decide to post in there,

https://www.pushsquare.com/forums/ps_general_discussion/menta...

@Yousef- How are you? Haven't heard from you recently. Hope your physical and mental health are ok?

Hello friend, sorry to worry you. My silence is merely a coincidence and I was planning to give a reply eventually but I wasn’t finding the right words so I’m giving a shorter reply as a sign of reassurance. My life been busy. Busy but ok. Undeniably stressful but manageable nonetheless. I still cannot deny that I’m still having a hard time catching some shut-eye but I don’t feel bad physically. Mentally I feel ok, just the usual anxiety stuff. It doesn’t feel like a huge hindrance, not at the moment at least, I feel time management is everything for me. I took a day off today so I’ve had time for myself while still doing minor errands since I don’t like sitting at home all day. At least on thd gaming side I’ve been doing good. Finished Ape Escape 3 and it’s likely my favorite 3D platformer now. I think I’m moving onto god of war on ps2. Have a massive ps2 backlog that’s likely keeping me content. Once again, sorry to worry you and seeing that thread link gave me a lot of relief. I really do feel a lot of relief and calmness knowing there’s a support network out there. Gives me a sense of calmness I can’t convey so it’s quite nice.

@Yousef- I love your new avatar! What anime series is she from?

@Yousef- Excellent to hear that you're doing well. I loved the og God of War games back on Ps3 - I played the entire original trilogy, including the third game on Ps4, had a great time with those games but they can be a bit button-mashy in my opinion, preferred the rebooted 2018 game with Cory Barlog once again at the helm of the ship.

Surprisingly, the “button mashy” aspect won’t bother me since I’m a musou fan so I’m used to pushing a lot of square… bad joke. Anyways, while musous are fun (dynasty warriors 4 is my favorite so far), I’ve realized they’re… too fun, so before going on a full replay binge I feel it’s better to get some stuff out of my backlog.

If you want a few other examples of ps2 games I no longer have to worry about playing since they’re already out of my backlog, Ratchet & Clank and Yakuza come to mind.

I’m really happy I’m slowly having less and less high profile ps2 games left in me. Ever since I became a proper Sony nerd 15 something years ago, and I mean a proper proper Sony nerd as in the company not the consoles, I’ve made it my mission to go back and revisit many of their outings and their extensive backlog of PlayStation classics. The PS1 games were quite easy to experience, including things like Parappa the Rapper, Jak & Daxter also got re-released to death so that one was quite easy to play back in 2019.

But there’s other stuff that’s still buried deep within Sony’s library that’s not on modern systems as of the time typing this. I want to see what those are like.

So my dad randomly decided he wants go bowling with me. There’s a few bowling alleys in Kuwait, they’re a 20-30 minute drive but it’s worth it. In the meantime, I will leave this seemingly unrelated image of Roman Bellic right here.

I decided to give recording music another go, as I've said before I no longer have any ambitions with regard to becoming a professional musician, but it would be nice to document the jazz guitar solos that I improvise in some small fashion. Planning to upload the results to Spotify as I go!

Edit: I am planning to be a semi-professional, or novice musician rather than a professional guitar player now, with a full view on counselling psychology for the primary career.

@Yousef- Nice! Hope you enjoy bowling with your dad.

We had fun! Halfway through though informed my dad that I’ve never played pool before as we switched to that and had fun. He was surprised how good I was at it, even jokingly asked “didn’t you say you never played pool before?” I guess all my skills from playing Yakuza carried into real life. xd

I’m finding myself with a little extra free time than usual so i decided to finally reply to this Comment after having it on the back burner for nearly a week. While I don’t remember all the points I’ve wanted to make, I can at least still convey the main ideas I’ve had.

Yes, I’m well aware of the discourse surround the DLC’s difficulty and it rekindled some old opinions and reaffirmed my stance on the discourse.

FromSoft has a much longer history of self-borrowing than people realize. Every game influences future fromsoft in ways that aren’t immediately noticeable. So there’s actually a bit of moot point saying FS should borrow from BB or Sekiro as they’re likely to do that regardless, be it deliberately, subconsciously or a mix of both. We also must evaluate the fact that FromSoft is a game dev with a large history of experimentation and a ton of experience. While they may be bold enough to keep trying new stuff, that doesn’t necessarily equate to not learning from their mistakes. No one knows these games better than FS. they likely already considered so many ideas we have about taking inspiration from BB/Sekiro or taking no inspiration at all and decided at the best judgment what works and doesn’t work. We can’t definitively affirm what would work based purely on a hypothesis as we lack the means to try these ideas in action but FS doesn’t and I doubt they never think about this stuff. If they did, they’d commit to it however they see fit.

It’s important to remember difficulty plateauing also does not equate to a game design plateau. FS reaching a threshold of difficulty surprisingly means very little in the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t mean they reached their full potential as devs as they still got a lot left in the tank. Not to mention, it’s likely a positive sign that FS may stop trying to “out-do” themselves. I can speak from firsthand experience how perfectionism will inevitably halt your progress and you’ll never improve. It’s better to have something good you’re not 100% satisfied with than to have something you won’t release because you’re only 95% content with it.

But on a completely personal note here, I’m not really a fan of FS necessarily borrowing from their non-Dark Souls games as I frankly don’t see it as necessary. DS-trilogy+elden ring has not truly reached its potential and there’s still a lot of stuff to mix and match and explore. Borrowing mechanics does not translate to a better experience and as such I don’t strictly subscribe to the BB/Sekiro should influence DS more.

My last and final point about my personal preference against is this is my core enjoyment of souls games comes from character building and exploration, NOT combat. I was less engaged by FS’s modern non-DS outings because of that. I also generally seek more methodical and slower combat in general, which is why you’re more likely to see me rave about Ape Escape instead of Devil May Cry.

-All the best

Also thank you for linking this. I’ll take a look and drop a word there when I have the time. Might need to vent off stuff.

@Jimmer-jammer Wrapped up Shadow of the Erdtree yet? How's film work going? What did you think of the dlc if you did complete it, and I'd be interested if you had to summon for the notorious final boss as well? @Th3solution How-are your multiple game playthroughs going, my friend?

@Yousef- I appreciate the answer/sharing of knowledge you gave regarding FromSoft's 'threshold of difficulty' very insightful and informative, I keep saying 'This will be my last FromSoft game ever' once i complete one, but, you know, it's like Marlon Brando said in 'On the Waterfront' "I used to be a contendah, i try to get out, but they keep pulling me back in!"🤣

@BlAcK_SwOrDsMaN too true! It’s really addicting! Especially when you count things like new areas/armor/weapons as reward (to backtrack to my previous point, that’s somewhat what harmed the feedback loop for me in non-dark-souls games.)

@BlAcK_SwOrDsMaN also, another thing I’d like to add to my “unknown behind the scenes” point is that since we do a ton of speculation over why devs do the things they do, I ultimately believe it is equally valuable to consider why don’t do the things they avoid. This is something that comes up in other mediums, pro wrestling comes to mind. There’s a wrestler called Jinder Mahal who back in 2017, was called out by fans for alleged “laziness” however recently in an interview it came out that not only was he always a workhorse, he quite literally worked his arse to the point of borderline depression. What’s worse, he always had his hands tied behind his back with many of his pitches being rejected by management meaning that he was much more proactive than his public outing would suggest, but circumstance worked against him.

This way of thinking of giving devs extra benefit of the doubt is often taken for granted, and gamers feel comfortable being critical in their hypothesis (and eventually believing their own truths as reality) rather than trying to maintain neutrality and flexibility. It’s way too easy to get too comfortable filling the gaps, especially when game devs are literally not allowed to reveal behind the scene stuff unless through PR or through leaks such as GTA V’s leaked sours code (though this comment is getting a little too tanget-y so I’ll stop here)

@Jimmer-jammer I've done most of the RPD building so far, got two of the items required for the main puzzle in that area, I'm sure ,as an og RE Fan, you know what I mean by that! but I'm playing as Leon and as I was saying to Sol, I have been utilising the sub-machine gun with infinite ammo that I got as part of an extra dlc pack that I bought alongside the game, and am playing on Assisted mode - any way I can get op in a game - I will do it!, but there aren't infinite healing items available as part of the dlc pack,

so there is still some level of challenge involved when the zombies are right up in your grill and may bite you before you can create some distance to submachine gun them down! How did you find your experience of the game? And glad to hear you're making swift progress through SOTE, let me know how you get on with that final beast of a boss, man!

Edit: Also, what build are you rocking?

Hello everyone. I’ve not made a gaming update in a few days so time for a general currently playing update.

Funny thing, this won’t be an analysis, review, guide, breakdown, critique, overview or detailed, long, meticulously crafted, excruciatingly detailed essay…. No, just a casual nonchalant talk of some stuff I’m playing, I know, crazy right? But yes, I figured even people like me occasionally need to speak like normal humans once in a while so here’s my two games that in currently playing

One finished, the other I’m finishing.

I finished Ape Escape 3, great game. Highly recommended! (….yeah, that’s all I have to say. Blame my sleep deprivation xD)

Currently playing; God of War 1, Also a great game! (…yes, I’m starting to get creeped out even by my own casualness. I’ll start working on the extensive dynasty warriors guide for @Th3solution to feel calmer)

@BlAcK_SwOrDsMaN Doing well, buddy. Juggling a lot of things in the non-gaming real world also. Maybe that’s why lately I have been playing multiple games concurrently — it mimics my real life! 🤔

My game time has been limited and comes in unpredictably. I thought I would get a few long sessions last week like I often will and that’s when I really make progress, but instead it was short bursts here and there. So it was basically enough to do two or three farming runs in DS2 and then save and exit. So I’ve really become overleveled to the extreme due to my want for not pushing my playthrough too far when my time is short. I’m weird about my games and when I shut down a game for the day I always try to make it be at a place that’s easy to pick up from next time (so in the case of Souls games, at a bonfire for example or after a boss), so when I just have 30-60 minutes of play time it means I just do a quick predictable loop where I know how long it will take.

Some of that habit with Souls games may relate to the fact that I played through the majority of Bloodborne (my first of the genre) thinking that the game only allowed you to save at a lantern. 😓 Finally someone told me that it saves where you are anytime when you exit and it was a surprise. FromSoft games aren’t that good at telling the player some of these things.

Anyway, I am having a good time and expect that I’ll have a more productive weekend coming up. I’m grateful for gaming as a good release though! The world is a crazy place nowadays!

@Yousef- No pressure or expectations. If it’s therapeutic to continue your Musou dissertation, then by all means, proceed. Otherwise I’ll just continue to ignore the whole Musou genre. 😛