SmoothOperator
@SmoothOperator@lemmy.world
- Comment on Weekly Recommendations Thread: What are you playing this week? 4 days ago:
Happy to hear it! It’s very different from the other Hitman games, but maybe that works for you?
- Comment on Weekly Recommendations Thread: What are you playing this week? 5 days ago:
Damn, that’s a choice. How is it?
- Comment on Blue Prince - Have you played it? How blown is your mind? 1 week ago:
Is RNG always bullshit?
Do you feel like that’s the case in Blue Prince?
- Comment on Blue Prince - Have you played it? How blown is your mind? 1 week ago:
No, that sounds like a terrible game. How exactly is this relevant?
- Comment on Blue Prince - Have you played it? How blown is your mind? 1 week ago:
Well… A puzzle is a challenge. In Blue Prince, part of the challenge is that you need to engage with the clues you have available, not necessarily the clues you hoped for. Removing that challenge is to remove part of the puzzle.
You’re fully within your right to say that’s not your cup of tea, but I think it does contribute something meaningful to the puzzling.
- Comment on Blue Prince - Have you played it? How blown is your mind? 1 week ago:
While there is one main goal in front of you, all the shit they pile in front of you is more mystery, the solution of which will carry you closer to your goal.
It’s more like if Obra Dinn randomly had you play an Outer Wilds loop or Chants of Sennaar segment, with all the mysteries tying together.
- Comment on Blue Prince - Have you played it? How blown is your mind? 1 week ago:
Thanks for the long reply! To me, there is another element that RNG can add: the challenge of adapting. Think of x-com: you’re immediately told the odds that a shot will succeed, and have to decide whether to take that shot based on that chance and the consequences of it failing.
You know that on average things will work out fairly, but you have to be ready to push the successes without letting failure trip you up.
During most of the game, Blue Prince poses many different puzzles and riddles to you in parallel. If you focus on one thing you’ve had a eureka moment about, you’ll be frustrated with the lack of control, but if you approach the situation holistically, and pursue all puzzles at the same time based on what is available, it’s a very different experience. Your thought processes and realizations are shaped by the randomness of the day.
Furthermore there’s always an interesting strategy element of mitigating the chance by ensuring lots of redraws in different ways, upgrading rooms to serve several purposes, piling up resources between runs etc.
I do think it’s novel and interesting, though not necessarily the best idea in the world. To properly do the holistic approach I mention you need a massive infrastructure of photos and notes to keep track of all the clues you’re pursuing. I wish it had some kind of overview of found documents and clues, though I can see how that’s not so simple to implement for this game in particular.
- Comment on Blue Prince - Have you played it? How blown is your mind? 1 week ago:
Do you feel the same about other games that involve random chance, such as roguelikes and RPGs?
- Comment on this is my hole! 3 weeks ago:
The Enigma of Amigara Fault
- Comment on I made this instead 3 weeks ago:
Well, nothing increases it, but aren’t there contexts where it is unchanged? Vacuum and single isolated particles don’t increase entropy I suppose.
- Comment on I made this instead 3 weeks ago:
Local entropy, that is. At a global scale, life increases entropy.
- Comment on I made this instead 3 weeks ago:
Thank god for fridges
- Comment on What games did you get down with over the holiday weekend? 4 weeks ago:
I actually like the lack of aim dot. A lot of the archery feels like it would be sort of trivial with an aim dot?
While it doesn’t make archery feel like real life, it does add to the feeling of starting out as a useless peasant.
- Comment on This game has 100 endings, and it's pushing the creators to the brink of bankruptcy | PC Gamer 1 month ago:
The game is The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy
- Comment on ETERNAL TORMENT 1 month ago:
All together now: there are no paradoxes in quantum mechanics
- Comment on Useless rant about Witcher 3 romance 2 months ago:
Sometimes you think you say the right thing, but you didn’t, and you’ll have to live with the consequences. This is a major part of the Witcher games, that your actions have possibly unforeseen consequences that you’ll have to live with.
Accept that Triss has made her choice. If you don’t want to be with Yen, then don’t be with anyone, that’s completely fine.
- Comment on What is the best political movie? And what is the best apolitical movie? 2 months ago:
- Comment on [deleted] 2 months ago:
The University will hire more Jewish academics for its Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies in order to counter balance pro-Palestinian staff.
If these idiots assume that Jews automatically aren’t pro-palestinian they’re in for a rude awakening
- Comment on Baldur's Gate 3 and Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 show that the future of RPGs is in games way more ambitious, weird and unexpected than anything Bethesda and Bioware have to offer 3 months ago:
The article mentions them as action RPGs
- Comment on Baldur's Gate 3 and Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 show that the future of RPGs is in games way more ambitious, weird and unexpected than anything Bethesda and Bioware have to offer 3 months ago:
Indeed, as the article writes
Even Skyrim—certainly a weird, ambitious, and janky RPG in its own right—refined and streamlined the formula set by Morrowind and Oblivion, rather than expanding on their eccentricities, and that trend only continued in the studio’s following games.
- Comment on Judges Are Fed up With Lawyers Using AI That Hallucinate Court Cases 3 months ago:
Well, if by AI you mean large language models, they tend to do better at language tasks than math tasks. So a better example might be that it’s easier to get an LLM to write a statement for you and checking if it’s correct than writing the statement from the bottom.
The square root was just a clearer example. In the case of OP, it might very well be easier to have an LLM propose relevant case law and then check if that case law exists and is relevant, rather than having to find it yourself from square one.
- Comment on Is it possible to design a (pen and paper) cipher that is secure against government cryptanalysis for at least 10 years? 3 months ago:
Hmm, you’re probably going to get a lot of answers assuming you wanted to do secure communication, not secure journaling. Different beasts I would think.
- Comment on Judges Are Fed up With Lawyers Using AI That Hallucinate Court Cases 3 months ago:
It’s actually often easier to check an answer than coming up with an answer. Finding the square root of 66564 by hand isn’t easy, but checking if the answer is 257 is simple enough.
So, in principle, if the AI is better at guessing an answer than we are, it might still be useful. But it depends on the cost of guessing and the cost of checking.
- Comment on Started Kingdom Come: Deliverance 1 Today 4 months ago:
Giving it a replay on realistic mode, it’s good fun! I like not fast traveling, and having to figure out where you are by actually reading the map is fun.
It has its jank, and the silly macho-vibes suck, but it’s a really interesting and unique game. Try to lean into its oddities, they actually work quite well when you give them a chance. The saviour schnapps saving system is not that punishing, but it does mean you either have to commit your early economy to saving/stealing schnapps or accept that you will fail quests and die in combat without being able to quickly reload a recent save.
Ultimately, I enjoy games that force me to take failure seriously, but that’s a matter of taste. It does make riding through the woods pretty intense with the threat of getting ambushed.
- Comment on Started Kingdom Come: Deliverance 1 Today 4 months ago:
- Train your battle skills with Bernard(?) at the training ground. Both to get some XP and to learn some important moves other than spamming thrust.
- Master stroke (?) is a really useful riposte move which will make things a lot easier.
- In general, avoid taking on more than one opponent until you’re well-armored
- Use the right weapon, ideally a type you’ve both trained with and which is effective against your type of foe, e.g. warhammer for armoured foes.
- Comment on James Bond Game by IO-Interactive 4 months ago:
I’ve bought each of the three latest Hitman titles on Steam exactly once at regular video game price and gotten all the content of each game, plus freely received the collection of all that content in the “World of Assassination” consolidation. Plus the free and amazing rogue-like expansion taking place across all maps from all games.
Seems like a really good deal to me.
- Comment on YSK in the U.S., you can buy produce directly from black farmers and they will ship it to you. It can cost less than your supermarket and will piss off people in power. 4 months ago:
As in
- Not talking about race will solve the lingering systemic race issues, or
- There are no lingering systemic race issues, so we should stop talking about it?
- Comment on YSK in the U.S., you can buy produce directly from black farmers and they will ship it to you. It can cost less than your supermarket and will piss off people in power. 4 months ago:
Completely fair - do you have a counterargument? I’d be interested in hearing the other side.
- Comment on What's next after Pentiment? 5 months ago:
Tunic has an incredible mystery element, with many layers and a very satisfying conclusion. The combat is juicy enough but still pretty forgiving, and the meta-narrative of playing that’s “already been played” is very interesting and nostalgic. Highly recommended!
- Comment on Thousands of UK farmers protest against inheritance tax hike 7 months ago:
If a farm is worth too much for an individual to pay inheritance taxes on, let it pass on to a collective or company of individuals with enough pooled money to run it. No need to have a single person own such a massive piece of industry.