King_Simp

I've been looking around for economic simulator games recently and tbh there isn't much. But it made me think about what i actually wanted out of a game like that, and honestly...

I'd absolutely love a game set in the Japanese finance ministry during the economic boom and subsequent bubble and economic crisis.

1.I like things on a more macro scale, rather than micro. So games like cities skylines and Workers and Resources: Soviet Republic are good, but still leave me itching

2. I hate that a lot of "economic" games are just business Sims. Obviously gaming in english is a bit of an American and eurocentric thing, and these places aren't famous for loving planned economies or having interesting economic ministries

3.The time period is interesting enough for a game like this. There's political and economic conflict, elections, and plenty of economic stuff to make spreadsheet nerd like me enjoy it.

4.Of course this era and area aren't exactly represented well so id love to see a game made set in it. (I'd make it myself but A.No time and B.Im not a programmer tbh)

Alternatively, I really wish there was a macro economic game set in the USSR, China, or some other socialist country. Actually, we'll, planning an economy without spending years in education, getting a job at a ministry, spending more years working your way up, and actually dealing with the consequences of your actions would be nice.

I know this idea appeals to about 5 people, give or take 4, but still

This isn't a post with like, hot takes or deep marxist analysis of class society in the Lands Between. It's just some thoughts I wanted to express on a smaller scale rather than throwing myself into the 4.5 million members of the Elden Ring subreddit or something.

Anyway, to preface a few things

1.Elden Ring good [shocking I know]. I won't go into too much detail since I'm three years late at this point. Just, if you like exploring in skyrim and fighting in ghost of tsushima, then you'll probably like this game

2. This is my first and only soulsborne game so far. There's going to be things I've complained about in a previous post here and that I'll talk about in this post that would've been different had I more knowledge about fromsoftware games.

3. I tried to look up as little as possible about this game. I would occasionally look at a guide for puzzles or an item location, but besides that i didnt look up build tips (beyond soft caps and scaling)

Without further ado

A. The combat and movement

The closest thing I've played before that is at all similar to Elden Ring is Ghost of Tsushima. They're very different games Obviously, but it did help me ease in a little.

To start, I rebinded the controls to be closer to ghost of tsushima, because I just could not get attacks being on the triggers.

But anyway I also had a hard time adjusting to just how...slow you are? You're not a lumbering giant, but every animation feels like it needs to get back to neutral before you move on to something else. I.e, a dodge has to be a full roll (save for backsteps). So instead of dodge-attack like in ghost of tsushima, it's dodge-wait-attack. Obviously the game shouldn't just be ghost of tsushima, but it did throw me off for a minute.

I got it after a while though, and it has its own rhythm to it I like. I think the early enemies teach you very well not to constantly panic roll, and for the most part where in the attack you're supposed to dodge (although simultaneously there are a few that are really hard to tell, especially later in the game, but for the most part the rule remains consistent)

I think I still prefer Ghost of Tsushima style controls but soulsborne definitely isn't bad, even with faster bosses and enemies.

But while fighting Malenia it did make me feel like having her "jump and spin back" retreat would've been a nice thing. I saw a suggestion by Joseph Anderson (who I generally disagree with) that a metroidvania style unlock system where you gain movement abilities as you progress could be good. There are some weapon arts like bloodhound step that have this type of feature so i wish there was more dodges than just rolling and jumping

2. Exploration

I love exploring in this game. For the most part it has a really good mix of obvious things that give you an insensitive to explore while also giving you little hidden things that aren't usually game changing but are still extremely helpful, especially for certain builds. There was maybe only a couple times where I felt really annoyed by the exploration, either relating to inexperience or npc quests.

A. Inexperience

There are certain things I don't mind not knowing until later or learning as a result of being in tune with the game. For example, one boss (Radahn) has a crypt on his in his massive boss arena, which is a dungeon with some rewards in it. I didn't mind missing this because it didn't impact me massively. Even if I could use the stuff in the dungeon, it wasnt groundbreaking and it was a reward for exploring.

Alternatively, there's stuff like hitting a trap to get on it and use it to get to a second floor of a dungeon.

Why should i know that's a thing? What logic is that? Maybe that's similar to things in other souls games but it's not common sense. Common sense would be a lever, which I assumed I just kept missing. That was one of the things I looked up. Afterwards i learned to hit stuff more, but a simple indication that I should hit that stuff would be better than me just learning by being told.

Similarly, illusion walls can be annoying. The first time I learned about them was when doing another dungeon (the one with the black knife assasin) because I couldn't find what I was supposed to in it. Again, afterwards I hit every wall I could find and felt genuine joy at finding secrets, but learning about it wasn't fun.

B. Npc quests

Now, I want to point out, I like these quests 200x more than skyrim or a ubisoft game. I dont want to be hand held through the quests and given a big red arrow guiding me like a zombie to the next location. But it was annoying having to constantly backtrack if I missed something. For example I did Millicent's questline around the same time as I got to Leyndelle's walls. I found her, cured her, sent her on her way, and then gave her the prosthetic. Later, luckily I looked up a guide when I couldn't find her in the moutaintops or consecrated snowfield and realized I missed a random village in Leyndelle that I needed to clear and do a boss in before she would continue.

Similarly, I found the second half of the haligtree medallion first because I had missed the village of the Albinaurics Un Lineria dozens of hours ago. Consequently I also missed out on Nephali Loux's questline. It wasn't tedious, but it felt annoying to clear out a low level area because I had simply missed one area earlier in the game. This didn't happen often, but because the npcs just wander off without telling you where they're going, it becomes infuriating trying to find some of these people. I've heard Shadow of the Erdtree actually does use markers and notes and that sounds like a great change.

However, I don't get the criticism that exploration is unrewarding because not everywhere has stuff that is good for your build. Firstly, most overworld exploration is fast. Defeating some enemies in a camp takes maybe a few minutes, so if you don't get an item that's good for you, alright. As for dungeons, 9/10 times there's some boss that'll give you a good rune reward. This is good, it means that no matter whatever else you find down there, you at least have a universal good. It lowers the risk of going into a dungeon and coming out with nothing. It incetivises exploration still with a fun boss and runes while also giving something extra for some people in some dungeons. So I don't think there needs to be a change here.

3. Bosses

Obviously the main point of the game is something important, and honestly it's about 80% good 15% meh and 5% bad, at most. I know some people don't like the repeat bosses, but honestly I didn't mind...most of them. Magma wyrms bugged me because they don't have a large movement, so they constantly do their annoying charge attack which I don't like. And i hate how Astel is repeated for basically no reason beyond "well we needed something :p." Especially because Astel is already not a great boss, for me at least. I found trying to hit him hard since it focuses on the center of his body only, which means trying to hit his head (which is both the easiest thing to hit and his weakspot) is difficult while staying locked on. This is repeated on ancient dragons too.

For some reason people really don't like dragons, but I dont get it. You fight 13 across the campaign, 2 of which are ancient dragons, 2 are bosses that aren't generic, and 3 are magma wyrms. That leaves 6 normal dragons, including Greyoll and her kin. That means there's about, in a 140 hour campaign, that's about 20 is hours between those dragons, and about 10 hours between every type of dragon. For me at least, that's okay. And the dragons themselves are okay. Use torrent, either all the time or to close the distance and get off of him, and it's okay. Otherwise everything is very well telegraphed and the camera isn't too bad as long as you focus on anything but the head.

If I had to rank my favorite boss fights it'd be

1.Malenia

2.Godfrey and Radagon

3.Morgott

Godfrey and Radagon are so hard to choose which one is better, so I just tied them at second place. I like all of these because they are so precise. There weren't times, for the most part at least, where I couldn't see things or couldn't understand timings, or when I'd just really get annoyed with a move*

Malenia really is my favorite. She's simultaneously mostly fair** while also needing you at your A game.

*I did get annoyed at Waterfowl at first

** Malenia's main unfairness comes from her waterfowl, which is really hard to learn how to dodge because of the stagger. The move has a stagger hitbox the same size as the radius of the sphere made by her sword. That means that if you get caught in it you'll stagger, and then get hit by the rest. The third, fourth and fifth flurries are really well timed so you can dodge them. But the first two happen in such quick succession that if you don't get the timing right you're dead. And it's hard to get the timing right considering the large hitbox and how fast you die when you inevitably fail. She also can't stance break during some attacks, while her stance meter resets anyway, which made it a little annoying when she wouldn't go down for essentially no reason.

I really like how she wasn't only staggerable, but you could knock her over completely with some attacks. When you're fighting a dragon the size of the moon or whatever, the only thing you can really do is stance break them. Heck, even Godfrey and Radagon weren't staggerable and they were about your size (well, at least closer than like Placidusax). There was one spell called Burn O'Flame which you get pretty late into the game, but it essentially meant I could duck under some of her attacked and hit her for massive damage, knock her down and hit her more. And I like waterfowl as an incentive to stay away, basically. When she got back up and I was far enough away, she would just slowly walk towards me, and it felt like facing against a rabid dog. Just knowing she was going to bite but now knowing when. This type of fight is a lot like Ghost of Tsushima, which is probably why I liked it so much. Punishing, draining, high damage and precise.

Radagon and Godfrey are probably just the fairest fights in the game. Their attacks are telegraphed well and I wouldn't really call any of their attacks bullshit. Radagon has some AOE spam, but besides that they both flowed really well.

Morgott is probably my favorite mid game boss ever. It brings back a lot of what you learned earlier with some twists. He varies between fast and slow while also not being too ridiculous for his size. I don't have much more to say really, he's just really good at everything a boss should be. He was a little underleveled by the time you get through Lyndelle though, so I would've liked him a little harder (at least with more hp) just so I could've fought him more.

Least favorites are hard to rank. But id say it's probably (in decreasing quality)

5.Rotten tree spirit

4.Ulcerated tree spirit

3.Astel 1

2. Astel 2

3. Rykard

I did play after the patch that added torrent to the Elden Beast fight, so if I had to guess Elden Beast probably would've been 2 or 3 on the list without Torrent

The tree spirits are repetitive, but not horrible. The cotton ones though always got the worst arena, especially since their rotten aoe clears out a big area and forces you to back away, which can get annoying on a thin walkway like on the haligtree.

Same with Ulcerated spirits, but they get even worse arenas and don't even get a good moveset.

Like I said, Astel has camera and hit issues, I also don't like his constant teleworking and running away halfway across the arena

Astel 2 is the same but with an extra grab attack and is annoying since I've already fought him

Rykard is probably my hottest take. I cannot understand why people like this boss. It's a gimmick boss, he's constantly staggered by the gimmick weapon, has way to much health, and, on account of the staggering, barely does anything. It wasn't a snoozefest like, say, Tibia Mariner (which I didn't even consider for the ranking, although I should've) but it didn't feel like i was getting better at anything besides just pressing buttons a little faster. The one thing I did like was that he moves so slowly you barely notice he's on top of you until it's too late. One of my deaths was because I got stuck between him and the wall, which is really cool considering the entire serpent theme, which I would've liked more if they did something with it.

I was shocked to learn that people hated godskin duo so much. I didn't love it, it was wierd, but I didn't find it impossible either. Granted I did beat malenia before fighting them so I just spammed scarlet anonia to rot them, so that probably made it easier.

3.Builds

I've only played one playthrough so far, so ill try out different builds later, but for my first game I played a vagabond dual wielder, with minor faith and arcane for incantations focusing on fire, rot, and dragon incantations.

For the most part this build was good. I went through the game underleveled and with between 18-30 vigor.

That is a lot lower than reccomended. I did die a lot, but something I learned that mattered more than vigor in the mid to late game is damage reduction. Between armor and Talismans and spells,you can get a ton of damage reduction which essentially increases your hp by hundreds of points. If you have high vigor but you're still getting one shot, try equipping damage reduction talismans or using damage reduction spells. I feel like this is a lot more important later than vigor is, and the community focuses on it too much. I'm not saying there aren't hard enemies or that the late game doesn't have enemies that do a ton of damage, just that getting one/two shot is not the norm, even for a low vigor character.

One of the things is I wish soulsborne games didn't treat greatswords and such like they're made of tungsten. Obviously they swing slower than Katanas or rapiers, but you can find videos of people swinging these massive swords elligently. I think it would feel better than every greatsword being treated like a final fantasy buster sword.

One thing I want to say is that my build was good in some areas and struggled in others. And that's a good thing. It shouldn't be that every build excels in every fight. Otherwise you get skyrim stealth archers which are just the path of least resistance. Yeah, maybe shield users struggle with malenia, but I struggled with commander niall. Sure maybe I struggled with elden Beast and Placidusax but a mage probably did way better because of their ranged attacks. A mage struggled with Renalla while I sweeper her. It not only makes making a build more enjoyable, but it also increases replayability.

Story: I won't post spoilers, but overall the story was surprisingly compelling. I know the story through item descriptions is a meme, but it's genuinely cool reading all the little descriptions and learning about the world. I like that way more than charecter goes up to wall and explains the history halfway through the main quest or whatever. Personally I chose Ranni's ending, but I get why you'd choose the other ones too (well, except a certain loathsome character's one). Not much more to say really.

Nitpicks and little things:

These aren't massive but I did want to say something before closing out the post.

The game can be inconsistent with run backs at times. Most bosses will have a checkpoint right before a boss, and that's fine. But a couple times they won't for basically no reason. The two that stuck out to me are the Red wolf of Radagon and Renalla. They have run backs, but they're not endurance tests since you barely have to fight anyone. Renalla's literally has no enemies at all, so I don't get why I had to run back everytime, since theres a perfect spot for a grace right in front of the boss anyway.

I'm kinda getting sick of Katanas being the best weapons in games. Katanas aren't the definitive best weapon in Elden ring, but they are some of the best. So much so two of them (moonveil and rivers of blood) had to be nerfed in updates. I get it, they're cool and were useful irl but they don't have to always be a thing and don't always have to be top tier.

The game is beautiful of course, so I didn't feel a need to point it out in extreme detail. However the music was suprisingly lacking. There's only a few tracks (godskin apostles, the Radagon/main theme, Malenia's second phase to name a few) that really got my attention. Everything else kinda was just there, which is odd imo.

Lastly, I just wanted to share this one bit. I had kept my charecter under a veil or mask the whole game basically, just for the stats. After beating the final boss, I took it off and kinda had a "despite everything, it's still you" moment (besides the glowing dragon eyes) which I really liked. This isn't anything big, but I just wanted to share it.

Overall id say it's a really good game. I wouldn't reccomend it to everyone, but if you know someone who wants to play a game where they fight enemies in a dying world where they can kill dragons and take their power while dual wielding katanas, then probably reccomend them Elden Ring over Skyrim.

https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1934/07/23.htm

Also does Emperor of the Fading Suns count? It came out in the 90s but it also recently got a steam release last year soooo?

1.What was the class structure of medieval/early modern merchant republics? Were they Bourgeois states, like the Netherlands for instance? If not what were they?

2.What was with the selection of NKVD chiefs? Even if we discount some of what the Krushchevites charged Beria with, he still wasn't great and was very opportunistic after Stalin's death. So three bad chiefs in a row is...not a good track record, especially since other offices (like commissar of foreign affairs being held by Molotov) weren't plagued by this

3.If human technological progress just stopped at some point, would the relations of production remain the same or no? I.e, if things like the steam engine were never invented and made factories more efficient, would it have been possible to have a dominant proletariat class? What about advances in agriculture and such? [Ignoring how changes such as this were extremely unlikely].

4. Has there ever been an example of the Feudal mode of production being restored? I know a dictatorship of the aristocracy has been restored before, in France for instance after the fall of Napoleon, but the mode of production remained somewhat similar as some reforms during the revolution were kept since reversing them would be impossible. [I am comparing this to the fall of the Eastern Bloc, where the capitalist mode of production was restored]

5.How did Laos and Vietnam remain socialist while Cambodia and Mongolia went through a capitalist restoration?

Honestly I haven't been able to get a read on trump's plans for Ukraine since he was inaugurated. I had assumed he was going to cut his losses but he's remained on the course (with increased concessions, like the mineral deal). Trump also doesn't play well when at a disadvantage, at least from what I've seen.

There's also Europe and ukraine itself obviously. Europe has been pretty compliant on a lot of other issues, but Ukraine is a big red line for them. I doubt Europe would be able to supply ukraine on its own, but I wonder if a complete capitulation by Trump would create enough tension to break something. Also were the recent anti-corruption protests a fluke or do they hint at a possible wider discontent in the country that could spark into something larger, even after the conflict ends?

I would guess that Putin wouldn't have accepted to come without gaining something, and I doubt PR would be the only thing.

This is more of a rant than anything, but I've been playing Elden Ring lately and just ragequit today, not because of a boss but because the game locked me out of multiple quests because I progressed too far.

(Edit:This isn't to say I don't like Elden Ring. It's great I can see why people like it so much, just that this one part really irked me)

I don't mind missing things that happen because I obviously do something to impact them. For example in Fallout NV, you can fail and miss multiple quests by destroying the brotherhood of steel. Obviously that would do that. But here the action I performed didn't change anything about the map or prevented these quests from progressing in some way, it's just that the game said "oops you progressed too far now you can't go back and do these quests." And since Elden Ring doesn't have an independent-multiple save system (and since I play on console), I can't just reload a save like in other games. I know it's partially my fault, but simultaneously this would've been avoided if I knew where the quests were.

[I dont know how to do spoilers on Lemmy, so these paragraphs will be more in depth but contain spoilers, but the rest of the post should be spoiler free]

Obviously burning the Erdtree is a big world altering decision, but why would that fail, say, Nephali Loux's quest? She's nowhere near that and you can keep doing her quest if you completed the portion in the Albinauric village before doing so.

[Side note:Hey writers, I have an idea, have Gideon say "go to the Albinauric village in lineria" so I actually know where it is. I assumed it was in some area accessed after continuing the main story, because I didn't search one single area half a game ago. Also what's with these lift medallions being continents apart?]

There's brother Coryn too. I get that he is a lot closer to the Erdtree both literally and figuratively, but there are other quests that just skip portions depending on your progress. But that's not my main issue.

[Spoilers over]

My main issue is not that these quests can be failed, it's that I didnt know they existed until I was told about them. There's literally no way to know where a charecter is at a given moment unless you've already encountered them at the location. So sometimes you're trying to find a needle in a country sized haystack in order to experience the game. And if Elden Ring was shorter, sure. But one run missing all of this is over 100 hours already. I have a life. As much as I want to, I don't want to play through another 100 hours just to experience a couple quests.

There's another game that I have a similar issue with, which is Knights of the Old Republic 2. It says you can visit the planets in any order, but you really, REALLY shouldn't.

A.Theres obviously an intended path, where you start at either Dantooine or the crime planet (I forgot the names of a lot of these sorry), then go to the planet in a civil war (like I said forgot the names), get kicked out, go to the shortest planet of Korriban, and then go back to the third planet mentioned then finish the game.

B.Crime planet has three whole crew members you can miss, which all have questlines that take a while and you can't enjoy them if you do that planet last, it fucks up the progression.

Obviously I can just play the game through again, but again, it's more than a little stint there. And also it makes the first playthrough where you're exploring a lot less satisfying.

However, there is the alternative mentioned in the title. Where game devs are so scared of you missing things that they'll actively prevent you from not doing it or mark everything and the kitchen sink.

Cyberpunk 2077 does the latter, where every quest and job (with the exception of a few minor ones) is marked on your map from the very beginning. Of course you are being contracted for a lot of these so I'll cut them some slack. But only a bit, because otherwise all the ones where you should find them randomly are all marked (again with a few very small exceptions). If I know to find content and stuff, I just need to click on the little yellow icon and follow the line, then I wont explore. And guess what, I didn't. Maybe id look around a few corners or climb some places looking for weapons and such, but never did I look around specifically to find a quest. Because I didn't have too.

Skyrim does the former. It doesn't mark literally everything, but it'll force you down certain things because they want you to experience stuff. Take Riften for example. You try to get in, the guards try to make you bribe them. You walk in and three conversations you overhear, in a row, are about the theives guild. Then when you get to the market, a member of the theives guild just walks up to you and asks you to participate in a scheme. And to literally progress the main quest you have to do this one thing. I don't mind being forced to commit a crime or whatever, but its very obvious the devs want you to play the thieves guild quest and do not want you to miss it. Hell, you can try and mess it up over and over and the game will go "wow, you're really bad at thieving. Anyway go steal this thing now." They do a similar thing with the mages guild, where to access the college for the main quest you have to join the college. You don't have to do the questline in full in either case, but you have to interact with it in a very heavy handed manner instead of joining naturally, unless you visit these locations before. But that's the thing. If you want to join these guilds, then you actively search for them when you hear the rumors of a theives guild or talk about the mages college. But if you dont want to do that, then you're forced into it anyway, leaving a very half done feeling.

But why are these the two systems? Why can't the game help you find things without explicitly giving you the address and wiki article for the quest?

The example that comes to mind for me is the original Baldurs Gate. This isn't some "err durr old game gooder" thing, but it's just the first example I can think of. In that game you have a quest log and sets of notes, but there's no markers or explicit instructions. It'll be like "x person said there was y at z." Z can be a large city or town, and that can be simply a way to guide you to something that sounds interesting. Or there is an npc in a place called Gullykin that says "hey, on your way to Durlags tower?" Usually you're not at that stage of the game, but it does mark a note in your brain that there's this tower people adventure too. But at the same time you can just ignore it. If you dont want to you don't have to do the best dungeon in the game. Obviously it's not perfect, but if I had to choose a system i would much rather then rather than being led on a leash or blindfolded.

Obviously you can't just copy and paste this in a games mentioned, but something in the same vain would be nice.

So for Elden Ring, a simple system of notes saying where each character said they were going after your last interaction, or a note on the ground where you last found them. Elden ring even does this at one point. There's a charecter right at the beginning of the game who moves if you exhaust his dialog. When he does he puts a note down saying "hey I'm off to the church in Linuria." And you go and find him there. This would be nice instead of blindly searching for these people or not even knowing if their quests continue.

Cyberpunk 2077 is harder, but maybe it could work with a mixed system, where you find jobs on the map, but the side quests are found through exploration (assuming it's not given to you by someone calling or texting you, obviously)

Not sure about KOTOR 2. But just a nudge in a specific direction, or even just making enemies in places you shouldn't be yet a lot more difficult, so that you're courted in going to the easier and more manageable planets first. Considering this is how most other RPGs work, including Fallout NV, it shouldn't be a shock.

Sorry for the long post. Thus Just keeps bugging me and I really wish I didn't feel inclined to look up guides for games I play so I don't keep missing things because I didn't check under every single rock or go in the exact order the game wanted me to

Idk. Is this depression? I'm not very good at figuring out what's wrong with me.

On the one hand I really like certain things about life. And I like having one. And I know I only get one. And I dont know what death feels like.

But at the same time, I'm so goddamn lonely all the time. I'm so useless and I really can't feel like I can change that before everything goes to shit. I'm a shit person. I dont deserve to live more than so many other people who have died. And it just feels like no matter what I do that it's all going to end up the same way. So I just don't feel like there's any point in doing anything.

I'm trying where I can. I really am. But I feel so trapped and so alone. Sometimes I feel like it'd be better to stop wasting my time and everyone else's time and just skip to the conclusion. But no, I'm too much of a coward to do that either