geno

A console just works, and if PC gaming can’t offer that same experience than it’s got negative value in my book.

I primarily play on PC, but I've always understood this part as the reason why so many people just prefer consoles - and there's nothing wrong with that. No hassle, just open the console and start playing. While PC does give more customizability and a much bigger library of games accessible through the same machine, it's also more likely to run into some platform-related issues here and there.

It's all about finding the balance between negatives and positives: personally I'll rather just deal with the occasional random problems since the reward is the huge library of games and (usually) better end result.

But I do understand why someone else might go for consoles - as long as it has enough games which you can enjoy, the limited library isn't really a problem anyway.

I've rarely had any real problems, but I've also been using windows PC as my main platform for like 30 years at this point - many fixes/workarounds are just intuitive for me at this point ("oh just press alt+enter"), while they might be a confusing dealbreaker for a newcomer. Anyone arguing that "using PC is just as easy!" probably doesn't realize how many different small things they've learned over time while using the platform, or they've just been lucky and never ran into a persistent issue (like the one that you described). Or they're just more interested in the platform as a whole, and happily spend some time learning to use it.

I feel like the main problem with your previous comment is just that you stated "bad experiences with Steam", while you're talking about PC issues in general. What you described there (probably) isn't caused by Steam. But this, again, comes back to just not understanding the platform, which is an understandable reason to just go play on a console instead - less hassle and all that.

Stop posting the Lemmy logo every day

I really think this thread is a great example of why the average person doesn't care that much.

The whole thread is full of comments like "the issues caused by giving away all your data are too abstract, too far away, or too difficult to understand". This is true by the way, I completely agree.

But I haven't seen a single comment trying to explain those possible issues in an easily understandable way. The average person (or, at least me) reading threads like this won't learn anything new. Give me a practical issue that I might face, and if I agree that it's an issue, I'll focus more on avoiding that issue.

In other words, an example:

• Let's say I'm a person using lemmy/mastodon, only using privacy-focused search engines etc.
• If I would now change to using facebook/threads, started using Chrome as my browser, etc the usual mainstream tracking stuff - what problems can this cause for me in the future?

PS. I do agree with the notion of "minimize the data you give away", which is one reason I'm here, but I really don't have an answer for these questions. I'm like "I understand the point of privacy, but can't explain the reasons".

Just to correct the post a bit: there's no need to do any sidequest to unlock all waypoints.

https://d4builds.gg/map/, enable waypoints from the filters, compare to your own in-game map. If you run to a missing waypoint and it shows as locked, you'll need to clear the nearby stronghold to open it. There's a total of 6 waypoints which are placed inside stronghold areas.

Personally I'm fine with the concept of having stuff locked behind some training in a game, but I also think it's a bit too strict as is - I think there should be room to skip a map. Maybe instead of eg. requiring 20 gold medals, reduce it to 18 gold medals or something. In other words: I like the mechanic, but I also hope they'll adjust it a bit in the future.

I didn't really have issues with getting the medals, but for a newcomer it might be a bit too much of a wall. But then again, it's not as clear cut as "newcomers who can't instantly complete them will quit". Obviously some people will quit, but for some other players the unlocking mechanic can work as a clear goal to aim for, and works as a reason to become better at the game - without the unlocking mechanic (as it used to be), the content in the game can feel a bit "aimless" for a newcomer, and the lack of a clear goal can also make people quit.

As with everything in games, it's a balancing act. I guess (hope) they're just testing it for now, and check some statistics to see what works.

In both D3 and PoE, I've always played one character per season. I don't really do "alts".

Knowing this, I'm planning to do the same in D4. I've only leveled Rogue to lvl 100 since launch, but haven't even created other characters. I'll just spend the first few seasons trying out the different classes. Probably going Sorc for S1, likely starting out with Lightning but time will tell if I stick to it or just try out multiple different builds.

1. Googled "Lemmy" to see what it even is
2. "wtf is an instance"
3. Checked some of the most used instances. At this point I wasn't sure if it matters much, but I just figured it's best to just pick a popular instance.
4. found lemmy.world, and the description goes "The World's Internet Frontpage - Lemmy.world is a general-purpose Lemmy instance of various topics, for the entire world to use."
5. "sounds good enough", created account

For me, it really just depends on the specific game. When talking about Diablo 4, I actually like the fact that I see random players in the open world.

But since D4 is a game which would also work perfectly fine when playing alone/offline, I also hope they had an offline mode - direct example would be Diablo 2. Personally I'd still play in the online version, but having access to offline mode would allow playing it even if your own connection is bad (or just down), so it would obviously just be an accessibility thing for many other players. Also, always-online requirement means that in the far future, the game can become completely unplayable after the servers are closed.

TL;DR always-online doesn't really affect my purchasing choices, but if the game's design is such that an offline/solo version makes sense, I'd still prefer if those games also included an offline mode.

I just want to comment about how pausing the game isn't directly tied to being always-online:

There's some offline games which don't have pause: Dark Souls being one of the well known examples (you can enable pausing by using a mod, but anyway). Something like Clicker Heroes also don't have a pause, but it's really rare that you'd want to pause it anyway.

There's also always-online games which allow pausing when playing solo: Diablo 3 (pc version) is the easy comparison here. Trackmania is another game which I play a lot (uses constant connection for syncing world records), and it's possible to pause the game when playing solo.

Even if D4 is always-online and the open world is shared by design, if Blizzard wanted to, they could still make it possible to pause the game while inside a solo instance.

"Rapid Fire has a [60-90]% chance to ricochet to another target" (%'s in a 2h weapon)

The sad part is that you can't find it in the codex, and you need to just get an item drop that has it.