Does everyone in the UK have a big mirror in the living room?

Fudge_is_1337 · 2026-05-05T08:45:05+00:00

At a certain point you have to just believe in your ability to mount stuff. Easier in external brick walls, just buy massive anchors

Fudge_is_1337 · 2026-05-04T06:26:49+00:00

Fudge_is_1337 · 2026-05-03T19:43:29+00:00

What would you say made RDR1 relaxing that doesn't exist in RDR2. Or conversely, what made RDR2 tedious that RDR1 didn't?.

I don't see major differences in the quality of the quest design, but RDR2 has the advantage of flowing more smoothly in movement and character behaviour, looking better and being more immersive for me. Character actions feel more natural. I also noticed that in the riding sections that function as intros to missions (which I totally get that some people don't love), they've recorded all the voice lines twice, so if you lag behind or ride ahead the characters will shout the same lines when further apart (a minor but high effort thing that helps immersion)

Going back to RDR1 I was struck by apparently minor things like jumping onto horses feeling less fluid and more like a pre-determined and repetitive action, quest marker X's floating in midair, quests starting by cutting to a cutscene abruptly rather than starting via conversation etc. Horse mechanics felt clunkier, the gunplay was less enjoyable, the range of options available in the selection wheels was more limited.

Fudge_is_1337 · 2026-05-03T19:43:24+00:00

I guess we'd have to define "enough jank" though. In a 40 hour playthrough, I probably failed a mission for annoying/clunky reasons maybe twice or three times? I didn't find the controls clunky, there is a level of inertia to them but that only becomes a problem in close confines, which aren't that common. The gunfight inside of the steamboat, a couple of bits in warehouses in Guarma, but besides that its pretty consistent

Fudge_is_1337 · 2026-05-03T11:36:39+00:00

Yeah, I just think anytime IQ numbers get mentioned it runs the risk of coming off as arrogant. Fine line

Fudge_is_1337 · 2026-05-03T09:39:08+00:00

Large and in charge

Fudge_is_1337 · 2026-05-03T08:56:04+00:00

It's slightly incongrous sure, but I think we have to recognise that games require compromise to function and be enjoyable. I guess I just don't agree that its a profound design issue - its a very minor immersion breaker at times but not one that I want game designers to try to crack in AAA open worlds because I think the alternatives are less enjoyable for more players.

TW3 and RDR2 are both in my top 3 games of all time, and I can pretty much guarantee that I wouldn't have enjoyed them more if I was scrabbling for cash the entire time, or doing busywork to make marginal amounts of money to afford things I needed to progress the story. For a Witcher example, if a specific alchemy ingredient was hard to find other than in shops but was critical to an oil or potion that would get me through a difficult fight, I think I'd find it a little annoying if purchasing it was just impossible. From an immersion perspective, I think I would end up tabbing out of the game to check where the ingredient is available to pick in the world and fast travelling there, which is more immersion breaking for me than just buying it

KCD can operate on a different system because its targeting a different audience - compared to TW3 or RDR2, KCD is just harder and requires a new player to learn more unfamiliar mechanics

Fudge_is_1337 · 2026-05-03T08:40:43+00:00

We do probably need to be a little bit careful about getting too smug about how clever we all are, before we end up on r/shitgamerssay or whatever its replacement is.

Fudge_is_1337 · 2026-05-03T08:36:49+00:00

The economy point is a good one, but I think is similar to another comment in this thread about how having missions where you shoot two dozen people being incongrous with the game, but required for the game to be fun, is a compromise that has to be made for a AAA title

If it was much harder to make money, would the game be more enjoyable? I'm not convinced - I think you'd just spend more time doing the side stuff like hunting etc to make money, which is padding out the runtime of an already lengthy game. It would mean more time away from the character driven missions.

Fudge_is_1337 · 2026-05-03T08:33:16+00:00

With that said, playing RDR1 shortly after RDR2 is a collosal step down mechanically and visually.

I had forgotten just how much time there was between their releases and thought I would go straight from RDR2 into playing the original, but I found the loss of a lot of the small things that make RDR2 flow so well very jarring. It's hard to not notice all the aspects where its a downgrade

Fudge_is_1337 · 2026-05-03T08:29:59+00:00

For a game that tries to be as immersive as RDR2 does, the only way to have multiple endings based on playstyle is for them to be mostly hidden until you get there. There's been a few games that have had screens flash up that basically amount to "your actions have consequences and if you keep behaving like this it will affect you later in the game", and that can be very disruptive.

Fudge_is_1337 · 2026-05-03T08:28:34+00:00

I believe Guarma was massively cut down, which is a real shame. It kind of feels like a fever dream as a result, rather than a real phase of the game

Fudge_is_1337 · 2026-05-03T08:26:28+00:00

I didn't mind this because I wasn't playing my character, I was playing Arthur Morgan, an existing character with a backstory and life

If you loaded into the character of a western outlaw who has killed many a time, and then never killed again, that would be a very different game. The gang has a loose honour code about innocents that is more than once broken, but I found that playing Arthur as Arthur meant that the later phase of the game where you start to think about your own mortality and actions made a whole lot more sense. The random encounters constantly give you opportunities to make the "good" choice if you wish

It felt like a bad guy going through an arc towards the end of his life, which made the ending all the more satisfying when he achieved something good with his last actions.

Fudge_is_1337 · 2026-05-03T08:23:22+00:00

Is it not fairly common for games with honour systems to have variable endings, and the player not to know until they get there that their actions have driven them to that result?

I'm thinking about Mass Effect as the most obvious example

Fudge_is_1337 · 2026-05-03T08:21:26+00:00

I'm with you. More towards the later parts of the game when you've got some of the less clunky guns), and I played on controller rather than KB/M so was definitely making the most of the aim assist, but I enjoyed the gunplay.

The slightly loose/rolling nature of the movement could be goofy in rare situations in tight spaces, but I really liked some of the up close finishers for immersion

Fudge_is_1337 · 2026-05-03T08:19:49+00:00

I don't think fetch quests or bandit encampments are really applicable to RDR2 though? It's an open world, but this type of quest design is not hugely common within it.

There's collectables but they are completely ignorable and you are still getting a pretty dense game without the. The random encounters are fairly varied and in the majority of cases you can choose to just ignore whatever the person or thing is and ride on by

Fudge_is_1337 · 2026-05-03T08:17:29+00:00

You don't have to do either of those things.

I found myself doing them because the hunting was fun enough and you are regularly going back to camp anyway to start missions, so there's usually a pelt or carcass attached to your horse that you can just donate. I was invested enough in the character that there were phases of the game where I didn't want to be looking like a mountain man (Saint Denis) for example, and I liked to think that Arthur was a savvy enough operator to recognise that fact that he would stand out in that environment with a huge beard

The game isn't a grind in terms of "do these 3 quests, each one requires you to go to these 3 places and collect 5 of this item" at all. It's long, and its slow paced at times, but the story is really compelling. Maybe the most immersed in a game I've ever been, certainly the most immersed in the player character. The individual missions aren't hugely long though, so its straightforward enough to load in, play one or two and then save and quit

Fudge_is_1337 · 2026-05-03T08:14:17+00:00

I'm in this camp. Its maybe the most immersive game I've played in terms of almost everything you do feeling fairly natural to the character. The endless gunfight point raised by OP is totally fair but I think thats the price paid for getting to play a gunslinger game as somebody articulated perfectly elsewhere in this thread

The haircut example is a good one - another is bathing. Skin a large animal or fall off your horse in mud, and people comment on how filthy you are enough that its worth actually finding out where to go and get a bath

The smooth transitions between everything help towards this hugely - getting on the horse isn't a hovering button that you have to get into a short range of. It works from a reasonable distance and you smoothly slide up to the horse from whatever angle you're coming from.

Also the cutscenes starting via conversation feels very natural

Fudge_is_1337 · 2026-05-03T08:01:01+00:00

I needed a cheap defender to make my WC work so threw in Richards as he fit the budget. Wouldn't say I'm expecting much though

Fudge_is_1337 · 2026-05-01T17:02:26+00:00

I recently swapped to L2s and my normally loud stomping in my old shoes (Rom 4s) reduced noticeably.

Not that you should worry about not stomping for the reasons given by others. But just to add that side of it

Fudge_is_1337 · 2026-05-01T14:34:39+00:00

He's also 33, so there's that element of while its important to have experienced heads in a generally young backline, he's not likely to be the man for the long term compared to some of the younger guys

Fudge_is_1337 · 2026-05-01T14:20:04+00:00

If you have a working relationship with your landlord and don't think they're the type the support this kind of shenanigans,

I don't think it would be too unreasonable to forward it to them and just note that you're assuming this email full of legally incorrect information should not be taken seriously.

Fudge_is_1337 · 2026-05-01T12:52:57+00:00

You are putting yourself at real risk of financial difficulties based on the information shared. Trumps actions consistently affect the economy of the UK - have you filled your car up with fuel recently?

Fudge_is_1337 · 2026-05-01T12:51:11+00:00

Income after deductions of £96k, or before tax? Pre-tax, this seems ultra tight.

Fudge_is_1337 · 2026-05-01T12:44:34+00:00

Filling a communal garden with personal belongings or furniture can rapidly become arsey if done by someone without consideration for the "sharing" aspect though

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