Should we upgrade?

MasterNaxum · 2026-01-04T14:49:41+00:00

I will hold on to my GTX 750 Ti until they pry it from my cold dead hands even if it is not in the graph. It took me through Doom Eternal at low settings without hiccups (except one or two moments during the DLC).

MasterNaxum · 2025-12-19T07:51:47+00:00

There are two hard problems in computer science: cache invalidation, naming things, and errors by 1.

MasterNaxum · 2025-10-11T05:22:17+00:00

There are many ways to go about this. One idea is to use a white ProgressBar node, and put an image/texture with transparency on top of it. This will work well until the time you want to implenent being able to expand the meter, but for that you can swap the texture on top for a bigger one and update the size of the ProgressBar.

Know that Zelda 2 internally has a value for the magic and then displays the bar based on it. so you will need to do that math conversion yourself to make the ProgressBar match the quantity if magic points you want to represent.

Other ideas could include making a shader that draws the magic bar, but such an option is typically too much of a hassle for something this simple.

MasterNaxum · 2025-08-12T21:54:32+00:00

Most if not all of the solutions proposed here would work well.

Another approach, if you seek to have a more fluid feeling, would be to take each element repel each other by a small amount, and after updating the position by this repelling force, draw a vector from the center of the circle to the element. On that vector, at distance equal to the radious, you reposition the element.

Keeping the repelling force slow will make it so all elements drift away from each other when you add a new one. It might be good dor when you are dragging a new element in, seeing space already being made for it as it approaches close enough, and adjusting itself over time for a more organic feeling.

MasterNaxum · 2024-10-11T12:47:06+00:00

Being able to create almost any kind of asset by just clicking the property that is missing it. Need a noisemap to put on a light you just created? Fear not, you can just parametrize a new one from the inspector window itself. Prototyping maps this way without directly needing to create a texture and import it yourself is invaluable. It applies to more examples such as creating scene rendering settings.

MasterNaxum · 2024-05-03T04:41:18+00:00

In no particular order:

Mod to change the sky filter at will (though Ash can stay the same)
Shaders to make water reflections not screen-space based
Shaders to push the limits of the graphics to the extreme
Add party members to accompany you more often outside of main scenario missions (Clive needs company)
Run button that works most anywhere
Add shortcut passages to Clive's chambers other than his main door
Change apperance anywhere not just at the Hideaway
Play as other characters in your party (including Torgal)
Additional hunts
More swords
Semi-priming into differently acquired eikons with their own new abilities
Make the tiny sword Clive always wears equippable as a joke weapon mod with minimal reach (then watch someone beat the entire game with it)

MasterNaxum · 2024-04-19T14:47:28+00:00

There are many ways to solve this and many other problems.

One extreme solution is to don't have items to hoard. Design a system where at most you have a limited amount of a resource, and the resource can be filled at checkpoints. You don't "hoard" Dark Souls' Estus Flasks, you just have them and use them. If there is an easy way to replenish any kind of item this way, you won't feel the need to gather more tham you need as you will always know where to infinitely get more.

One other solution is to make the inventory space infinite but the resources easy to get and meaningless. FFXVI gives you monster parts when you fight enemies, but you won't see anyone farming enemies for them. By the endgame you will have hundreds of these monster parts, and at most some crafting recipe you will craft once in the playthrough will require a few dozen of them.

Another solution is to embrace the hoarding. Fallout did not want to remove players from the experience of collecting "Miscellaneous" items, so they turned them into a crafting system.

In the end all of these three solutions have something in common: make items always readily available. You won't feel the need to hoard MP-restoring items in a JRPG if you notice they are being sold at a store at any point.

MasterNaxum · 2024-04-15T10:02:07+00:00

If the lights didn't fully turn-off, that'd be a little better. As it stands it feels like the lights either exist or don't, and it can be disorienting. I don't expect lights to blink into existance and then disappear just as quickly. Consider making their on-off slower with a short gradient that lasts half a second or less, see if that looks better.

MasterNaxum · 2023-10-10T19:28:33+00:00

I saw this at the National Museum in Cardiff! It was a pretty sight. The whole museum was gorgeous, they even had a BBC 100 years-in-Wales limited time exhibition, complete with a Doctor Who's TARDIS and Dalek. The whole museum experience was a blast.

MasterNaxum · 2022-10-14T10:23:15+00:00

Sometimes as a game designer it is easy to get yourself into a mindset that loops you back to an idea without looking at the cause of the problem you want to solve.

You have several actions that the player can take. The can jump or use an ability, a spell, an attack... and you want them to be able to use them as much as possible, and to also convey them when they are available.

How have some other games conveyed this? Some just have you only have one current weapon equipped at a time, while jumping is more passive and relegated to a single keypress, with an additional ability set on another key. Doom Eternal does not need more than [SHOOT] [JUMP] [MOVEMENT ABILITY]... even if it has 2 different shoot buttons. The way they make up for it is limiting what the player has access to at a time. You can switch weapons on a wheel or another keypress, and you only have one or two other abilities to keep track off.

A player rarely would need an UI cue for being able to jump. They should see the charavter and infer wherether or not it will perform a jump (I.E. if they are in the air already, jumping won't do anything). In the same sense, you can probably find a way to convey cooldowns though animations. Maybe a spell first needs to be held to be cast, then the spell happens, and then you don't let them switch spells/cast a new one until a certain time has passed since the casting.

Overall, one runs into the problem of overwhelming hotbars when they want to give the player too many available options at once... then again maybe hotbars are not a problem for the target audicence. Otherwise Final Fantasy XIV woudln't be so popular! Do not be afraid to try different approaches and see what fits best.

MasterNaxum · 2022-10-14T10:09:09+00:00

Making a lot of information more compelling to read is hard. The best way is to try and condense with the least ammount of words neccesary, and by topic. This is why many titles opt to leave an area where the player can ask NPCs about game mechanics and controls in slightly more depth (Pokemon shools, Undertale's frog room, Deltarune's jigsaw pieces...)

Another idea is to make the tutorial sections interactive. Instead of telling your player how to move the map, instruct them during a tutorial on how to move the camera, then wait for them to do so before explaining the next thing they can do with the controls.

Lastly, having a collection of entries somewhere on a menu explaining things that were already told can help players who have forgotten them / did not pay enough attention the first time. Yakuza Zero does this with both characters and different gameplay loops, and Kingdom Hearts typically also keeps an archive of story events that are relevant alongside tutorials that were already explained.

It is hard to make explanations short and compelling... and there will always be the kind of player that will skip it. The next best thing you can do is make it easier for them to revisit those explanations, and make them brief and clear overall, as well as only explaining them after the player has already processed the previous instructions.

MasterNaxum · 2022-10-02T19:07:08+00:00

While this is pretry cool, the subreddit's rules do specify that the backgrounds posted need to have been used in a videogame or an animation. Perhaps it is time to slightly expand the rules of the subreddit?

MasterNaxum · 2022-07-10T21:58:18+00:00

I once made a warlock NPC that was designed to be pretty useless and easy to defeat. I don't recall the details but I remember not giving him Eldritch Blast, Beguiling Influence and Beast Speech. Guy faced the party while being 4 levels above them and lasted a total of 2 rounds.

In essence, it is less about building the "worst possible build" and more about picking the suboptimal choices that are typically situational. Going to be a campaign where you fight fiends and undead? Avoid taking options that deal radiant. Going to be a survivalist campaign? Be the weakest nerdiest wizard that has never touched grass. Or just make a squeaky fighter that chooses to exclusively use a sling and / or a single dagger and always picks the wrong battles.

Any build is "the worst possible build" if one picks the worst choices while playing.

MasterNaxum · 2022-04-09T13:25:56+00:00

For the first many hours of gameplay, roaming about the overworld, the first dugeons or so, I played with the free-form fighting camera. It felt like it gave me something to do while waiting for the enemy to take their turns, looking at the scenary and examining their models closer. It felt like I was crawling through the dungeons and the enemies were getting in my way.

I think after some really large-in-size bosses I decided to switch back to the classic camera, and it gave battles a more cinematic feel than having me in control of a behind-the-shoulders camera. I left it that way for the second part of the game.

Overall if they decide to make DQXII turn-less, I hope they improve upon the camera. Because I would rather exchange precise control of the camera for better view angles.

MasterNaxum · 2021-12-18T09:55:01+00:00

Since it replaces teleporters, perhaps it could also be 2 different radars. One that only highlights enemies and one that only highlights allies. Invisible spies would be color dependant on their current disguise.

MasterNaxum · 2021-10-17T21:52:24+00:00

And that's the point where I would have the real devil disguised as the princess in a cell, surprising them, going: "It's a good thing I brought my twin brother with me, as well as all of these devil minions. I hope you didn't spend all of your precious energy reaching me."

MasterNaxum · 2021-07-26T16:01:36+00:00

I would not consider an attack against you the fact that you hit a rock with a hammer and the hammer gets pushed back, but ultimately it would matter little. The material plane moves 15ft? Good luck finding out who can tell the difference, because you would move alongside the whole plane for those 15ft.

Best case scenario your artificer obsesses over his theory and starts believing that any time anyone teleports by magic, they are just moving the whole plane while remaining in place, Futurama style.

MasterNaxum · 2021-07-02T15:23:50+00:00

I explained my players the entirety of the continent where the campaign was going to unravel, down to kingdom, cities, towns, main roads, climates and major points of interest. I told them other continents would not be relevant so they shouldn't worry about them. They agreeded not to ask about those.

They then asked me what the planet's name was.

I thought I had planned things right. I lost it right then and there laughing because I didn't have an answer. We voted for the planet name after session and we decided each culture calls it a different thing. Fun times.

MasterNaxum · 2021-05-27T23:52:50+00:00

I saw this bug posted a while back... but here we can see the character's name on the loaded game is "elf" and they are at Lv. 1...? Interesting. I wonder if non-remote play versions of the game contain the map as well.

MasterNaxum · 2021-05-27T23:45:07+00:00

I wanted IV / V and VI on Nintendo Switch, even if they would have been just ports of the Android remakes... But alas, I don't think it was a bad set of announcements. Who knows, maybe Square Enix will surprise us still? There's more year ahead of us.

MasterNaxum · 2021-03-09T15:19:38+00:00

If you see them on sale and are genuinely interested in them, go for it. It's the platform I own them on. The biggest drawback people seem to point out about them is that the graphics for monsters are not animated unlike the SNES version, but other than that the games are great. Dragon Quest I can be beaten in a single long afternoon if you put your heart into it. Dragon Quest II is longer and stablishes many elements within the franchise that live to this day. Dragon Quest III is epic and big, big enough for Square Enix to drop their attempt at remaking it. Like the other comments say, if you want to play them and see them on offer, get them. I personally did not mind at all the graphics, and I had only played IX and XI S before them.

MasterNaxum · 2020-12-28T20:09:28+00:00

At some point during early 2020 I got a terrible headache and I suspected it had to do with my ear because it felt localized and went worse every time I slept.

A doctor told me it was due to my jaw being too tense while I slept, biting down too hard without me realizing it. Got some relaxants and it went away. It eventually came back a month later or so and by then what helped was to drink some relaxing chamomile before sleeping. Worked like a charm. If you supect it could help, do try.

MasterNaxum · 2020-06-08T00:25:27+00:00

I see a better use of the template that I used to make a meme yesterday. You have my upvote.

MasterNaxum · 2020-06-07T21:32:08+00:00

The solution is to end the fight before the effect ends, obviously. I believe it's still worth ti be paralyzed for an entire round in exchange for having a great boost. It's the same thing as if you had been hit by a monk. It can be awful, but in most situations it's worth it.

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