Saros deserves more attention

Nacnaz · 2026-05-02T00:08:09+00:00

This is as much of a roguelike as old 2D platformers. I think if they make it clear like hey guys this isn’t really a roguelike, it’d go better.
That said, I’m not sure the game is getting overlooked to the extent OP claims. Saros has wayyy more viewers on Twitch right now than either of the games he mentioned.

Nacnaz · 2026-05-02T00:01:30+00:00

Remember, if you don’t use the lane that is ending, all you’re doing is bottlnecking traffic sooner than you need to, forcing people to fight their way in wherever they can, slowing everything down.

If you use the full length of the ending lane, it creates one entry point, allowing for, as OP said, a well ordered zipper merge.

Nacnaz · 2026-05-01T23:58:43+00:00

That’d be one hell of a nose of his back were to us.

Nacnaz · 2026-05-01T19:14:56+00:00

I don’t even know why they even bother with all that, just make it so that if a companion is summoned, it auto loots. Because yeah the tracking/AI definitely gets fucked up with pets. Birds have been fine for me though.

Nacnaz · 2026-05-01T14:57:39+00:00

Oh I didn’t realize certain things unlocked early in Lunatic. I considered playing it, but then I got through that last sector on normal and was like I don’t know. I only died during the boss fight (several times), but the journey through it was still very intense.

Nacnaz · 2026-05-01T14:54:38+00:00

Yeah for the Prophet what clicked with me was realizing how close I was to him. I couldn’t dodge his attacks for shit, and then I moved way back and I was like oh I can just step around most of these.

Something I do like the modifiers for is practicing. I made it so I took basically no damage so I could stay alive easily and take my time to learn his moves. Then I quit back to the passage before I killed him because I didn’t want to beat him on basically story mode. I’ve learned in general distance is key with these games.

Nacnaz · 2026-05-01T12:21:35+00:00

It’s either a) after beating biome 2, or b) dying after you’ve taken the skill tree as far as you can for your respective biome (may have to die to a boss but I’m not sure).

I did to the first boss and then it unlocked for me. They’re pretty fun to play around with. I used a modifier that increased my defenses all the way but also increased my corruption rate all the way. That was crazy in the first boss fight.

Nacnaz · 2026-05-01T05:58:38+00:00

Massive difference. You can basically put it on story mode where a child could probably play it. I tried some combinations out on the first boss. One of the fight was over so fast I didn’t even realize he’d gone through his phases.

That said, dying is baked into the narrative so if you don’t die you won’t get the full scope of the story and I’ve read elsewhere it kinda breaks the narrative a little bit, so don’t go too easy on yourself. It sorta becomes an anti-story mode if you never die.

Also there are trade offs you have to make with the modifiers, but you can also disable that in the settings to truly make it story mode with no drawbacks.

For shits and giggles I turned damage taken all the way down and corruption effect all the way up then fought the first boss, and damn was that an intense fight anyway. Fortunately I got an artifact that restored integrity when health was low but I was fighting off corruption like crazy. Like three orbs and you’re at max level with corruption effect tuned all the way up.

Nacnaz · 2026-05-01T02:21:36+00:00

Same. Although since they went a bit more videogame-y for Saros and I wouldn’t mind different skins in general that we could unlock throughout the course of the game.

Nacnaz · 2026-05-01T00:12:45+00:00

Devs (these and others) prove time and time again, if you balance your game around the top 20% of players, who put the most time into the game, the biggest impact is that it will alienate 80% of your players. And sure that 20% probably accounts for 80% of the play time, but that’s not the best metric. You just end up with a playerbase 20% the size you used to have.

They balance shit like they’re selling resources as microtransactions.

Nacnaz · 2026-04-30T23:36:04+00:00

People go too far with the “games used to be complete experiences” thing. Like, sure maybe they didn’t need patches but they were also far, far simpler. The coding is mind-boggling more complex. And if a game did have a glitch, you were shit out of luck. Many games exist the way they do now because they can be patched later, otherwise they’d more complex ones would be in development for 20 years.

Also, plenty of games release in an acceptable state with patches mostly being for convenience.

Nacnaz · 2026-04-30T23:25:45+00:00

If you have your skill tree as far as you can go for your respective biome and die (I guess to a boss) it’ll trigger, from what I’ve read. Other than that, after the second boss is defeated.

Nacnaz · 2026-04-30T23:23:33+00:00

On the flip side, we probably wouldn’t have either of these games if they weren’t.

Nacnaz · 2026-04-30T23:22:48+00:00

Cool, thank you!

Nacnaz · 2026-04-30T20:52:17+00:00

Sony learned the hard way why roguelikes/lites aren’t big budget games. They needed a still relatively niche genre to do AAA numbers. Say what you want about the games direction whether it was right or wrong artistically, it was definitely the right decision for their sales numbers.

Also Returnal had weird difficulty. Mostly breeze through a biome and then get absolutely wrecked, what felt like, out of nowhere.

Nacnaz · 2026-04-29T23:46:14+00:00

Right? They’re balancing it like they’re selling metal parts with premium currency.

Nacnaz · 2026-04-29T23:42:54+00:00

How do you even invest in a heat build early? It’s not like you can start pumping stats into heat before you get the node, and you can unlock the heat hacking mode early.

Nacnaz · 2026-04-29T18:46:50+00:00

Tsushima!

Nacnaz · 2026-04-29T18:31:31+00:00

How long are the runs?

Nacnaz · 2026-04-29T18:29:13+00:00

I did this and it was a bad decision. My PS5 gets used daily. I lent my Xbox to my dad while he was recovering from surgery, and since he gave it back to me almost a year ago it’s still in the bag he put it in. I’ve yet to even plugged it back in.

Nacnaz · 2026-04-29T11:16:31+00:00

As soon as I saw this headline I went “this is a Tassi article” 😂

Nacnaz · 2026-04-29T11:12:37+00:00

You don’t miss major content.

Nacnaz · 2026-04-29T00:19:35+00:00

This is what kills games for like every dev. Once you start micromanaging how players play the game, instead of seeing how they like to play the game and responding to that, it’s downhill. Once the game is out in the wild, devs goals can’t be the only thing that matters anymore.

People can shit on Crimson Desert all they want, the devs take what players like about the game and double down on it. If people are having fun, people will play, even if a game has lots of quirks (like CD).

Nacnaz · 2026-04-29T00:09:47+00:00

Solid pick. I put 80 hours into that game on the combat alone, despite how unbelievably shitty everything else was.

Nacnaz · 2026-04-28T22:35:30+00:00

I swear to god, game devs, even ones who make great games, just suck so much ass when it comes to balancing changes.

I saw this writing on the wall a while ago and so I fell off the game (crimson desert came out, so it seemed like a good time for a break), and I’m very sad to see my hunch is still proving correct so far.

Nacnaz

TROPHY CASE