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Operencia: The Stolen Sun - turn-based blobber by Hungarian pinball devs

User0001

Savant
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Jun 9, 2018
Messages
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Location
Nangilima
All major fights have required... respeccing with the right talents

And that is supposed to be a good thing?

If a game allows, let alone requires "respeccing", it's garbage.

I'd normally agree with you but it somehow fits the puzzle nature of the game, and actually ain't boring nor tedious.

I also have to say that during mid-game the respeccing calms down. There are character builds and combinations that are good enough so that you only slightly have to tweak their setup. When late-game difficulty kicks in I expect character management and respeccing will amplify again, if there are any murder bosses.
 

cvv

Arcane
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Kingdom of Bohemia
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Sales on this are awful. Peaked at 204 players ingame.
I'm not spending $30 on this.
Yeah this is likely the problem. Paying 30 bucks for an old-school blobber is too much for most people. Even I, a blobber fanatic who D1P-ed Grimoire for 30 jewro, bought Operencia only when it was -50% on EGS plus Epic slashed the price by extra 10 bucks for every purchase over 14 bucks. So I got it for effectively for 4 bucks.
 

Reinhardt

Arcane
Joined
Sep 4, 2015
Messages
29,236
It's not paying for blobber that is a problem. It's paying for old blobber. Like i said - everyone who cared enough about it already bought or pirated it.
 

V_K

Arcane
Joined
Nov 3, 2013
Messages
7,714
Location
at a Nowhere near you
It's not paying for blobber that is a problem. It's paying for old blobber. Like i said - everyone who cared enough about it already bought or pirated it.
Well, yes and no. I wouldn't pay $30 for it either way, and I don't risk going to the torrents where I currently live.
 

Darth Canoli

Arcane
Joined
Jun 8, 2018
Messages
5,687
Location
Perched on a tree
Yeah this is likely the problem. Paying 30 bucks for an old-school blobber is too much for most people.

It wouldn't be a problem if it was a good DRM-free blobber.
Why would we pay 30 bucks for yet another mediocre game ?
You pretend you're a blobber fan, good for you, i don't like generic blobbers that much, good blobber, yes! Great blobbers ? Yes! Yes! Yes!
Generic half-baked blobbers ? Nope ...

I didn't read one person praising that thing, so, just like everyone else, i might buy it when it's cheap and i don't know what else to play.
 

fantadomat

Arcane
Edgy Vatnik Wumao
Joined
Jun 2, 2017
Messages
37,083
Location
Bulgaria

Nyast

Cipher
Joined
Jan 12, 2014
Messages
609
But why do you care if the game sold a lot or not at all ? Are you that worried about the financial well-being of the developers ? After pirating the game ?

If it had come out on Steam and GoG and not on EGS, it's very possible ( not that we'll ever know of course ) that the devs would have received less money in the end.
 

cvv

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Mar 30, 2013
Messages
18,072
Location
Kingdom of Bohemia
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Sonofabitch.

So after I uninstalled this game due to constant crashing I couldn't stop thinking about it. Two days passed and I reinstalled again and tried to go on despite the crashes. I actually pushed through the Ancient Elemental fight, turns out there were specific spells that caused the crashing. So I avoided them. But then you gotta go through a portal and the game crashed every. single. time.

I raged.

Before uninstalling for good I tried one last desperate thing. Found the config and peered into it, trying to divine some sort of magic trick. Then I noticed that all graphix settings are at 1 (Low) except "Effects" and "Foliage", which was at 3. Thing is you can't set those separately in-game, there's only one global setting for postprocessing. And I did notice the crashes happened usually when there was a lot of elemental effects on the screen. So I dropped everything to 1 and fucking hurray, the game works again.

So the game must be using some retarded posptprocessing newfangled feature my elderly card can't into, rayfuckingtracing or some such. Importantly I'm playing again.
 

HoboForEternity

sunset tequila
Patron
Joined
Mar 27, 2016
Messages
9,175
Location
Disco Elysium
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
it's pretty fun so far, but far too easy.

my diff setting:

exploration: normal. i dont want to draw a map manually on paper. it's pointless at this age

battle hardened: hard. even with few camping resources i rarely run out of stamina at least in the first dungeon. no map marker is incline-ish. the map isnt too complex so far.

permadeath: nope

fight difficulty: hard. still pretty easy in the first dungeon.

it have decent base i guess, but far too easy and too simple. i still look forward to play more
 

cvv

Arcane
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it's pretty fun so far, but far too easy.

Well you're just in the tutorial dungeon. But generally game's not super hardcore. Just finished it on Normal and I only had some trouble in a couple of fights, mostly bosses. But after switching up party members and respeccing the trouble was gone. I always had 7+ firewood to spare, except in the Copper Forest where I almost ran out. There are these nasty mobs that drain your mana so you gotta rest after almost every fight so just heads up. Better save up for a rainy day.
 

cvv

Arcane
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After party sitrep.

All in all I loved it. It it's just long enough (playtime 23h) and just big enough and the puzzles are just difficult enough, except for three or four super obtuse ones I just couldn't figure out without a guide but that's to be expected in every old-school bloober. Level design is very good, environmental design is phenomenal. The 2D drawings are also fantastic, a clear proof you can have great looking hand-drawn, stylized characters without being vomit inducing nuAnime or dumbfuck cartoonish. Music is good, sounds are fine and the VO is less cringey than I expected from a cheapo indie Hungarian blobber.

There are a few flaws, most notably the loot. You find fucking truckloads of money and valuables and it's almost completely useless. The merchant travelling with you only has a couple of must-have items to sell and apart from those she has absolutely nothing of worth. The differences between non-legendary gear are minuscule and you're more than fine with the loot you find. And there are no other money sinks. I think I would've ended up with like 200k gold if I ever bothered to sell all my shit. Itemization in general is acceptable at best. Definitely the weakest part of the game.

As for the party switching and respeccing....eh, it's fine I guess but I'd prefer some actual shield spells. As things are if you bump into 5 ice skulls they'll tear your arsehole apart in two turns. So you have to load and pump your Wisdom (elemental resistance) sky high. Then you roflstomp the skulls and respec back. On Normal there aren't many situations like that but it's still annoying. Standard elemental resist spells would be a better solution methinks.

Other than that gaem grate, play it.
 

Whisper

Arcane
Vatnik
Joined
Feb 29, 2012
Messages
4,357
it's pretty fun so far, but far too easy.

my diff setting:

exploration: normal. i dont want to draw a map manually on paper. it's pointless at this age

battle hardened: hard. even with few camping resources i rarely run out of stamina at least in the first dungeon. no map marker is incline-ish. the map isnt too complex so far.

permadeath: nope

fight difficulty: hard. still pretty easy in the first dungeon.

it have decent base i guess, but far too easy and too simple. i still look forward to play more

It will get harder in middle of game. First 3-4 areas are easy, no so much when you reach Draconids/rats/copper berserkers.
 

Whisper

Arcane
Vatnik
Joined
Feb 29, 2012
Messages
4,357
Well you're just in the tutorial dungeon. But generally game's not super hardcore. Just finished it on Normal and I only had some trouble in a couple of fights, mostly bosses. But after switching up party members and respeccing the trouble was gone. I always had 7+ firewood to spare, except in the Copper Forest where I almost ran out. There are these nasty mobs that drain your mana so you gotta rest after almost every fight so just heads up. Better save up for a rainy day.


Why would anyone play on Normal? Normal is new Easy.

You could as well hack game and press 1 button to win all fights.

What a shame.
 

Daidre

Arcane
Joined
Jan 30, 2019
Messages
1,975
Location
Samara
Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture
Yeah this is likely the problem. Paying 30 bucks for an old-school blobber is too much for most people.

How about $6 in an Epic Store sale like six fucking months ago?

I just pirated it a couple of months ago but bought it first day on Steam for ~5$ in Russian money, would not have bothered if it was not so cheap, honestly, since I have dropped the game around chapter 4. I may pick it up one day. Maybe. Probably.
Can't imagine how good game should be to willingly touch EGS for it, and Operencia is not such a game. So, if pinball devs got a free burial services along with their nice cozy exclusive spot in EGS - not my problem.
 
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HoboForEternity

sunset tequila
Patron
Joined
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Disco Elysium
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
the first map boss is pretty difficult, but yeah, respeccing is vital key of the game. it is unconventional, but works somehow as a layer of strategy. feels like selecting spells or equipment in other RPGs but more fundamental. everytime you get stuck on an enemy or a boss, learn their weaknesses and rebuild your character that accommodate the boss's weaknesses. it doesn't feel decline at all, it feels like integral part of the game because selecting the right build against the right enemy at least require you to understand the enemies' attributes so the bosses are a bit puzzle-y matching your available skills with them.

the first boss in second dungeon works the same way. i got stuck 2-3 times, respec according to their weaknesses got trough and continue and so on.
 

cvv

Arcane
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sounds like meaningful char progression
Yeah, if meant ironically. The more I think about it the more I dislike it. I'm not one of the "respeccing is evil" fags but I do think respeccing should be relatively rare and require some effort. The way it's done in Dark Souls 2 is exemplary - you need a certain consumable and those are very limited and not trivial to find/obtain.

That said it's really not a huge downer. Itemization and loot bothered me much more.
 

HoboForEternity

sunset tequila
Patron
Joined
Mar 27, 2016
Messages
9,175
Location
Disco Elysium
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
It's not really like char building in other RPG. So far there is no "optimum" build for everything, it's more like which skills works with which enemy types.

Think of it not as min-max game like most RPG but more like changing your gear in monster hunter game. The game seem to be designed to be like this so it works. It's doesnt seem to be unintentional, but design decision which imo works.
 

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