Yeah, jump ship man. If you're even vaugely interested in a game go in blind. Don't read the sites, absolutely stay clear of the forums and junk. You don't even have to quit the internet entirely. All that is rubbish anyway. Gamer elitism is so much BS and I hate it. Don't even go on user reviews, and absolutely ignore Steam reviews. If you like it you like it, and most platforms have solid refund policies. Finding games to like is hard though, but frankly I think there's not much to like out there. Not for me anyway.
Oh and do try to go in blind on movies. If it is a movie you know you'll watch, ignore everything about it. Don't read anything. Ideally I don't even want to know the actors involved, or even the basic plot.
Yeap. This is pretty much me. It's not only about the money though, it's the time and emotional energy. Even going through the refund process is just kinda bleh. I'll spend some decent time trying to make a game work for me, depending on what I think is keeping me from enjoying it. Sometimes it's me, and I need to come in with a different mindset on a different day. It can very well take me too long to just piece together if a game is or isn't going to work for me. Sometimes, I can tell right away that I'm gonna enjoy a game. Other times, it takes over 20 hours of play before something clicks and I end up doing another 100.
I would also add, it's no fun to not be able to go places and talk about games, or see what they're saying at all. That is a part of the appreciation it itself. Totally blocking yourself off isn't a final solution in my mind. It amounts to just giving up on something that probably can and definitely should be better. A big part of all art and entertainment is the culture around it. I think that people generally benefit from talking their experiences with art out - it can bring new understanding, someone may have information or other experiences that when passed onto you via interaction, actually change how you experience that thing. When it comes to games, some also just have a lot of depth and it can pay to learn more about the details - especially if it is a new genre for you. Souls is a great example. While I think you should take on the obtuseness yourself as much as possible, I kind of wonder how many people actually manage to stick those games out as newbies without some serious priming up on information. It can be sort of a project to become a souls player/enjoyer, just a lot of stuff to snub and confuse newcomers. It's not what most are used to in a game. Really, I think that never changes. There are always times when it's worth looking something up with them, regardless of experience level. Humans can do extra-dumb stuff when we put our heads together, but at the end of the day we are still
smartest together. You can benefit from the knowledge of thousands of other people's experiences, solve problems that one mind alone can't very quickly.
It's just that it is a double edged sword and when the communities for that are in poor health, it can really poison the experiences, tear things down for everyone involved and cheapen the whole exchange. I don't nessesarily
want to cordon off. I think the general toxicity and groupthink has just gotten out of hand.
Geez man... Elden Ring does have one issue that bugs me like crazy. The crouch button apparently just makes you instantly drop off of your horse. Seems alright, I guess it's nice to have a one-button way to dismount. But crouch being L3 by default is a problem. Maybe this controller is getting worn, but over the course of making fast movements it will trigger and pop me off my horse, leaving me standing square on the ground, usually when in the middle of dodging or escaping a boss. I have died quite a few times to that, just wondering what the hell that's about, if there's a timeout, or Torrent has some kind of stamina based limit before running out and needing to be respawned.... maybe something improved by some special item or permabuff. I thought maybe I DID take a hit and it just killed Torrent without touching me somehow.
But no, it's the control scheme! I feel like you should never put something so 'decisive' and drastic on stick buttons. Usually, I'd map-out, but I can't think of a better place to actually put crouch. I'd love to swap it for B and use the left stick button to sprint - that's familiar to me with a lot of games. To me, holding a letter button for sprint makes little sense, it limits what you can do while sprinting. Problem is, the B button is also your dodge... fast tapping is not what you want on L3, your movement stick. I don't know of a single controller I would trust enough that I will hit that with enough precision to roll properly and not go all over the place. Mechanically speaking, I can deal with the sprint being on a letter button and just appreciate that it adds more combat tension - to execute sprint attacks or use it for avoidance comes with its own challenges and compromises. Any other game, I'd happily just call it a bad mapping choice, because it pretty much always just makes traversal a little more clunky and stressful.
To me, the real problem is that you can so easily crouch off of your horse. I have a feeling just adding a split-second of hold before it actually dismounts would prevent accidental dismounts. It's just little presses, whacking the stick. It sucks so much when you know you're gonna be clear of a swing when your horse just vanishes unexpectedly in the middle of a turn just because while holding the stick at a steep angle, the button underneath triggered. And now your fight is over. There were times where my horse vanished and I died so fast that what happened didn't register for me. That's less "Ooooo I'll get you back!" and more "What? Tch... ahhhhhhh! Why?" I felt cheated every time I would just plop off of that horse. Be a second away from winning and lose it all to a bad button scheme.
I swear, that's the real reason the Tree Soldier gave me so much trouble at level 14. I fought him over a dozen times before I started wondering what was happening with Torrent. And then as soon as I swapped out that L3, I beat him with ease on the first try. Probably ~12 hits with a smithed-up twinblade, running in and out for quick hits between attacks, staying out of range of that downswing attack that grabs you into it. Didn't hit me once. I gotta admit, I was not gratified by the fact that the whole challenge in that fight for me was down to that one button. Though I was getting really good at calling Torrent back and dipping out of death-swings at the last second
It always happens at the worst time though! It's like using Torrent in battle is a big prank on me, like I'm not actually supposed to use the horse in battle because it just trolls me every time.
The only fix I've found is to swap L3 out of crouch for horse fighting. Really annoying though. I think with a different controller it might be okay. I've beaten the crap out of that button hold-sprinting with it in countless other games... which is still fine when all it's used for is sprinting - that already has a lead-in to begin that keeps it from going into sprint when you don't actually want to - and holding still works fine. It's just terrible for anything else because it's getting loosey goosey.
I'm sure this is something you can just learn to deal with, like you can just be quick with the calls I guess. We'll see how much I really use the horse for boss fights. But not even regular Dark Souls had THAT problem. I make no excuses for that mapping choice, or how quickly the dismount triggers. It's like the slightest push on this controller and my horse is just gone. Pretty flow breaking in combat, when there's bound to be stick-knocking for me. Way worse than accidentally crouching. A dodge quickly gets you out of that. The movement drop from horse to foot is far steeper.
See... here's where I think reading about a game comes in handy. Would've saved me a lot of pointless trouble just knowing that about Torrent and the horse controls. Maybe I can swap left and right stick buttons? Actually... yeah. Then I can actually target while sprinting. But I might lose targeting in mid combat.
EDIT: Yeah... swapping the stick buttons actually makes so much more sense to me. Never is your thumb off of the 'look/target' button when it's on the left stick. I do drop out of targeting occasionally, but being able to toggle real slick like makes it worth it. It's nice when in combat if you accidentally tap the left stick, you just lose target for a split second. That can be enough to throw you onto the wrong target but usually it seems to favor the one you were on, if you're already engaging them. Crouch also just makes more sense to me on the right stick. The way it's used in this game, that works fine. You will generally already be on the right stick when you need to crouch.
to play again and the Epic ones dont crash like the steam ones and i didnt have to fiddle with the ini to get ultra wide.
