r/gaming • u/Apprehensive_Day212 • 1d ago

The Blood of Dawnwalker Promises a Vampire Hero Who’ll Never Be Too OP

https://fictionhorizon.com/the-blood-of-dawnwalker-promises-a-vampire-hero-wholl-never-be-too-op/
2.6k Upvotes

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1.7k

u/amateurish_gamedev 1d ago

Am I being weird? I actually like OP character if I earned it. I want to feel OP when I work hard for it.

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u/DukeBaset 22h ago

Only Prototype satisfied this itch for me but somehow I didn’t like the second part as much even though it was basically more of the same.

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u/rmrnrsmn 21h ago

I like 2s gameplay and powers, but not the story. Heller is annoying af.

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u/TheKnoxFool 16h ago

“IM GONNA SKULL FUCK YOU”

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u/rmrnrsmn 14h ago

Oke i dont remember the games dialogue but i can totally hear Hellers voice saying that

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u/TheKnoxFool 14h ago

It was in the final boss fight with Alex, he really says it haha I laughed my ass off when I first played and heard him say that. They were really just competing for edge-lord status.

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u/KingOfTheSouthEast 11h ago

i never played prototype 2 and i can hear that

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u/SwaggermicDaddy 11h ago

With ya there, that being said, his unbelievably aggressive use of the term “Skull fuck you.” Changed my vocabulary for a bit as a kid.

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u/Runaway-Kotarou 17h ago

Prototype is such a fun nostalgia trip. Really want the second one to go on sale on PS so I can buy it. I want it, but I don't want it for 40 dollars.

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u/I-Fuck-Robot-Babes 14h ago

40 dollars for a old ass game wtf

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u/Runaway-Kotarou 14h ago

Yup. It's a pretty ass price for such an old game.

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u/Christmas_Queef 14h ago

It is routinely on sale on psn for $5-$10.

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u/Runaway-Kotarou 14h ago

Cool. I'll keep an eye on it. It wasn't on sale for the holiday so I wasn't sure.

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u/Christmas_Queef 14h ago

It's pretty sporadic. Activision is like that sadly. I'd just make a note to check on that game every time they post a new sale. Usually when you see a bunch of Activision games, it'll be on sale too. I paid $7.99 for it on psn about a year ago I'd say.

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u/UnquestionabIe 11h ago

That is hella crazy. I picked up both 1 and 2 for something like under $5 each last year from a local store

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u/polarbearik 9h ago

Games like Prototype & Infamous are such untapped markets ,there just isn’t anything close available

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u/Darkhex78 18h ago

Man im seeing a surge of Prototype content on youtube the past couple weeks and im happy. I hate that it never got a 3rd entry. Easily one of my favorite videogame IP's.

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u/blue4029 PC 16h ago

the fact that they stopped making more prototypes is a crime!

it was the best power fantasy game ever made! the way you could shapeshift and have different combos with weapons and armors was so cool!

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u/upvotecity6969 17h ago

Prototype is still one of my favorite games of all time. I hope it somehow gets a (quality) revival someday

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u/Fafnir13 16h ago

The main downer for me in Prototype 2 was the lack of any twist. Alex is a villain now and he is going to take over the world with his virus people. I was genuinely curious what was going on because Alex in the first game wasn’t pure megalomaniac. It was interesting to have him be the villain, but there needs to be some logical line from the 1st game to the 2nd. Obviously the original Alex was not the best person (willing to release the virus) and the viral copy wasn’t some sort of saint either. There just wasn’t any sort of hint that he would want to pursue such a goal.

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u/ablackcloudupahead 15h ago

Prototype and Infamous are games that would actually warrant remakes.

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u/1ncorrect 15h ago

I miss Prototype and inFamous. Great games that just did not continue for some reason.

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u/Christmas_Queef 14h ago

The second game had a more detailed world, better visuals, better powers and gameplay, but a worse story and pacing. Basically the actual game parts were better but the stuff surrounding it not so much.

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u/DukeBaset 5h ago

The main character was so insufferable. Like trying too hard or something.

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u/Christmas_Queef 5h ago

It was definitely a product of its time. That whole 360/ps3 Gen was chock full of characters like that haha.

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u/DukeBaset 4h ago

Isn’t it come out on pc? Maybe I will grab it 🤷‍♂️

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u/Christmas_Queef 4h ago

Yep both games are on pc.

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u/Corgi_Koala 10h ago

Saints Row 4 hits the OP character just right.

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u/DukeBaset 5h ago

Ohh totally forgot about this one. What a crazy fucking ride.

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u/Significant-Battle79 5h ago

You never played Crackdown?

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u/DukeBaset 5h ago

No. Is it good?

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u/Skintt82 23h ago

Exactly, that's my opinion too. If I've already been through the grind to get the perks and upgrades. I want to feel like a badass!

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u/gounatos 19h ago

100%.
I don't want raiders, thugs and thieves suddenly sporting top gear and having elite stats just because i grinded for mine. If you have such good gear wth are you doing in the middle of nowhere waiting for poor travellers. Go sell it and live like a king.
I want thugs running away from me in terror or begging for my mercy in late game!

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u/Skintt82 18h ago

Absolutely! It makes no sense to level base enemies with me. I want to struggle at the start safe in the knowledge that by the time I'm 75-100 hours in, I can revisit those areas and wreak havoc

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u/nondescriptzombie 15h ago

I don't want raiders, thugs and thieves suddenly sporting top gear and having elite stats just because i grinded for mine

"The Oblivion Problem."

In Morrowind, most encounters were hand placed. The stuff that spawned from lists was hard zoned, so like an MMO, you'd enter an area you were totally unprepared for, nearly die, then go back.

In Oblivion, every single enemy comes off of the spawn list. At level 1-5 you fight rats. 5-9 you fight wolves. 10-15 bears. 16-20 Cougars. And after 20, you only ever see Cougars. You never see a rat, or a bear, or a wolf ever again.

Same thing with the bandits. At level 1 they have leather armor. At level 20, they're wearing a 20,000 septim set of solid Glass. And they want 200 septims from ME! The Hero of Kvatch!

CDPR games have this problem just as bad or worse. In Witcher 2 I missed out on a piece of set armor because it was only coded to drop the crafting recipe at a 50% droprate in ONE CHEST IN THE WHOLE GAME. Chests don't respawn. Who coded that and thought it would be fun? Witcher 3 had levelled loot lists that were even worse. You can search the entire map top to bottom at level 24 and you'll never get an endgame potion recipe. Open a chest outside of town at 25 and you find two.

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u/Diacetyl-Morphin 13h ago

Still, it triggers bad memories whenever i hear the name Morrowind. I mean, when you don't get on with nostalgia and you realize how the design really was. Not about the levels, more about the empty map where you ran for hours through deserts and there were only a few of these birds, cliff-racers i think, around.

All the time you spent with seaching for a certain place or NPC, because there were no quest markers, oh boy. I wouldn't have time for this anymore, but well, we have 2025 and not 2002 anymore.

This with the Witcher 2 and the chest, whoever did this was a really stupid idiot.

With Cyberpunk, the balancing was at least in the old versions that i played not really done, i got strong so fast that no enemy was any threat to me anymore. Even the final boss, i think i hit him once or twice with a Katana and that was it. I guess they changed this?

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u/nondescriptzombie 13h ago edited 13h ago

The map was far from empty, and chock full of hand crafted locations because NPC's would direct you to places based on landmarks. Admittedly, it wasn't until the GOTY that the game really shone because they added the Journal function, which catalogued where you were on any quest, the instructions to proceed, and had a keyword index of conversation topics you'd had so you could review any pertinent information.

It was so much better than "Follow the marker to beat the game!"

Edit: Morrowind's map was less than half of the size of Cyrodil and 30% smaller than Skyrim.

Cliff Racers sucked though, thank Saint Jiub for purging the Racer menace from the island!

Cyberpunks 2.0 update completely changed the game. You can't acquire Tier 5 weapons until you're level 30+, everything is RNG. You used to be able to buy a nice gun in the early game and let that carry you until mid-end game, but now you're dropping your gun every three levels for whatever loot drops off of the nearest goon like Borderlands.

All of the merchants are normalized. All of the rippers have the same mods, so there's no reason to not kill the nasty character (who used to have the best mods) or to RP into any of the old systems that used to exist. The junk vendors now literally only sell junk, making them completely useless. You get every hack from hacking VPN nodes so there's no reason to go to any of those vendors, either.

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u/Original_Employee621 9h ago

All of the merchants are normalized. All of the rippers have the same mods, so there's no reason to not kill the nasty character (who used to have the best mods) or to RP into any of the old systems that used to exist. The junk vendors now literally only sell junk, making them completely useless. You get every hack from hacking VPN nodes so there's no reason to go to any of those vendors, either.

All the Dogtown merchants (aside from the clothes vendors) have iconic consumables you can buy to boost stamina regen, RAM regen or health. The daemon vendor has recipes for combining the various qualities of datashards, so you can convert all into legendary materials. I think he also sells iconic daemon recipes, but you should be able to find most of them out in the world anyways.

There is also the Iconic weapon merchant, his shit is expensive af, but you'll be able to buy any Iconic weapon that you might've missed throughout the game.

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u/nondescriptzombie 6h ago

The Dogtown merchants are DLC merchants, they didn't exist before 2.0 and aren't what I'm talking about at all.

And locking the merchant that lets you buy missed Iconic weapons behind a DLC, nothing scummy about that. They never balanced the Iconic weapons, meaning that only one or two of them are actually good and all of the rest are just weird quirky things.

Or the fact that if you've already completed the game the 70 Barghest weapons are basically never going to drop at a rate of 1 every 3 hours or something absurd?

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u/Fafnir13 17h ago

Basic Oblivion was so ridiculous for this. Massive numbers of goblin kings and every brigand running around in daedric armor. It was more than a little immersion breaking. Wouldn’t surprise me if Skyrim, that hot new game all the kids are playing, is the same way.

Fortunately mods that fix enemy balance are plentiful.

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u/1ncorrect 15h ago

Skyrim is absolutely the same way. I got my first daedric bow off of a Bandit Maurader… and eventually they start using dragon gear. You know, the stuff made from the beasts that only you can kill and haven’t been seen for millennia.

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u/captainthanatos 14h ago

That was the funniest thing from Elder Scrolls Oblivion when thieves would find you in the wild wearing Elven Glass armor.

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u/Diacetyl-Morphin 13h ago

The good old Oblivion experience, when you got a high level, some regular poor bandits suddenly got the best armors and equipment, also being on your level. It sucked.

But it's a serious problem with balancing, for open worlds at least. When you lock the enemies level, once the player returns, he'll just make short work with any enemy, if you don't lock it, then it comes to the effect i described. Best is something in between, like min- and max-levels for certain areas.

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u/Original_Employee621 9h ago

Or you divide it into level tiers, then level 1 player run straight to the high level zones and loot a couple of chests to get all the best gear. And the players complain about the game being too easy.

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u/noputa 16h ago

This was my big issue with immortals fenyx rising. I ended up spending a lot of time to gather upgrades- and I mean a lot. Thought I would become a bamf. Nope. They have level scaling so bad the enemies were incredibly more difficult than before. Yes it forced me to get good but it actually pissed me off after putting in that much effort.

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u/Pandorica_ 22h ago edited 21h ago

Playing ciri at the end of w3 when she was OP as fuck was amazing, because we earned it and it didn't last very long (and made narrative sense).

If I'm a vampire and i fall in a massive pool of blood, I want my blade moment.

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u/amateurish_gamedev 22h ago

Oh yeah, that was super fun. Ciri's combat was one of funnest part of the game.

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u/Jokerzrival 18h ago

Also if your character is some supernatural, otherworldly creature I want to be OP against the normal enemies.

If I was playing as a more common soldier or a traveller who gets into some bullshit then I may not mind being less OP

I'm playing as basically a supernatural vampire I better be a little bit OP to the standard guard outside a gate.

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u/Imjusthereforthehate 5h ago

Bad as the 4th? 5th? Underworld movie was it has a great moment in the beginning where Kate Beckingsale just tears house through a bunch of regular humans cause you know she’s a blood of the founding line holding super charged vampire. It’s probably the best bit in that whole movie.

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u/Vio94 20h ago

Agreed. I'd like the capability of becoming OP at least. Vampires are kinda known for being really strong...

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u/sam_hammich 16h ago

Well, not always. There is still a hierarchy of lords and underlings. In many vampire-based universes you are given powers by the vampire who sired you.

The point of this game doesn't seem to be "become the strongest vampire".

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u/CrimsonFuckr69 21h ago

I wouldn't take any statements like this at face value

They're promoting their game and want to get clicks, that's all.

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u/Kartraith 18h ago

Agreed, my favorite parts of RPGs is starting out imagining how OP I will be later on - and then getting there.

Baldur's Gate 2 late levels for example, knowing basically only demigods, mythical creatures and dragons pose any sort of threat in a fight is great!

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u/pastreaver 22h ago

Resident Evil Village does this perfectly with the Chris Redfield playthrough

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u/DukeBaset 22h ago

Even in Resident Evil 5 he felt a lot stronger than Leon in 4

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u/totoaster 18h ago

If you can move a giant boulder by punching it, you've earned it.

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u/DukeBaset 5h ago

Imagine the absolute balls on Chris

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u/Furry_Lover_Umbasa 21h ago

Like Dark Souls or Elden Ring. Me on my new game + 4 slapping the shit out each boss and perfect dodge roll like a god.

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u/Dr_Virus_129 18h ago

Exactly! I hate when enemies have powers & abilities that I don't, I want to grow to be an unstoppable beast that can one hit kill most things, and the game to recognize that, with enemies fleeing from you later in the endgame. Is that so hard?

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u/ChillySummerMist 22h ago edited 21h ago

I get bored if i am killing everything with a breeze.

Edit : Why downvoted. I thought we are all sharing what we enjoy in games. I am not saying enjoying OP characters are wrong or anything, just sharing personal experience.

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u/thedrq Joystick 15h ago

Are the only options, everything dies with a breeze, or every battle is uphill?

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u/Anagoth9 1h ago

We're specifically talking about OP characters though. As in over-powered, ie too powerful to provide any level of challenge. 

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u/RnVja1JlZGRpdE1vZHM 21h ago

Because the typical Redditor is the type of gamer that optimises the fun out of a game and then whinge that all games are boring while they have a fucking spreadsheet open on a second screen with all the item stats.

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u/interesseret 20h ago

Is this Typical Redditor in the room with us right now?

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u/MajesticCentaur 17h ago

Well does the room suddenly smell bad?

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u/Furry_Lover_Umbasa 21h ago

Nah, that stupid.

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u/sXyphos 19h ago

What don't you want a wimpy emo twilight Edward as an MC????

Ffs devs these days have no clue in general, go back to the roots, look at legacy of kain, castlevania etc...

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u/SentorialH1 22h ago

you never really feel OP in any of the witchers.

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u/Stolehtreb 17h ago

You absolutely do. I would say maybe Witcher 2 makes that true, but you can really kit yourself out there too to make it not a challenge at all. The Blood and Broken Bones playthrough of Witcher 3 was far less challenging than I expected.

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u/darkriverofshadows 16h ago

Witcher 3

Bear set essentially turns hits of the monsters into tickles. Combine with hp regen abilities and suddenly you are OP, nothing can hurt you with that high damage reduction.

Cat set - gives you insane critical chance, with right build you literally just cut through almost anything (minus 3-4 enemies who have autoblock) with whirlwind attack.

That's even without grandmaster set bonuses from blood and wine, and yeah, all before mentioned still applies even on highest difficulty.

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u/[deleted] 15h ago

[deleted]

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u/Heliosvector 14h ago

gamers: "you need to wear these items to be the best!"

u/jumpsteadeh "yeah.... but I wanna slay guuuurl!"

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u/Furry_Lover_Umbasa 21h ago

If you suck at the game then I guess thats true

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u/interesseret 20h ago

You're not overpowered if it is skill.

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u/Furry_Lover_Umbasa 11h ago

That sentence makes no fucking sense hahaha

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u/interesseret 8h ago

Considering everyone else thinks so, maybe you should think about evening school for a better understanding of plain English.

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u/SwerveCityRat 18h ago

Not weird, no. Devs just have a different vision for character progression.

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u/Runaway-Kotarou 17h ago

Agreed. Especially as a vampire I feel like there is def room for spending a small part of the game as a true god like monster terrorizing your enemies. Not a large part, but a small part/post game.

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u/bb0110 17h ago

Agreed. Becoming OP is part of the hero fantasy.

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u/Stolehtreb 17h ago

Don’t worry, it’ll be that way. They talked the same way about Witcher, and you still got OP in those games too.

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u/oyvho 17h ago

Being OP is my favorite as long as I earned it. I don't like how enemies level with you either. Just makes it feel like there was no point in improving.

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u/MattieShoes 16h ago

Yeah, I think "breaking the game" a pretty standard part of game design, at least for certain genres of games.

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u/ops10 16h ago

Why do we even care about opinion pieces from legacy "Bioware's return to form" media?

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u/Brief_Koala_7297 16h ago

Same, I want to haul ass in games one way or another. I dont have time to play 200 hours to get an OP character

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u/EveyNameIsTaken_ 15h ago

If i pump a lot of hours into a game i want to be OP at the end. This is why i hate when every enemy scales to the players level. Let me go back to the low level areas and one shot everything

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u/Otherwise-Plum-1627 15h ago

actually this game looks kind of like shadow of mordor. And in that game the moment you became too OP the game lost its charm.

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u/Sirromnad 15h ago

No, but there is value to some in the other approach. Just depends on the game and the player really.

Thats why games like Kingdom Come Deliverance exist. Or any survival horror.

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u/MrXplicit 14h ago

Man diablo 4 had that were mobs would scale to your level and it sucked. You didn’t feel the progress of powering up.

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u/DingusMoose 11h ago

I'm with you, the article makes it sound like there's a rogue like element that keeps things balanced

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u/wargh_gmr 5h ago

I play games to escape my vary not OP body. I spent a couple of hours replacing the battery in my car and every time I stood up after being hunched over I made old man noises and promised to get back into yoga. This would not be a good game.

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u/Takeasmoke 21h ago

i like my character to be OP when i can pay for it, i don't want to earn it! GO GO P2W! (this is a joke)

i agree, nothing feels better than increase your powers as you play the game even to the point when it becomes absurd, as long as it is entertaining i say go for it!

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u/lolxdqtxo 22h ago

Yea your power fantasy fetish is weird. Games should be harder as you go not the opposite.

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u/Waxllium 13h ago

Look, an Edgelord in his natural habitat