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Discussion on Paradox Forums

Hello all, this is the first post in a series of posts I'll be making weekly to drum up some diverse discussion relating to all different aspects of gaming. I figured I would start with what I know, and so the first topic is thus: roguelike games. (If you think any of the below description is wrong or misleading, let me know - that's part of the discussion!)

The name of this genre is derived from the game Rogue, released in 1980. The exact definition of a roguelike has been a topic of discussion for a long time, but the core tenets are usually agreed upon to be random/procedural generation and permanent death (no saving and continuing a run, you have to start over). Many roguelikes have an additional increased focus on collecting items and assembling a "build" over the course of a run. A "pure" roguelike is often claimed to have no meta-progression (that is, no procedural unlocks) and focus more on the journey than the destination - seeing how far you can get, or how high a score you can achieve, rather than reaching a distinct victory condition (not that these games don't have victory conditions, but that it isn't the end-all-be-all). The secondary term "roguelite" is often brought out to describe games that deviate from this. Additionally, the term "traditional roguelike" is sometimes employed to indicate a more strict adherence to the older style of this genre, with grid-based dungeon crawling and high complexity. Ultimately, as with a lot of genres, pinning down a 100% ironclad definition is near impossible, but most people that like this type of game could tell you the general "vibe" at a glance.

Here are some questions and subtopics that I encourage people to discuss:

• What are some of your favorite examples of roguelike games?
• What roguelike games do you think stand out in terms of defying the conventions of the genre?
• Do you find there to be a meaningful difference between the usage of "roguelike" and "roguelite" nowadays? Which do you prefer? Where does the "traditional roguelike" fit into this?
• Do you continue to play roguelike games after reaching the "end" / reaching 100% completion? Why, or why not?
• What other genre do you most often enjoy seeing paired with roguelike?
• Is any game with procedural generation and a run-based structure a roguelike, or is there more to it? Where do you personally draw the line?
• What have been some of your best runs across all roguelike games? What's been memorable?
• Are there any upcoming roguelike games you're excited for?

Also feel free to bring up anything you like related to the topic! If you have suggestions for future discussion topics, leave them in the suggestion thread.

Hi there, I'm a new mod for this community and I'd like to start out by collecting some ideas for upcoming weekly discussions. We're planning on pinning one discussion post a week, every week, each one being about a different aspect of gaming. The type of stuff we're looking for would be:

• Genres (Puzzle, Roguelike, FPS, 4X, etc.)
• Themes (The feelings or ideas a game conveys - isolation, anti-consumerism, hope, memory, etc.)
• "Examples of X" (Things in games that you like* and find notable - good representation, humor, well-written grief, immersion, etc.)
• Mechanics (parrying, critical hits, crowd control, diegetic feedback, etc.)
• Game development (Stuff related to the development of games - delays, remasters, ports, glitches, etc.)

*We want to encourage positive discussions of games, generally. Criticism is warranted, but we must be mindful to not degrade into the flamewars that often crop up around this sphere elsewhere.

Things of this nature that you would want to see future discussion threads focused around. Toss anything you got down in the comments!

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/1635457

Patch Notes

Party Codes

• New feature that enables players to join parties without adding each other as Steam Friends

Report Player Shortcut

• Left Shift + F1/2/3/4, etc will bring up the report menu for the respective player, without having to go to the scoreboard. This makes it easier to report players for abusive behavior, or other inappropriate conduct

Stat-Sync Protection

• A rare case has been fixed where a player's progress would reset if they joined a game server while the player stats servers were being updated. This happened because the game server would receive the player's stats as level 0, which would reset the player's progress.
  • To fix this, the game server will now no longer let a player join if it fails to fetch their stats. This will prevent players from joining the server with level 0.
  • Additionally, the backend will no longer accept saving stats of a player if their rank is less than it was before. This will help to prevent players from intentionally resetting their progress.

Objective Capture Zones

• Sizes have been reduced to 50%/75% of their original size in some areas. This should improve the user experience in CONQ and FRONTLINE game modes, as it will make it easier to defend objectives and allow your team to spawn on them until the enemy enters the capture zone and triggers the spawn lock. This change will also make it more difficult to hide in one of the many buildings on the map and stay in the enemy objective in order to disable their spawn.

Placed Gadget Persistence

• Players will now be limited in the amount of C4s, mines, claymores, ammo kits, etc. that they can place at the same time.

  • C4s will be destroyed when a player dies. A maximum of 6 can be placed. If a player tries to place a 7th C4, the first one will be destroyed to maintain a total of 6.
  • Claymores and mines will not be destroyed when a player dies. However, only 4 can be placed at a time. If a player tries to place a 5th claymore or mine, the first one will be destroyed to ensure that there are only 4 at a time.

• Domination: Reviving players will no longer return tickets.

• Eduardovo: CONQ 32v32 received a unique layout that is separate from the 127v127 playable area.

• Salhan: RU Border has been extended on the west side (Cav exit) to make spawn camping more difficult.

• Frugis: The last stage of Rush received changes allowing the attacking team to exit from a subway near the enemy spawn.

• Wakistan: Domination 32v32 layout will now feature an east coast line layout. The old layout will be moved to 16v16

• The number of players in enemy vehicles will no longer be shown on the map when they are spotted.

• When placing walls, there will be a half-player-size space margin requirement to avoid clipping. This means that there must be at least half the size of a player between the wall and any other object, such as another wall or a player. This is to prevent the wall from clipping through other objects, which can cause visual and gameplay issues.

• Fixed an issue where players would not switch to their primary weapon when placing a claymore while throwing a grenade

• Fixed an issue where the friend list would not load until the party menu was hovered over

• Fixed an issue where players were unable to pass the main menu due to avatar images

• Fixed the broken Progress Bar at the bottom of the screen

• A bug where players could sometimes walk during the countdown on Frontline has been fixed.

• Fixed an issue causing players to lag while using the Rappelling Rope

• Spectator camera improved.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/1401223

Steam announcement link: https://steamcommunity.com/games/TF2/announcements/detail/3665415870913833023