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Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

Still my GOTY at this point. Unless Metroid Prime 4 is some kind of miracle, I can't imagine CO:E33 dropping to second place. Might even be my GOTDecade at this point.
 
Kirin said:
I really need to find time to play this game someday…
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Adding to the chorus of "play it!". It's also my GOTY.

There is a free update incoming, but they've been vague and saying "it's worth the wait" so I suspect it's 2026 for that. Also seems to mainly be late-game stuff so I wouldn't hold off until that drops to start.
 
I remain baffled by that policy (not trying to convince you otherwise! just baffled)

I was not super surprised it swept so hard, though I wouldn't have minded Silksong getting indie GOTY (I mix up my votes when I can).

EDIT: Oh wow, the update is out NOW, already.
 
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Main thing keeping me from maxing someone out for the platinum was I ran out of new things to see so I’ll certainly dig into this.
 
I haven't played an RPG since, like, Final Fantasy X, but I picked this up on sale a couple of weeks ago thanks to the universal praise and started tonight. I just reached the first flag and have an extremely basic question: characters have a sword symbol next to two or three of their stats when you level them up, what does this mean?
 
lincolnic said:
I haven't played an RPG since, like, Final Fantasy X, but I picked this up on sale a couple of weeks ago thanks to the universal praise and started tonight. I just reached the first flag and have an extremely basic question: characters have a sword symbol next to two or three of their stats when you level them up, what does this mean?
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Those are the stats that increase their currently equipped weapon's damage!
 
another stats thing: pictos can increase them GREATLY, so you can super min/max your characters with the right pictos (which is part of why after a few battles the abilities from them break off and you can equip them separately, so you can pick and choose the best pictos for stats without losing favorite abilities)

took a little while for me to figure that out
 
Sarcasmorator said:
another stats thing: pictos can increase them GREATLY, so you can super min/max your characters with the right pictos (which is part of why after a few battles the abilities from them break off and you can equip them separately, so you can pick and choose the best pictos for stats without losing favorite abilities)

took a little while for me to figure that out
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For whatever reason I understood this from the start. My bigger issue right now is decision paralysis. Everyone's got so many skills and there are so many pictos! I'm not even sure if/when I should be using my upgrade materials.

(For the record, I just got Sciel, so I'm trying to learn how to use her now. Gustave wasn't quite impressing me with what he could do compared to Lune and Maelle so I didn't mind dropping him.)
 
Skills tend to be kinda progressive. Like you'll get a fire skill, and down the path nearby is usually a better fire skill, then a better fire skill. So don't sweat the choices too much. You can get by easily enough just going for cheapest first (and you can only use six at a time anyway). You also get pretty plentiful items that allow respeccing when you want, so feel free to experiment a bit with the skill trees.

Sciel is a little tricky to set up but can be VERY powerful.
 
So, does everyone hate flying bosses, or just me?

I fought Chromatic Ballet last night and it really feels like you have no choice but to learn to parry everything. Those builds you worked on for so long? Nah, forget it, you're not allowed to attack. Counters only, Final Destination, no items. (Yes I know you need to use Free Aim, it just does almost nothing.)

Still having a great time with the game, this just sticks out as a weird design decision to me.
 
I don't remember if I did Chromatic Ballet specifically, but I do recall being rather annoyed that obviously long-ranged attacks and abilities -- like just about everything Lune does -- still had high miss chance because they weren't Free Aim. I can handle some ludonarrative dissonance, but that kept tripping me up, my brain just wasn't buying it.
 
Using placeholder text edit: looks like it was placeholder art earlier in production that's been removed will get you kicked out of the awards? Huh. Interesting, but also very curious what impact this would have on other awards as it seems like using AI to build outlines and placeholders is being standard. I want to be clear I don't support Gen AI use for art, but it's going to be very interesting to see how this plays out.
 
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I mean, whether or not it was patched out, it certainly begs the question of how much art in the game was initially generated by AI and then modified by a human.

I'm going to be honest, if I'd known they used AI in the production of the game before I bought it, I probably wouldn't have picked it up. I'm not going to quit now since that won't change the fact that they already have my money, but generative AI is such a scourge on the planet and the video game industry especially that I don't really have any issues with this. People in the field are already losing their jobs to AI on top of the regular layoff bloodbaths. I'm not going to pretend I'd heard of the Indie Game Awards before reading that post, but I'm always heartened to see an organization or studio take an ethical stance that aligns with my own.
 
I think it's silly, personally. I'm no fan of AI, but I recognize that it has legitimate uses. Placeholder assets are certainly one - that's been a staple of game dev for a long, long time. There's also a part of me that wonders if the retraction was a largely performative one in order to attract attention.
 
Also I wonder if a lot of Gen AI stuff will just start being packaged in Unreal or whatever asset packs small studios use/buy. It'll start being very hard to prove where stuff came from (hell it already is).
 
lincolnic said:
I mean, whether or not it was patched out, it certainly begs the question of how much art in the game was initially generated by AI and then modified by a human.

I'm going to be honest, if I'd known they used AI in the production of the game before I bought it, I probably wouldn't have picked it up. I'm not going to quit now since that won't change the fact that they already have my money, but generative AI is such a scourge on the planet and the video game industry especially that I don't really have any issues with this. People in the field are already losing their jobs to AI on top of the regular layoff bloodbaths. I'm not going to pretend I'd heard of the Indie Game Awards before reading that post, but I'm always heartened to see an organization or studio take an ethical stance that aligns with my own.
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Basically this.

"We only did this heinously indefensible thing at this point in the creative process, not later on" isn't a great defense.
 
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I think using "placeholder" assets that aren't obviously marked placeholder assets is already a recipe for disaster. It's how you end up with stuff like accidental Getty watermarks in Nibelheim.

But if they're going to be replaced then there are plenty of other resources you can use that aren't created via a technology that is largely built upon unethically scraped content. And they don't invite questions about just how much of your creative pipeline involves generative AI.
 
It sounds like this was done 3-4 years ago, which is well before the AI repercussion awareness started. I know people are aware I like this game and probably won't give a shit what I say, but I haven't been judging games that tried out AI early on before we really understood the impacts as bad before now so I'll stay consistent.

Hell, I'm actively getting in trouble at work for NOT using it and will probably crack eventually, so I also don't feel good about judging people... but also don't want AI art in stuff. Shit sucks!
 
Yeah, after a bit of the sour taste of disappointment has faded, here, I've not like .. thrown my opinion of the game out the window. But I hope the studio doesn't go any harder on the stuff for their next effort.
 
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