u/ohlordwhywhy

I need 443 to move my base and I have 441+45. I have cleared every queued production and those +45 won't go away. I have disabled and dismantled the recycler. Coincidentally this adds up to 40 from filter and 5 from meal which were on uphold (and I've cancelled already)

How do I flush these +45?

Before I start, this isn't "Capcom better than Rockstar". This is mostly to discuss general trends in the industry, by looking at a small slice of the market for the sake of sticking to concrete examples.

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>In the past,  studios could try to create a consistent roster of decent games. If one of them did well, that was great. If one of them flopped, that wasn't ideal, but it wasn't crippling. Today, even the biggest  studios are kind of going all in on the success of their next release with very little margin of  error if it doesn't work out

That's a quote from a video (from How Money Works) explaining some concerning trends in gaming industry as it showed Rockstar's output going from several games a year to 2 games in a 10 year period.

The video's all doom and gloom, understandably, and it focuses more on the impact of forever games and shrinking profit margins, but that part I quoted really caught my attention because it is presented almost like an inevitability.

The argument goes that if a studio comes up with a new idea, it gets copied. Meanwhile players spend significantly more hours on things like Fortnite or Roblox than on new titles. For a studio the size of Rockstar for example the strategy becomes building a time vortex of their own, or something difficult to copy, like a massive game.

Which has been the case for many large studios. Less titles, larger worlds. That or some live services flop.

But then you have studios like Capcom (and a few others). Capcom's output also has decreased but they have managed to keep it considerably higher than most studios making games on a similar scale.

And Capcom has mostly avoided putting all their eggs into one huge title.

Their biggest worlds are in Dragon's Dogma and Monster Hunter series. They dipped their toes into live services with Exoprimal. But also have kept a decent stream of new titles. Something like Pragmata, a short AAA single player new IP, used to be the norm but now it's rare.

Anyway, here are the numbers, comparing the times of yore when studios would try many releases and today when the market seems more risk averse.

96-06

Capcom - 60 titles, 16 new IPs

Rockstar - 18 titles, 6 new IPs

16-26
Capcom - 32 titles, 4 new IPs

Rockstar - 2 titles, 0 new IPs.

For Capcom I have not included re-releases, remasters (save for Dead Rising). If we trim the list down to remove titles that today would be DLC (e.g. Street Fighter Alpha 2 getting 18 new characters, which today would be season passes) and also removing actual DLC then Capcom goes from 40 titles in the past to 22 titles today.

Important: this isn't to say one's better than the other. Rockstar naturally found their niche riding on the success of GTA. Capcom carved their own niche aiming at a variety of styles. Granted Capcom has been riding on a lot of remakes and sequels, but that's also expected of a studio going for this long.

The point really is that the current scenario isn't an inevitability of a changing market and new consumer habits. Capcom's pulling profit records. GTA VI is bound to be the biggest release ever. It's also interesting that neither company have had waves of layoffs.

The current scenario of almost no new ideas (on AAA), significantly reduced output from larger studios, riskier bets, flops like Concorde, it is partly market pressures but also definitely a choice. It could've been some other way and maybe a big crash in the industry could shock some studios back into betting on smaller titles.

Or not. I'm interested to hear other explanations. From choice of game engine to different company cultures in west vs Japan. There could be, and in fact there are, more perspectives into this topic of how many AAA studios moved away from smaller titles. Take this post as just the start of the conversation, not a final statement.

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Here's the full list, Capcom compared to Rockstar. The lists are imperfect, there are errors and things to contest. For Capcom I'm only adding Capcom developed games, for Rockstar I'm adding studios that later folded into Rockstar. Which means Max Payne is not included, as it is Remedy Entertainment, but Midnight Club is, as it was developed in partnership with Rockstar and then became part of their company.

Rockstar 1996–2006 (18 games)
Grand Theft Auto (1997) — DMA Design (new IP — later folded into the Rockstar family)
Grand Theft Auto 2 (1999) — DMA Design
Midnight Club: Street Racing (2000) — Angel Studios (Later Rockstar San Diego) (new IP)
Smuggler's Run (2000) — Angel Studios (new IP)
Smuggler's Run 2: Hostile Territory (2001) — Angel Studios
Grand Theft Auto III (2001) — Rockstar North
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (2002) — Rockstar North
Midnight Club II (2003) — Rockstar San Diego
Manhunt (2003) — Rockstar North (new IP)
Red Dead Revolver (2004) — Rockstar San Diego (new IP)
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (2004) — Rockstar North
Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories (2005) — Rockstar Leeds/North
Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition (2005) — Rockstar San Diego
The Warriors (2005) — Rockstar Toronto
Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories (2006) — Rockstar Leeds
Rockstar Games Presents Table Tennis (2006) — Rockstar San Diego (new IP)
Bully (2006) — Rockstar Vancouver
Rockstar 2016–2026 (2 games)
Red Dead Redemption 2 (2018) — Rockstar North
Grand Theft Auto VI (Nov 19, 2026) — Rockstar North

Now Capcom, I'll change the format so it's easier to see their huge output:

1996
Resident Evil
Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo
Street Fighter Alpha 2

1997
Street Fighter III: New Generation
Vampire Savior
Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter
Breath of Fire III
Mega Man Legends
Mega Man Battle & Chase

1998
Resident Evil 2
Street Fighter III: 2nd Impact
Marvel vs. Capcom: Clash of Super Heroes
Mega Man & Bass

1999
Resident Evil 3: Nemesis
Dino Crisis
Power Stone
Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike

2000
Resident Evil – Code: Veronica
Marvel vs. Capcom 2
Mega Man Legends 2
Dino Crisis 2
Power Stone 2
Tech Romancer
Project Justice
Cannon Spike
Capcom vs. SNK

2001
Onimusha: Warlords
Capcom vs. SNK 2
Devil May Cry
Mega Man Battle Network
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney

2002
Resident Evil (remake)
Resident Evil Zero
Onimusha 2: Samurai's Destiny
Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter
Mega Man Zero 2
Steel Battalion
Auto Modellista
Phoenix Wright: Justice for All

2003
Viewtiful Joe
Onimusha 3: Demon Siege
Resident Evil Outbreak
Dino Crisis 3
Mega Man X7
P.N.03
Devil May Cry 2
Chaos Legion

2004
Monster Hunter
Viewtiful Joe 2
Resident Evil Outbreak: File #2
Mega Man X: Command Mission
Mega Man X8
Capcom Fighting Evolution
Phoenix Wright: Trials and Tribulations

2005
Resident Evil 4
Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening
Mega Man Zero 4

2006
Dead Rising
Okami
Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams

Now 2016-2026

2016
Umbrella Corps
Street Fighter V
Monster Hunter Stories
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Spirit of Justice
Dead Rising 4

2017
Resident Evil 7
Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite

2018
Monster Hunter: World
Mega Man 11
Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition

2019
Shinsekai: Into the Depths
Resident Evil 2 (remake)
Devil May Cry 5
Monster Hunter World: Iceborne

2020
Resident Evil 3 (remake)
Street Fighter V: Champion Edition
Devil May Cry 5 Special Edition

2021
Ghosts 'n Goblins Resurrection
Resident Evil Village
Monster Hunter Rise

2022
Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak

2023
Resident Evil 4 (remake)
Street Fighter 6
Exoprimal

2024
Dragon's Dogma 2
Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess
Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster

2025
Monster Hunter Wilds

2026
Resident Evil Requiem
Monster Hunter Stories 3
Pragmata

Disk Space is limited and I'll have to delete some things if I want to give those a try so I thought I'd ask first.

3/SL: I liked the build variety, I liked the mission variety and I enjoyed controlling the heavy mechs. The weak points were some missions could get frustrating.

FA: I enjoyed the scale of it and the movement but I thought build variety suffered, specially because they got rid of some options that were binary and replaced everything with numbers. It felt like there where three builds: flyer with missiles for fast enemies, one shot everything tank, fast mover with a killer blade. Still a great game, beat it twice.

It seems V/VD were built with online in mind, if the games are significantly worse off playing offline then yeah that's it.

Otherwise, I enjoyed the change from 3/SL to FA and I could enjoy another big change as well, if the game has good build variety, good mission variety and isn't crippled by playing it offline.

Do the games have some fundamental flaw other than changing the movement to heavier mechs?

Beat AC3 and want to start Silent Line, but if the new Arena/Extra Arena challenges offer new rewards I'll do them. Otherwise I'll just move on because I have enough credits as it is (1+ million, lots of parts, I'm assuming this is enough to be rich in SL).

Do you get any extra parts for doing the new Arena challenges (like Exile) or finishing the Extra Arena?

Also will I actually need more than a million at the start of Silent Line?

Currently rank B, just did a sewer mission with a giant spider and a escort mission where I fought an AC called Grinder.

The sewer mission pay out was 45k, I walked home with 8. Used a cannon with a lot of damage but good cost ratio.

For the escort mission I used an AC built for energy weapons and with a shield. When Grinder came up it was really hard not taking a lot of damage because my AC wasn't built for fighting another AC.

Seems like either I go with damage and have a ton of ammo cost or I go with laser and take a lot of damage.

So there has to be something fundamental about the game I don't understand that's keeping me from spending so much on missions.

I dodge, I use a shield, I pick my parts for defense ratings, but still it costs too much to advance and I can only make an absurd amount of money in the arena.

Any tips?

So far I haven't had any crashes but in Numara if I enter either store the game audio disappears, then in this state if I get into any loading screen the game will hang.

Could this be caused by an existing setting that's been changed in Xenia? Or perhaps there's a fix for this somewhere?

So the>! party just got captured and taken to Numara.!< This felt like a classic JRPG moment I hadn't played in years.

Playing this I realized how this sort of story beat just doesn't work in open world designs which are much more common in video games nowadays, JRPGs included.

If you're in an open world and you get captured and taken to a new place a few problems come up:

-You might've found this new place before just by exploring the game normally.

-When you're released you realize this new place is just 10 minutes away from where the game started.

-You'll get annoyed because you were probably distracted with your own plans of what to do next in the open world.

It's not impossible to do but it doesn't feel like your characters actually got snatched away and taken to a far away place where everything is different.

I've skipped Tales games, FFXVI and dropped out of Metaphor so maybe those games prove me wrong somehow. Metaphor wasn't even open world proper but it had that compulsion of littering the world with a bunch of tiny quests in a way that the game wanted you to keep going back and forth. There was also DQ XI that felt like a classic JRPG but I dropped out of it too.

Anyway I guess the point I'm trying to make is that for a certain kind of adventure, the game really needs to take the reins sometimes. Lost Odyssey feels like the last game in that style that was made with this much scope. Maybe Ni no Kuni too, but I just didn't get the same feel from it as I'm getting from LO.

When you know you've collected 1 / X objects you assume two things: they'll be hidden everywhere, you'll get a cool reward for finding them all.

If you like collecting them, you're not playing the game wrong. You're playing two games in one. One's a game of collecting things the other's the game where the fantasy takes place.

Aside from collectathons, these two games compete. Some players don't mind. For those who do mind, I hope this post can help you articulate why they get exhausting.

Because of collectibles, you move the camera all over the place to find them, not because of a cool sculpture or beautiful mountain in the distance. Your exploration is collectible-mediated and many collectibles just sit somewhere for no coherent reason.

A vault may hint at a treasure. But when collectibles are involved, a weird hole in the ceiling rewrites the scale of importance of props in the level. A vault now is as relevant as the nook between a rock and a wall.

Exploration becomes non-diagetic, you obsessively explore dead ends because you've gone 5 rooms without finding any new collectible so you assume another one is due already.

If the game's all about getting those collectibles and the level is built around finding hidden places, then you get a nice collectathon. Which works best when the level are atomized, you teleport to them, they have boundaries. Collectibles and the world are built for one another.

But when collectibles are thrown in as a side-quest beside the main adventure, now the collectibles start to choke out the real quest.

You're look at strange corners instead of looking at the scenery, you jump to your death down a hole that looked like a secret path, you spot a precocious collectible and spend 10 minutes trying to reach it only to much later the actual path that was much easier.

When you commit to finding them, they'll side track you and break pacing. That's because they could be anywhere.

Even if you choose to ignore them, every now and then they remind you that they exist when you find one by accident and you're reminded that there must be a point to them, something you'll miss out.

If Outer Wilds had them they'd compete with the authentic curiosity of exploring the solar system, they'd make you wonder if a place exists for lore reasons or if there's supposed to be a collectible there you didn't find, they'd lead you down a path that only serves the collectible and not the story.

Maybe you thought Outer Wilds needed collectibles, that it was too basic without them. Maybe you'd have enjoyed finding them all. But I doubt the world would have felt as magical as it did with collectibles.

Like every element in the game feels like it's part of the world. That is true for any game I suppose, I think I don't know exactly how to put it.

It's like if the characters, props, buildings, explosions are all made of the same stuff.

For example in some other games, even modern ones, the explosions may look amazing but also feel like a special effect that was loaded in the game. In MML it's another mesh with a texture, like any other.

It's not just explosions but everything. I think it might be because MML employs very few tricks to make the world look better and relies almost entirely on textures and meshes.

In the end it's a great look that works because it uses just the most basic tools to build its world.

Does anybody else get that feel from some other games?