marelooke

Sooo, finished SOMA. And damn, the PC is dense...

Trying to slog through PoE, what with the PoE2 announcement. Really hope they do something about the combat as it's just not fun. Considering dropping it down to easy or story mode to just get it over with.

I would guess that it is because of fees that PayPal asks It's not like other payment providers are free... Now Paypal's tendency to not ask too many questions before allowing chargebacks hasn't exactly made it popular with sellers. I know quite a few people that got burnt that way and now avoid it like the plague when trying to sell anything. Wouldn't be surprised if that factors into it... That said, I'd have preferred if I didn't have to use a credit card.

NWN2 seriously turned me off of multiclassing. Multiclass builds there were usually stupid powerful and they just made character creation (and evolution) complexity go through the roof. Not my idea of a good time.

Why did you have to bring Imoen into this? ;-)

Since the game is explicitly promoted as RTwP in the Fig video I'm afraid you're out of luck...

Development of Mordheim shall cease but in its place shall rise Necromunda Many screenshots shall be posted by Melkathi So sayeth the wise Alaundo No more Mordheim? Aww But I still have 5 campaigns to go through, so there's that I guess As for PoE2, hope they fix the combat (there was too much of it and given that it didn't give any XP it just made things tedious and unrewarding, at least for me) and make it more transparent, the entire combat system was way too opaque for me. At least I have a reason to finish PoE1 now, I guess...

"Kill the monster attacking the citadel.", sounded like it might have been the last one if I didn't know there were 4 missions in each act, so there's gotta be one after this one.

Hey guess what, hopping games again! (though I guess most of them aren't exactly story based, so I got that going for me) Played some Civilization: Beyond Earth with Rising Tide. Kinda like the floating cities, maybe I should man up and stop playing on easy though... Almost got routed for the first time with my Sisters Warband in Mordheim, for some reason the AI suddenly knew how to use its impressive, combined with a streak of bad luck on my end and a streak of good luck on the AI's end that almost ended rather badly. I got off easy with only two lasting injuries (none of which are too crippling at first sight) and a few light wounds. And this was "only" a Hard mission, ouch... Now Act II mission 3 has opened up, this is going to be interesting, assuming I don't get anyone killed before my "main" squad members get out of the hospital, that is... Also been playing some Soma lately. For some reason I've found the monsters often to be more annoying than frightening, at least so far (just started exploring Theta).

Only the xbone afaik. Eh, only games from the store I give a toss about are the Forza ones, because good racing games seem to have this tendency to be console exclusive...

Some of which(Multiplayer) are dead on arrival because most people don't like to buy games from the windows store. Well, not a single hear on my head that would consider getting anything from the Windows store that I could get for PC elsewhere. Hell, I think the Windows store ranks behind Origin and Uplay even. That said, the Forza games are cross-play (or whatever the name is), so I could just play those against Xbox players if I wanted to. Oh yeah, while it's nice that developers don't have to write their own networking code anymore I can't help but feel that all these incompatible multiplayer platforms are soon going to become one of gaming's biggest problems (assuming we're not there yet)... Anyway, not a lot of time for gaming aside from a quick race (in Forza Horizon 3 or The Crew) or Warframe mission here or there...

You clearly need some nice adult mod to spice up the game Given the loading times I might be better off getting my adult entertainment elsewhere... ;-) So yeah, Fallout 4's on the backburner for now (still, took me 44hours before I looked at the icon and went "meh", tho I guess half of that was spent looking at loading screens, or just going AFK due to loading screens...) Started playing The Crew, which I picked up during the Steam sales. Gotta say, it was quite jarring going from Forza (been playing Motorsport 6 Apex and Horizon 3) to this kind of truly arcade driving. I started off by hitting a wall because I didn't expect a Ford Mustang to brake and turn like a Lamborghini... I wish I'd recorded that first race, I bet it would have been hilarious for spectators... Man, I wish I could have Forza Horizon 3's cars (and driving) in The Crew's world. Horizon 3 really doesn't have a map big enough for nice long cruising.

Apparently there was a Windows 10 release planned as well, so the game already was no reason to buy an Xbox One. (on that note, while I'm not particularly fond of the Windows Store this new "single platform" at least allows me to play specific games I care about that would likely have stayed console exclusive otherwise like the Forza games)

Mostly Fallout 4. And really, the game' s not very good when compared to its direct predecessors (by which I mean Fallout 3/NV). All the different parts of the game just don't seem to work well together at all. But I could probably see past those issues if it weren't for the excessively long loading times (the game doesn't exactly look good enough to justify those...from what I read textures are just badly compressed) and the inconsistent mess that is the UI (then again, game UI's apparently just need to be pretty, not functional...). Going to try to fix the loading times, not sure if I can fix the UI though since f4se seems to disable achievements (and breaks the mods that re-enable them for me), assuming someone already made a mod to fix the UI to begin with.

How so?Given monsters elemental weaknesses magick archer is easily the best DPS class. Especially in BI where pawns get perma-killed all the time. That's why having to do 90 levels of sorcerer first is such a pain. No it's not, Magick Archer is the easiest DPS class to play perhaps (ricochet arrow in BBI is easy win against most trash and you don't even really need to bother with aiming), but generally doesn't do as great against the bosses as other classes imho (it generally doesn't target weakpoints). I'd argue the "best" (if min-maxing) would be Ranger with Tenfold Flurry using explosive arrows, as that will turn any (boss)fight into a really short one (albeit a rather expensive one, due to explosive arrow expenditure). Hell, if I'd min-max I'd probably do it for Ranger, as min-maxing for that will cut down on the amount of flurries you need and as such on the costs of the explosive arrows. Personally I only really used Magick Archer against Death which, aside from Daemon, is the only insta-killing enemy in BBI that I recall*, and Death is more cheap/annoying than hard (because pawns are dumb as nails). Not to mention that this kind of min-maxing will result in you having to neglect at least one defense stat (be it physical or magical defense). I imagine Awakened Daemon to be rather painful if either defense stat is low... (I made sure mine were sort of balanced) *) oh wait, there's the Maneaters, but those shouldn't be a problem anymore as soon as you're on a first name basis with Death and Daemon

I think comparing the combat between the two isn't really fair, given that they're (as far as I'm concerned) in different genres. Dragon's Dogma combat gets compared against the likes of Dark Souls, and though Dragon's Dogma's combat is prettier, it's nowhere near as compelling as Dark Souls. I also don't really like open worlds, so that type of exploring isn't really for me. Dragon's Dogma also suffers because in order to optimize your character you can end up spending 200 levels playing as every class but the class you want to play, which is pretty terrible design. Also, only 1 save...I don't know who thought that was a good idea, but it wasn't. Comparing Dragon's Dogma to Dark Souls never made much sense to me. I hated Dark Souls' combat (and consequently didn't get very far in it) as it felt blatantly sluggish and often plain unfair (which is the entire point, I imagine, not my cup of tea though) while I'm currently on my third playthrough of Dragon's Dogma. As a matter of fact the comparison to Dark Souls kept me away from Dragon's Dogma for the longest time. The one save makes perfect sense given the story and the pawn mechanics (I'll admit to being annoyed at first, but now that I understand the reasoning I no longer care). Optimizing (as in: min-maxing) your character also isn't particularly important and unless you only play one of the classes until lvl100 (which is the breaking point, progression wise, the last 100 levels are far less important as they follow a different, and slower, stat progression pattern) you are likely to end up with fairly balanced stats and the gear easily makes up the difference. Moreover having more balanced stats will allow you more flexibility in how you can play and to pick the class that deals easiest with whatever challenge you face rather than being "min-max locked" into one class, which might just have a hard time with the enemy you're trying to kill. For example: being able to switch to some form of ranged class for the Daemon fight is kinda...nice (or not being a Magick Archer when you know you'll be facing a magic immune enemy...). Can it be done with other classes? Of course, but it's going to be harder, min-maxing or no. Hell, I'd even argue that unless you really really only like one of the classes min-maxing for one class is overall a bad thing to do in DDDA. Dragon's Dogma is, imho, less about min-maxing one specific class and more about making do with what you get thrown at you (eg. the pawns you manage to find as most of them aren't exactly "optimally min-maxed" even at high levels) and picking the right tools for the job (be they said pawns, or your own and your main pawns class and abilities). While I can agree that the amount of sidequests and markers in Witcher 3 was huge the side "content" in DA:I was on average far more boring and pointless.

Honestly there's only two real background choices that matter in DA:I: are you a Dalish or are you not (iirc Dalish was the only Elf option this time around, for the PC at least). If they'd cut the second path they could have done so much more with the lore without needing a "predefined character" in the sense The Witcher or DA2 had it. Or they could've made Solas a mandatory party member so he could provide the exposition, I guess. Personally I'd greatly prefer the former even though I took Solas everywhere that smelled even remotely like Elves might have been involved anyway... (which is like...most of the game anyway)

Hopping between a bunch of games (as usual, I know. I certainly didn't learn "focus" from playing through Jade Empire ;-) ): Doom: awesome so far. Nothing much to add really. If it moves, shoot it. Then curb stomp it. Good. Fallout 4: turns out it was indeed me who was too dense to figure out the Perks screen. Oh well, more charisma and perception can't hurt I guess. Bethesda trying to disable achievements when modding is pretty darn obnoxious though, not sure why they'd even do that (so yeah, first things I added where the obligatory unofficial patch and a fix for the awful dialogue wheel). Power armor is pretty cool, though I guess a bit too common to my tastes (and tossed at you too early in the game to my liking, also, no need to learn how to use it this time around. Guess you learn that in lawyer school) Dragon's Dogma Dark Arisen: completed my second playthrough and now going through hard mode, will stay there until I hit lvl200, then back to normal mode and finishing Bitterblack Isle. Ending of the 2nd playthrough was interesting I must say ;-)

I was gifted Fallout 4. The entire story starts off idiotic but I held out some hope for decent dialogue at least about "wtf happened". Yeah, nope. The dialogue system is even worse than I imagined. I chose the wrong option in the first real dialogue (with the Minuteman leader) and couldn't even mention anything about coming from a Vault, though they psychically all already knew somehow. Anyway, other (very early) impressions so far (I just met the Minutemen and got to zap a Deathclaw with a minigun): I'm not sure if on the first two level ups I could only assign attributes or I am too denseto figure out the new "perks" screen. The fact that I'm not sure imho already means the UI is bad. having to confirm exiting almost every dialog window with <return> when tab is used everywhere else is fairly obnoxious (iow, to get out of the workbench I have to press <tab> and then confirm with <return>). Sure, using a different key makes sure I won't "accidentally" exit a dialog, but using two keys on different ends of my keyboard one of which requires me to take my hand off my mouse to exit every single dialog is just plain obnoxious. It might be acceptable for exiting the game or doing other "destructive" actions (eg. assigning points on level-up), but not for exiting every. single. workbench. Ugh. Probably can change that or some nice guy might've modded it already, but the defaults are crap. combat seems good so far. Went with a snipery build and only put 1 point in endurance. Hasn't hindered me in the slightest so far. The slowdown things in VATS is kinda annoying as it sometimes messes with targeting. Probably just a matter of getting used to it though. worldbuilding seems typical Bethesda, iow. despite the story (and it's telling) appearing to be terrible I'm likely going to have fun hiking around exploring one thing they did get right story wise was that they gave your character a military background, so at least it makes some sense that you just pick up a gun and know how to use it

There is a patch for it, but it's big (well, for the time...) and took aeons to apply for me. That said, wasn't there a way to register your Witcher 1 disc key on Gog and get it on their platform for free?

Hmm, I'm pretty sure they were avoiding recreating Dungeon Keeper 2 as most fans think it's well inferior to the first game and I'd never have supported them if they'd have aimed to recreate DK2 (which I personally thought sucked. I played it on release and gave up in disgust after a bunch of levels due to it being rather bright, bland and soulless compared to DK1 and just generally messing with the formula in unenjoyable ways. And no, after all these years I don't recall most details except the annoying focus on the Horned Reaper, which was one of the most annoying creatures in DK1, Vampires were way superior and less of a chore). When I tried it during early access it felt pretty DK1 like, which was good, haven't really played it since release though, so yeah, I probably should fix that... Anyway, still mostly playing Forza (Horizon 3 and Motorsport 6 Apex) myself currently.

The ending wasn't the worst part of ME3 imho. Most of the game just felt rushed (as in, they tried to pack too much into one game, not as in "unfinished"), like they suddenly went on a tour of all the "homeworlds" because they felt obliged or some-such and in doing so short-changed pretty much all of them except Tuchanka (that questchain was downright epic which made the others stand out even more). Especially Thessia was a massive letdown, for me at least. The Quarian questline, well, can be argued I guess, but they never explained why that sun was so important in ME2, I guess they had something more elaborate thought out, but couldn't fit it into the time constraints and dumbed it down to the cliché we got in ME3. The way the original human companions (Kaidan/Ashely) were put in was also pretty ham-fisted to be sure (but merely continued the trend of them being idiots that was started in ME2, I guess). The combat also felt "off", superficially it would appear to be the same as ME2, but it isn't, somehow, or maybe the general level design is worse, I'm not sure. Either way I finished ME2 multiple times on the highest difficulty (which I generally avoid in games as most games are very much unenjoyable on the hardest difficulty) while in ME3 I regularly found "normal" to be frustrating, or at the very least annoying. Harping about the bad ending is just easy pickings, putting the other things that felt "off" with the game into words is just much harder. Overall I felt they should have done everyone a favour and broken their promise by splitting ME3 into multiple parts with more depth each. Or, dare I even suggest, made it episodic so proper care could have been given to fleshing out the major "pillars" of the story. ME2 arguably had a weaker (almost entirely ridiculous) main story but still I played through that game multiple times, but I only played through ME3 once (on normal difficulty) and a recent attempt to finish it again, but with all DLC installed, just fitzed out. But of course all imho ymmv etc. EDIT: spelling

Lara, crying in a tomb? Ohoh...

Not as effective as being forced to play the NWN1 OC. I never even managed that once... Anyway, played through the "Blood Ties" DLC for Rise of the Tomb raider. I thought it was pretty good, probably beat all the character development in the rest of the two reboots combined. The ending was kinda scary though, Lara is going to make the Croft name "great again" (not even making that up).

Well, Witcher combat could use some balancing, I guess... *starts running*