What are you playing right now?

[GhostofAnakin]

I hate the fact some of these Tavar quests require me to kill someone, when I'm trying to play as non-violent as possible.  There don't seem to be any "charm" options to solve the quests peacefully.

[SonicMage117]

I'm 40% in Red Dead Redemption 2's story. Working on it little by little.

 

Can't wait to try Destiny 2, I haven't played a Bungie game in a bit or a good fps for that matter.

[Tale]

I beat Throne of Bhaal with Ascension. Yeah, I cheesed the final battle, you want to make something of it?

 

One dissapointment is the game provides ample opportunities for good PCs to fall, but none for evil PCs to rise. So when ToB started, I cheated my character over to good, imagining that after Irenicus stole his soul, he started to turn things around, finally conquering the taint when it returned.

 

Also I'm getting tired of always playing Lawful Evil characters.

 

Anyway, as for the cheese, I skull trapped the Four (Balthazar was on my side). Illasaera, Sendai, and Abizagal all died instantly. Yaga Shura went down with a single Harm. Then I proceeded to spam stuff at Melissan until she got trapped. Ended up not damaging anyone. With alacrities and four casters spamming a mix of implosion, comet, bigby, and feeblemind, she was pretty ruined against Sarevok with a +6 weapon.

 

Edit: Onto Icewind Dale. Paladin, Fighter-Berserker, Druid, Thief/Cleric, Bard, Sorcerer. I've barely ever played this before, so it's going to be interesting. On the plus side I don't have to juggle companion quests. Detail in enviroments is beautiful. I'm struck by something as simple as the shop in the starting area with its lighting. It's hard to believe this game came out before Throne of Bhaal, let alone Shadows of Amn!

[GhostofAnakin]

So I'm doing the Clerics quest in Elex, the one about the chem dealer thing.  I've got all the reports from the guards, I found that dude in the other fort, but my character hasn't narrowed down his suspicions to the actual guilty party, like he was able to do during the Berserker quest with Duras.

 

I'm reading the reports, but none of the reports seem to be obvious about who the guilty party is, and my character can basically choose all three with no reasons given for why they are guilty (or not guilty).

[Lexx]

So after my Amazon package got send back because the delivery guys were too stupid to get it to me, I've ordered it somewhere else. Cost me 60 bucks more, which annoyed me a damn hell...but the package arrived within two days, so whatever.

 

Here are my random thoughts about RDR2 on PS4:

 

- This game looks way better than I've expected. Folks made such a fuzz about how the Xbone is the best platform for it, but seriously, when I see the game on the PS4 Pro right now, I can't really imagine how the other console is topping it. I've watched all these comparison videos, but I simply can't see the pointed out flaws while the game is running. I mean, I don't deny they are there, just saying that I can't see it. As of now, the game looks about as good as any PC game I'm playing on my TV.

 

- Same about the non-native 4K. For me personally, this matters not a single bit. But maybe that's just because I have no frame of reference due to not being able to directly compare with the Xbox version.

 

- At times, I'm having the same problem with RDR2 as I had with Witcher 3: I see a lot, but I can't see ****. For some reason I have a very hard time focusing on anything in the game world that is a bit further away, especially in forest areas. After a while I went to the graphic options and reduced the sharpness filter by 50%. After that it got better.

 

- I find it hard to see enemies half the time. They blend into the environment and the only way for me to spot them is to abuse the auto aim. Again, this got better once I reduced the sharpness. Guess the super hard edges made everything blur into each other or whatever.

 

- The game world looks great. It's big, it's awesome.

 

- BUT the hell is that a traffic going on. There's no 5 minutes without seeing another rider or a wagon or someone yelling at me or whatever. There's too many people, even in the wilderness.

 

- Some of the missions have the same flaws as the usual open world game quests. They send you all over the place, all the time, which makes the game world feel small again. Yes it's big, but at the same time I'm jumping biomes like crazy.

 

- I wonder if they added the swamps just to use the walking-through-snow mechanic once more. :>

 

- The game has some great animation details. Love checking out my weapons and stuff like that.

 

- I had to shoot my horse, because some **** wounded it too much.

 

- I had to pay a boatload of money just because I accidentally missclicked or whatever and then it was a crime. First guy I wanted to stop, accidentally shot him in the belly. Or looting dead bodies on the roadside and some random rider passes along, reporting me, even if the folks attacked me first, etc. Actually I don't mind the later, it's just that there is ALWAYS a god damn rider passing along. Because this game is full of highways, with lots of traveling folks.

 

- Hunted animals on your horseback are rotting way too fast. I lost good meat because the game forced me into a cutscene or mission and once I was able to sell that crap, it was too late...

 

- Some missions could do with much less enemies, imo. After an hour or two of playing, I was already a mass-murderer. Pretty sure once the game ends, I've killed the population of Luxembourg.

 

- Controls are not as bad as folks made it seem, but they sure ain't pretty.

 

- That's all for now. Have to go to work now.

Edited November 12, 2018 by Lexx

[Zoraptor]

So I'm doing the Clerics quest in Elex, the one about the chem dealer thing.  I've got all the reports from the guards, I found that dude in the other fort, but my character hasn't narrowed down his suspicions to the actual guilty party, like he was able to do during the Berserker quest with Duras.

 

I'm reading the reports, but none of the reports seem to be obvious about who the guilty party is, and my character can basically choose all three with no reasons given for why they are guilty (or not guilty).

 

The deals take place at night, and there's only one person who isn't accounted for at night?

 

 

Been a while since I played but iirc the options are a trainer, a miner (?) and a guy who is preaching, and it's the guy who is preaching

 

[Oner]

 

Funny because the Berserker Warbow, which is upgreadable, is imo flat out better than the plasma weapons, let alone the unupgreadable unique variants.

The benefit of unique weapons, of whatever type, isn't always raw damage.  Many of the unique weapons have lower or just plain different stat requirements than that of their more mundane counterparts upgraded to do a similar amount of damage.

 

Because of the way Elex handles armor and because ranged weapons don't get combo damage buffs they way melee weapons do, I have found that below a certain damage output they are highly ineffective against many of the more armored enemies.  I find that number to be around 70 or 75.  Any ranged weapon with a base damage of 75 or higher is going to be highly effective against almost anything.  The Redeemer has a base damage of 100, so it shreds through almost anything in just a few blasts.  It does this with a stat requirement of 65 dex and 65 int.  For comparison, a War Bow II, which also does 100 damage, has a stat requirement of 48 str and 71 dex, so it's more fitting for a character with a different stat build.  Besides that, plasma rifles have a better rate of fire than bows, but bows have better range. The range on energy weapons is pretty piss poor, to be honest.

See, that's part of my problem. The game tells you at the start that Dex governs ranged damage and approriately the bows have Dex requirements. Then you find a sexy energy weapon and not only does it require a stat it theoretically doesn't scale off of, it requires a huge investment into it. Cue my smile fading.

And damage is kind of the god stat when you can't meaningfully hurt most enemies without it, not to mention saving ammo thanks to requiring less to kill something. You have the damage to kill most enemy types? Suddenly you are raking in the all xp and money. Rate of fire is pretty much a non-factor in face of that imo, even the bow's bonus range is just a cherry on top.

[Keyrock]

While I don't think rate of fire is that big a deal, it has its uses.  Once an enemy starts charging you it's significantly harder to hit and the chance of missing shots and wasting ammo increases.  Knowing I can squeeze off 3 shots almost instantaneously (enough to drop many enemies) that will all land before the enemy starts moving rapidly is a bit of a plus.  It's a minor factor, though.  In the end, once you're high level and have high-tier gear, you're going to be murderating the vast majority of enemies with ease, regardless of whether you're wielding a plasma rifle, a bow, a rocket launcher, etc.  Not to mention that my best combat ability resides in my psi amp anyway.  It's all about looking fashionable, as far as I'm concerned.  Don't get me wrong, there are some sweet looking bows out there, I'm just partial to the futuristic look.

 

That's the thing about PB games, they have a bit of a backwards difficulty curve, where the game is at it's hardest at the very beginning and gradually becomes easier over time.  So the quest for the absolute strongest gear you can find becomes almost meaningless, because your character is so ridiculously OP at high level anyway.  It seems counterintuitive to how you would want to design a game, but it works IMHO because the struggle is so real at the beginning of the game that being an unstoppable murder god at the end is your reward for toughing it out through the beginning.  Plus, PB's world design and quest design is so good that it carries the game once combat becomes trivial.  It does for me, anyway.

 

Your point that energy weapons are comparatively weak to other ranged weapons and that seeming weird is valid, though.  You would think a plasma rifle or a rocket launcher would be at the top of the damage food chain, but it's not.

Edited November 12, 2018 by Keyrock

[kastle]

I play Red Dead Redemption 2. Perfect, this game is just perfect. Graphically beautiful, a soundtrack to die for, a captivating scenario, one of the most successful open world to date, ...

Edited December 26, 2018 by Fionavar

[Zoraptor]

 

Then you find a sexy energy weapon and not only does it require a stat it theoretically doesn't scale off of, it requires a huge investment into it.

 

 

IIRC weapon damage doesn't scale with stats in Elex, so there is that. It's one of the reasons I tend to advocate a jack-of-trades approach in it that I'd never do for say Gothic 2.

 

I'm not 100% sure of that, but if it does scale it's minor.

[Keyrock]

The tooltip for Dex in Elex says it affects ranged weapon damage but I have no scientific data to actually back up that claim.

[majestic]

Played Project Warlock, fun little retro shooter with a bunch of issues, I'm hoping future patches eventually fix the lighting (maps are way too dark unless you turn down the graphics quality) of the maps and the wonky performance.

[IndiraLightfoot]

 

Is it bad that, besides depth, Red Dead Redemption 2 has more detailed townspeep routine than any rpg as well?

 

Gothic had this back in 2001.

 

And Ultima even earlier.

[GhostofAnakin]

Weird ... quests in Abessa are being cancelled if I teleport anywhere, but remain active as long as I just travel by foot.

[Zoraptor]

The tooltip for Dex in Elex says it affects ranged weapon damage but I have no scientific data to actually back up that claim.

 

Yeah, the tool tips say that str scales melee damage and dex scales ranged damage. I only tested strength and melee weapons rather than ranged and dex but if damage does scale with strength it was very, very slight and far less than the improvement from combos or an improved weapon's raw damage increase. I'm about 99% sure someone else tested the same thing at the Codex and came up with it not having any effect either.

 

I preordered so it may have been a bug that has since been fixed, but if so it doesn't seem to be in the fix log.

[Tale]

It's kind of striking how different Icewind Dale is from Baldur's Gate while still coming across like they're the same. Part of that is coming to it so late and doing this after a complete Baldur's Gate series run.

 

But I end up noticing things like the spells. The sounds are the same, but the graphics are so different. Curse is anti-Bless, Chant is more powerful and disables further spellcasting! Look at all these Druid spells!

[Lexx]

For all the rpg stuff SonicMage is spewing, RDR2 has completely, 100% linear missions so far. There is no choice&consequences whatsoever, except maybe your good/bad meter is changing every once in a while. This thing is kinda underwhelming anyway. More stupid than Fo3s karma value.

[bugarup]

I sank some hours into "Divinity: OS". I kind of like combat system even if I suck at it and appreciate goofball things like kettle helmets and cat marriages, but methinks that they could do better than hire the Pegleg Performers to write the story and do the acting. 

[GhostofAnakin]

Not sure if it's a bug or what in Elex, but my companions don't seem to want to go to Origin when I tell them "go to Origin".  They just keep returning to the original "small camp".

[Blodhemn]

For all the rpg stuff SonicMage is spewing, RDR2 has completely, 100% linear missions so far. There is no choice&consequences whatsoever, except maybe your good/bad meter is changing every once in a while. This thing is kinda underwhelming anyway. More stupid than Fo3s karma value.

Hope you don't regret that PS4 purchase. 

[Lexx]

I don't as of now. The game looks beautiful and runs great. I even got used to the control scheme by now. It's just that #JustSonicThings.

 

However, I do feel like they've wasted potential with their mission design. Not sure if I would replay the game once I'm done with it.

 

PS: Is it possible to sell weapons? I accidentally bought two revolvers of the same type and switching through all these in the weapon slots is kinda annoying.

[Blodhemn]

I don't as of now. The game looks beautiful and runs great. I even got used to the control scheme by now. It's just that #JustSonicThings.

 

However, I do feel like they've wasted potential with their mission design. Not sure if I would replay the game once I'm done with it.

 

PS: Is it possible to sell weapons? I accidentally bought two revolvers of the same type and switching through all these in the weapon slots is kinda annoying.

That's Rockstar for you. Their design style leaves zero interest to replay.

[Raithe]

I took a pause in Deadfire a couple of months ago, planning to get back into it once the first two DLC's had been released. I don't know why, but I'm struggling to get back into it. I'd done most of the initial Neketaka visit and gained the extra companions there, but eh, for some reason I'm finding it hard to stir the enthusiasm to go back. Which is somewhat irritating.

[Fenixp]

Finished Burial at Sea pt. 1 for Bioshock: Infinite. It's nice that they went out of their way to replicate level design / gameplay of the original bioshock in the DLC, including the entire thing being far more open than base Infinite. I've had some good fun with it. But... Well, it lasts for like 3 hours or so and ends precisely when you start really getting into it.

 

Also, the possess plasmid is way too powerful now that the game focuses on small numbers of more powerful opponents.

[SadExchange]

Looking to start a playthrough of Fallout 4 with the DLC and can't decide how to go about building a character.  Any thoughts/suggestions here?