What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

[GhostofAnakin]

Taking a break from gaming at the moment.  Nothing out that I want to play, and none of my old games appeal to me right now.

I tried to play through the remake of FFXII, but while I like the story mission parts, the grinding to level up in between the story missions is so tedious.  The fact it's kind of necessary otherwise you'll be too low level/weak to take on the next set of enemies when you move along the story path is kind of annoying.

Maybe I'll get back to it at some point.

[213374U]

9 hours ago, majestic said:

Sometimes one of us would run with a hybrid damage spec to get bosses down, like Draxus initially.

Man, I miss hybrid builds so much. They were so quirky and oddly inefficient... and yet so flexible. Healer (and tank) DPS is still important, though, and I'd say it's mandatory for healers to do some damage in certain encounters. Tanks are already at a point where stock equipment puts you deep in diminishing returns territory for mitigation, so I'm running with all power mods, which also have better endurance to boot. Some even recommend an alacrity enhancement or two.

As for gearing, the much-maligned Galactic Command system made sure that you didn't depend exclusively on boss drops to be geared, which I believe is an improvement, even if the actual implementation leaves a lot to be desired. Currently they are using a system where just running dailies on a certain planet is more than enough to get you overgeared for even nims, and their stated intention is to reduce the impact of pure RNG while also making gearing through raiding and pvp valid paths for people who engage in them.

Promises, promises...

[WDeranged]

I replayed Fallout 4 last year and found I was (still) deeply annoyed by the writing, mechanical shortcomings and just the general vibe so I decided to give the gog version of Fallout 3 a whirl.

It seems that with some effort it's now possible (thanks to a few recent mods) to play the game without tearing out your hair due to bugs and random ctd's.  20 hours in and not a single crash so far, this is completely unheard of in my experience.

Under the shadow of Fallout 4 the game holds up astonishingly well to New Vegas, a game which I have now plumbed to the deepest level.  Yeah there's plenty of dumb stuff if you want to look for it but the writing, quests and world design range from acceptably good to excellent.  Even the much maligned metro system is a joy to me, a seemingly endless mega-dungeon with masses of hidden nooks and secrets.

There really are significant quests and locations you will never see unless you delve deep into the game, by comparison even New Vegas pushes all it's content right up front and there's very little reward for extended exploration.

So yeah, having a blast so far.

[majestic]

3 hours ago, 213374U said:

Promises, promises...

I'm pretty sure our Sin ran with two alacrity enhancements even back in 2.x. Man, I'm close to installing the game again.

[Keyrock]

Splitting time between Conan Exiles and Judgment.

In Conan Exiles I'm focused on going through the Well of Skelos dungeon to acquire the 4th of 6 pieces I need to complete the main mission of the game.

 

I already have the Heart of the Sands, the Mask of the Witch Queen, and the Tears of Two Races

That dungeon is located in the heart of a volcano and you die of heat exhaustion extremely quickly in there (speaking from experience), so I'm trying to make a set of Silent Legion armor, since it has really good heat resistance. Unfortunately, that's epic tier armor and requires lev 60 to craft and I'm only lev 59 at the moment. In the meantime, I continue work on the wall around my capital. I recently finished work on the first of 3 gates that allow entrance through the wall and I'm currently finishing up the second of many guard towers. I'd say the wall is roughly 25% complete at this point. 

I just started playing Judgment from the developers that made the Yakuza series. The game takes place in the same Kamurocho that the Yakuza games mainly take place in, although I've yet to see any appearances from Yakuza series regulars, nor do I expect to; the developers stated that they intend to keep the universes separate, since they're going for a different tone with this game. You play as Takayuki Yagami, a former lawyer turned private detective. The main story has you investigating a series of murders. It plays very much like the Yakuza games but they have introduced some new mechanics, including tailing people, chasing people, and searching for specific people. If nothing else, I'm already loving the music in the game, it's got a really great jazzy vibe to it. Also, from a purely visual fidelity standpoint, Kamurocho has never looked so good. The characters in cutscenes have always looked extremely good in Yakuza games, but during gameplay the graphical fidelity was waaaaaay lower,  at least in Yakuza 0. In Judgment the graphics during gameplay are significantly closer to the graphics in the cutscenes.

Edited June 21, 2019 by Keyrock

[213374U]

2 hours ago, majestic said:

Man, I'm close to installing the game again.

I'd say wait at least a month or so, if you absolutely must and have nothing better to do with your time. They are supposed to be testing expansion changes on PTS during summer so you'll have a better idea of whether it's up your alley. Any effort you put in now is going to be more or less wasted.

[Keyrock]

Yakuza 0 had a bunch of Asian parlor games to play as mini-games. I was almost universally completely clueless about how those games worked and mostly just ignored them. In Judgment I'm determined to try to figure them out. So far, I've only found Mahjong. The in-game manual for Mahjong is 30 pages long. 30 freaking pages! I went through the whole thing and understood maybe 10% of it. Is there a Mahjong For Western Dummies out there?

[majestic]

4 hours ago, 213374U said:

I'd say wait at least a month or so, if you absolutely must and have nothing better to do with your time. They are supposed to be testing expansion changes on PTS during summer so you'll have a better idea of whether it's up your alley. Any effort you put in now is going to be more or less wasted.

If I end up playing I'll be finishing the stories I haven't played yet (and check out everything after SoR) and shooting down raging boons in GSF. After my brief stint with WoW's Legion expansion a while back I think I'm done with regular MMOs. In a more permanent fashion. Talking about the game made me feel a twinge of nostalgia but the actual thought of playing again is kind of revolting.

Thanks, guild drama. Meh.

[Hurlshort]

Finished Star Control Origins. It was a fun story and reminded me of the classic in a good way, but it seemed to be badly optimized and tested my patience with all the loading screens. 

[Hawke64]

The Surge
Defeated the third boss and upgraded my weapon to Mk.III. Unlocked several short-cuts to the hub in the second area. The level of interconnectivity is impressive, though the map is hard to memorize.
I'm quite sure that there's some commentary on social issues, such as data privacy, climate change and affordable healthcare, but I can't tell what exactly the devs are trying to express.

[melkathi]

23 hours ago, Hurlshot said:

Finished Star Control Origins. It was a fun story and reminded me of the classic in a good way, but it seemed to be badly optimized and tested my patience with all the loading screens. 

Did you play the DLC?

I felt the same way about the base game. Though I had no issue with loading screens.

I didn't like the first part of the DLC. By Jeff did I dislike it. Actually I so disliked the first part of the DLC, Jeff be my witness, I feel no compulsion whatsoever to play the second part.

The base game had good writing. The Mowlings were my favourite, but I liked everyone. Perhaps the Mukay were the most bland, the fish joke getting old fast. But even the Greegrox had some charm. inginginginginginginginginginging

But I loath the Gloosh.

Edited June 22, 2019 by melkathi

[Sarex]

Got all the achievements in God of War, not really up for a new game +. Maybe I'll try another game of Civ.

[213374U]

On 6/21/2019 at 11:08 PM, majestic said:

If I end up playing I'll be finishing the stories I haven't played yet (and check out everything after SoR) and shooting down raging boons in GSF. After my brief stint with WoW's Legion expansion a while back I think I'm done with regular MMOs. In a more permanent fashion. Talking about the game made me feel a twinge of nostalgia but the actual thought of playing again is kind of revolting.

Thanks, guild drama. Meh.

The original class stories remain, for me, the best part of the game. The problem is the gameplay that comes with them them is... rote and stale, at best. I'm not sure if you experienced it, but since 4.0 (?) companions basically play the game for you, and level sync means that previously formidable end-chapter bosses are reduced to starter-planet level jokes, in many cases. If you are a previously experienced player capable of such heroic feats as reading tooltips, interrupting casts and using DCDs, the difference between what you remember and what is will be even more acute, resulting in basically a ruined experience of what was very decent content.

You're better off just reading about it or watching the story in YT, I'm afraid.

[Tale]

Finished Detroit Become Human.

The first genuinely good Quantic Dream game. Some have come close, but they crapped themselves at the end. This one does not.

[the_dog_days]

Forgive me father for I have sinned. I fell into sin and debauchery by redownloading AC Odyssey to play the DLC.

[Heijoushin]

I've just finished Sekiro. I love challenging games where you die hundreds of times but keep coming back for more. 

Currently contemplating what to play next. I'm thinking of buying They Are Billions tonight. Can anyone recommend?

Edited June 24, 2019 by Heijoushin

[kanisatha]

Finally finished Witcher 3. Got the really good ending. Did every single quest. What an incredibly awesome game! Will be doing the DLCs next. :)

[Keyrock]

I'm on chapter 2 in Judgment. Chapter 1 is very linear, it has no side cases at all, everything is main story. Once you get to chapter 2 the game opens up and you get the side content you expect from a Yakuza game (this isn't technically a Yakuza game, but for all intents and purposes it's a Yakuza game).

The story is great so far, but that was never in question. Ryu Ga Gotoku are, and have always been, great at storytelling. The writing is great, the characters, whether prominent or obscure, all have personality, the pacing is spot on. These folks know how to tell a story. I can also happily confirm that the English translation and voice acting in this game is top-notch. SEGA and Ryu Ga Gotoku have put more effort into the western localization than any previous title and hopefully it sells like hotcakes in the west because this level of effort is appreciated. So whether you go with Japanese voice with English subtitles or English voice, you're going to get a premium experience.

There are also some quality of life improvements over Yakuza. For example, you no longer have to keep holding X to sprint, you can just press it once and Yagami will keep sprinting as long as you keep moving. Also, I like the combat in this game better than Yakuza. I'm not sure how to explain it, but it seems to flow a little better. Also, you can do attacks jumping off walls, which is all types of rad, though I need to work a lot on my aim with those attacks. Another small improvement is that you no longer trigger a cutscene for most fights (you do for boss fights). When you run into common mooks on the street you fight them right there on the street without a break in gameplay. In Yakuza games you fought them in, for all intents and purposes, an instance. I like how the bystanders react when a fight breaks out. Some flee, some stand around and cheer on the fight, and some film it on their phones, in landscape mode, of course, because people in Japan aren't disgusting degenerates.

On the negative side, it looks like there's no karaoke mini-game.

I get they had to remove some mini-games since they added some new ones, but of all the mini-games to remove, why karaoke? It's arguably the most popular mini-game in the Yakuza games.

Edited June 24, 2019 by Keyrock

[Hurlshort]

Kingdom Come: Deliverance - Picking ip a game I had played for a bit. I love the systems in this game, but it is also fairly daunting. Things rarely turnout well for me, and I'm still rubbish at combat 20 hours into the playthrough. Still, I am enjoying it.

[Chilloutman]

1 hour ago, Hurlshot said:

Kingdom Come: Deliverance - Picking ip a game I had played for a bit. I love the systems in this game, but it is also fairly daunting. Things rarely turnout well for me, and I'm still rubbish at combat 20 hours into the playthrough. Still, I am enjoying it.

 

train for few minutes/hour with that dude behind castle and you will be combat master in no time (as it level up your skills as well)

[Lexx]

Yeah, training combat is the first thing that needs to be done.

Sadly never finished Kingdom Come, because the game likes to crash my machine with a blue screen. Not what I call a fun experience.

[Gizmo]

Been playing Druidstone; and have a decent opinion of it. But one must unlearn the habitual need to clear the encounter maps—that's not the point of the fights. 

[bugarup]

All that SWTOR talk left me craving for Star Wars but good, so I reinstalled KOTOR2. Again. Look what you made me do, forum. 

Anyway, made me a girl, named her Lana B, too bad the game does not appreciate being neutral. Trying out Sentinel since, a) always only played Consulars before, 2)do not want to depend on dragging one of skill monkeys along all the time. Likely will attempt Guardian for the evil playthrough, dumb muscle kinda fits the concept. 

So far so good, no crashes (knocks on head), no mod conflicts. Also Kreia shines in different light now when I met Durance.

 

[LittleArmadillo0]

Taking my first dive into Deadfire. One of those games I've been meaning to play for a while but kept on putting it off. But I'm excited to jump in and see the improvements.

[Oner]

Slowly making my way through Witcher 1 (and then the others) while waiting for Cyberpunk. The game aged a lot better than I expected, it's still playable with minimal headaches.