What are you playing RIGHT NOW?

[Hawke64]

Neverwinter Nights 2: Storm of Zehir
Reached Crossroad Keep and realized that the SoZ MC isn't the PC of the original campaign/MotB. It explains why I started at level 1, instead of level 30.
I met most of the possible cohorts/companions and currently trying to use them, instead of custom characters. There's a chance that if I want to switch back, they will be underleveled, though.

Somehow I forgot that the NWN GUI isn't as clear and transparent as Pathfinder's - no tool-tips, no list of skills on character screen (I don't remember how it was called exactly; there was shown on what level the character gains a feat and which feats have been acquired before), no way to highlight all lootable objects and enemies. It's not really important, but it is less convenient.

On 5/22/2019 at 6:41 AM, Tale said:

General love for IE style RPGs. I don't know if I'd call it a diamond in the rough, but maybe a lesser gemstone.

It's actually frustrated me at a few points where I call BS on the bosses.  But I think the pacing of the game is the only true turnoff.

In general, during a chapter you have the main quest, which should be completed ASAP, and a quite long period, when you can play PF:KM as a BG game - explore the map, take and complete side quests, craft (well, have things crafted for you), talk to NPCs, upgrade your kingdom, etc. The two exceptions are the last mandatory chapter and somewhere mid-game, when the next main quest triggers right after the previous one.

[GhostofAnakin]

The Division 2's combat is annoying when you're up against an enemy who shoots grenades.  It's especially cheesy when it's a flame grenade since your health literally goes almost to zero if you get hit.

[Majek]

Oh you have no idea.  They used to have 100% accuracy with grenades as well. If you say one flying towards you it was always  going to hit.

[Mamoulian War]

11 hours ago, Hawke64 said:

Neverwinter Nights 2: Storm of Zehir
Reached Crossroad Keep and realized that the SoZ MC isn't the PC of the original campaign/MotB. It explains why I started at level 1, instead of level 30.
I met most of the possible cohorts/companions and currently trying to use them, instead of custom characters. There's a chance that if I want to switch back, they will be underleveled, though.

Somehow I forgot that the NWN GUI isn't as clear and transparent as Pathfinder's - no tool-tips, no list of skills on character screen (I don't remember how it was called exactly; there was shown on what level the character gains a feat and which feats have been acquired before), no way to highlight all lootable objects and enemies. It's not really important, but it is less convenient.

In general, during a chapter you have the main quest, which should be completed ASAP, and a quite long period, when you can play PF:KM as a BG game - explore the map, take and complete side quests, craft (well, have things crafted for you), talk to NPCs, upgrade your kingdom, etc. The two exceptions are the last mandatory chapter and somewhere mid-game, when the next main quest triggers right after the previous one.

It is very long time, since I've played it, but AFAIK, there is a key, which highlights loot.

 

5 minutes later: Oh yeah, I did remember correctly, it is the "Z" button

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/922154-neverwinter-nights-2/43601953

[Guard Dog]

Putting Imperator Rome down for a while. If you play as a major power you can't lose. As a city state or minor power you can't win. But my real complaint with it is all the names of places, tech, visuals, etc are Roman no matter what culture type you play. That is pretty lazy. It's actually not a bad game, just not a complete one. Let's see what gets added in the upcoming DLCs. 

[LittleArmadillo0]

I'm going to try Grim Dawn. There is a free trial of it on steam today and I want to see if its up my ally.

[Rosbjerg]

Moving on, on my mission to replay classic RPGs. I've meant to replay most of them ever since I wrapped up Pillars of Eternity I+II, to kinda travel through and replay the inspirations of those games.

 I'm going through Dragon Age Origins now - which is a refreshing take on the standard tropes, coming from Neverwinter. But the Bioware formula and character tropes are so very transparent here, even those who made it into Pillars of Eternity (Edér and Alistar having some of the same functions).

Still, I actually like these games a lot more than when I first tried them - stripped of the hype and with a good dose of 'judging them by their time', they're decent games.

 

Afterwards I'll be trying the games I never finished: Dragon Age II, Inquisition and then on to the old classics, Arcanum, Fallout 1+2 and then ending the trip with Planescape (know the story, just never got to the end myself).

Edited May 27, 2019 by Rosbjerg

[majestic]

I have hit a bit of a snag in Druidstone. I'm at what could be considered the first real boss battle of the game. I've done only two attempts so far (on normal difficulty) and I almost downed the boss the second time around.

I now know how to approach the mission to win: Reskill to add some piercing and daze (50% chance to miss for enemies) to my group's attacks, add dodge to my tank skills and grab some resistance gear to help with the environmental effect and the attacks. This is necessary because the boss has massive health, high armor and devastating single melee attack per round (and one ranged, but that can miss through daze, be outranged and resisted). Par for the course for a boss, obviously.

Here's the rub: I don't want to. It's not even much effort. A few clicks to shuffle stuff around. What bothers me is that the game so far played by completely different rules. So far there's been two types of enemies, those that came in hordes that deal really low damage and a few large ones with a medium amount of hitpoints that were impossible to tank due to their insane damage output over several melee attacks per round or debilitating status effects.  They had to be kited and whittled down, or burst down as quickly as possible.

Two things that aren't viable for the boss fight. The present environmental hazard (not to mention unkillable but slow horde enemies) makes it impossible to kite him long enough to wear him down and the fact that he spends half the mission time invulnerable until you've traversed most of the map and the insane amount of hit points makes it impossible to burst him down.

What he does have though, is only a single melee attack per round. Highly damaging, but the Warden conveniently has a skill that allows him to dodge a single melee attack per round, and you can skill him to have some extra charges. In normal play that skill so far was interesting to have, but by no means something to gear or skill for.

TL;DR: Would have to shuffle around equipment and reskill my entire party for one fight, then turn everything else back for normale gameplay. Can't really be arsed to.

[Hawke64]

Dauntless
After several attempts to log in, I succeeded. Comparing the game to Monster Hunter: World, I like the graphics (I can see things clearly) and the controls more. But there are lags and Dauntless is an "online only" game (MH:W can be played offline, but there are no NPCs to team up with and it can't be paused mid-session), so I'm not sure, if I should continue.

Neverwinter Nights 2: Storm of Zehir
Reached Port Llast. Found a cabin in the woods with the Luskan wizards (Arcane Brotherhood, I think). It took four or five attempts to defeat them and the general strategy was "beeline to the casters and hope for the best". Considering that in the second battle (the cabin consisted of two areas) the party started at the stairs and a summoned creature (i.e. I couldn't control it directly, thus I had to reload and unsummon it before entering the second floor) blocked the way, there was less skill and control required, than I would like.
Built trading posts in 3 towns. No option to build one in Neverwinter, though.

Z didn't work to highlight interactive objects. I've checked the settings, it isn't used anywhere nor there's anything similar (might have been removed in one of the patches?).

[Keyrock]

My next goal in Conan Exiles is to hit lev 50, since it's a fairly significant power spike. At lev 50 I unlock feats that allow me to craft Stygian soldier armor, craft a stone throne, upgrade my Shrines of Set to tier 3, and I'm pretty sure I can start unlocking advanced crafting stations at lev 50. To that end, I've been doing a lot of exploring, since discovering new places gives good XP. I have pretty much the entirety of the highlands mapped out now and I already had most of the desert and jungle mapped out earlier, so that mainly leaves the snow area and the volcano. Before I venture into those areas, though, I'm going to return to the desert and run The Dregs dungeon to slay the Abyssal Remnant boss. I think at lev 50 I should be thoroughly capable of soloing it (likely overpowered a bit). So far I've killed 2 dungeon bosses, the Giant Crocodile (twice) and the Sand Reaper Hive Queen, and over half a dozen world bosses.

[marelooke]

20 hours ago, Keyrock said:

My next goal in Conan Exiles is to hit lev 50, since it's a fairly significant power spike. At lev 50 I unlock feats that allow me to craft Stygian soldier armor, craft a stone throne, upgrade my Shrines of Set to tier 3, and I'm pretty sure I can start unlocking advanced crafting stations at lev 50. To that end, I've been doing a lot of exploring, since discovering new places gives good XP. I have pretty much the entirety of the highlands mapped out now and I already had most of the desert and jungle mapped out earlier, so that mainly leaves the snow area and the volcano. Before I venture into those areas, though, I'm going to return to the desert and run The Dregs dungeon to slay the Abyssal Remnant boss. I think at lev 50 I should be thoroughly capable of soloing it (likely overpowered a bit). So far I've killed 2 dungeon bosses, the Giant Crocodile (twice) and the Sand Reaper Hive Queen, and over half a dozen world bosses.

Heh, I imagined you hit 60 a while ago

I've now started revisiting some prior bosses, so far I've killed the cave croc and the huge croc world boss I spotted near a lake when I was "little" (had a chest near it that just told me I was too low level. Boo!). I also started exploring the Unnamed City (since it's right next door) where I killed a bunch of human (mini)bosses (assuming they are bosses since I couldn't turn them into Thralls) and a miniboss skeleton (has a skull on his hp bar, and since he's in my way on the way in and pretty easy to beat he does get beaten on regularly). I also ran into Mr Ghost and am now collecting Demon Blood, lots of it, as I imagine you are too...

I also got curious about the starting area, so I took a good long hike through the desert, turns out there's a bunch of similar starting areas, not sure if the one you get in single player is fixed or if it can vary. I also only now figured out there was an obelisk there that provides an introduction to the player's predicament. After finding that one I found a bunch more, of course...

After talking to Mr Ghost I also went back and explored the Arena further, managed to "sneak" to the center of it and...well, after barely making it there I noped the hell out of there...

I should note I installed a mod that scales down the rather ridiculous boss HP (at least, it's ridiculous for single player), and HP only, damage, armour etc should be untouched, as either cheesing it with arrows or doing the dodge-stab-dance for an hour weren't particularly appealing to me.

Edited May 29, 2019 by marelooke

[GhostofAnakin]

Why oh why do game developers decide to make your character feel less effective the more you level up because of buffed up enemies?

Playing through The Division 2 and I'm at Level 25 now, but I feel less powerful than I was at around Level 10 because now it seems all missions include a bunch of "tank" enemies who throw fire bombs or shoot grenade launchers, which easily trump anything I have in my arsenal.  At least when I was lower level, it would be rare for a tank to appear and usually only 1 "purple" enemy.

As you level up, enemy TACTICS should be the difficult part you have to deal with when you're facing the "bosses", but not just because they decided the boss has twenty layers of shields/armor and a weapon that saps you of health with one hit.

[daven]

I have just purchased Fist of the North Star: Paradise Lost. It looks completely bonkers in a good way. Sometimes you just want to punch a guy and make his head explode you know?

[Mico Selva]

After bouncing from game to game for around a month, I've decided to go back to Dark Souls 2 and finally finish it. Got the 4th Great Soul, and reached the castle. Hopefully that means I am at least at the halfway point of the game.

[melkathi]

Sat down and finished Spellforce 3.

 

The bad:

After a certain point the RTS part has endless waves of enemies attacking you. It feels like a cheap trick to make maps last longer, when you need to explore to figure out the quest but rush back every 60 seconds to defend against yet another attack.

Partly as a result it is easy to miss loot and the odd side quest on the huge maps.

At least in German the voice acting has mistakes. Some lines are read by the wrong voice actor, so the mercenary leader for example replies with the player's voice at some point. Sometimes the wrong sound file plays and the text being spoken is not the text written, but a repeat of a previous line.

The Good:

The game is gorgeous. I feel guilty building bases in the maps and ruining the environment.

The story is fine, and while not having any real surprises, provides a good fantasy ride with stuff to do. Though for fans of the series it is awesome once you realize what the story really is all about.

A good variety of party members and loot to equip them with.

Actually a neat real time RPG dressed up as an RTS.

[Wormerine]

Picked up Void Bastads. I love the art style, and so far the game looks promising. Pretty tough. 

[Humanoid]

WoW is a complete wasteland now pending the next major patch release, so I registered the FF14 key I got way back in the Christmas 2015 Squeenix surprise box and gave it a go. Less than a week in but some first impressions:

It has some good points,
- No looting! Everything is done automatically so you can move on as soon as you kill anything and get whatever relevant items were on it. And I emphasis *relevant*, there are no worthless vendor trash items here, they simply don't exist. As inventory management is my number one pet hate in any game, this is a godsend.
- Very clear ground effects during combat, making it damn clear whether you're standing in that fireball blast radius or wild axe swing or not.
- Multiclassing! Sort of. You can only enjoy the benefits of one class at a time, but you can learn to be all of the classes on a single characters.
- Surnames! No longer are you locked out of choosing sensible names for your characters, as the existence of surnames means that it's far easier to find a unique but sensible combination.
- Individual quests are fairly short and to-the-point. While it's still standard MMO fare of "collect bear butts", you're typically asked for just a few of them, with a 100% drop rate, compared to WoW's often absurd kill requirements.
- Bust size slider. Done with being weighed down by my absurdly sized sweater puppies in WoW.
 

Some bad points,
- The world is extremely confined, being broken up into dozens of separate, fairly-small areas separated by loading screens. It simply does not feel like a living, breathing coherent world and it also makes maps a nightmare to read.
- While multiclassing itself is fine, what happens is that there are really only enough regular quests around the world to level one class properly, maybe two at a stretch. Beyond that, you're relying on grindy, repeatable content for your XP.
- The game loves its cutscenes, but it doesn't really have the chops to pull them off. Too often you end up watching tiresome generic cutscenes consisting of unvoiced dialogue, perfunctory emoting, discussing some irrelevant or inscrutable plot point. At the moment I'm finding maybe 5% of cutscenes are voiced, which makes it really jarring when it does happen.
- Speaking of voice acting, the player character, despite you being made to choose a voice during character creation, is completely silent outside combat grunts. I don't expect full voice acting (though I think SWTOR did it well enough), but not even having so much as generic acknowledgements, even a simple "yes", gets pretty awkward.
- There are a *lot* of FedEx/fetch quests. Hell, the game is pretty much set up such that your first 3-4 levels are all in this vein, with no combat until then.
- When the combat does arrive, it's extremely simple at low levels. My skill rotation is simply 1-2-1-2-1-2-etc. I'm sure this will change later on, but I'm level 20 already and I'd say that makes it too gentle of a learning curve.

But it all works out, sometimes I'm a little freaked out.
- Some of the non-human races end up being really uncanny valley. Might get used to it over time, might not.
- I'm still not sure what the setting is. One moment I'm in a bird-drawn carriage, the next a Batmobile zooms past. Just, what?
- Fashions are all over the place. One minute I'm in a frilly dress, the next in a green diaper, the next in a puffy jumpsuit.

[melkathi]

Started the stand alone expansion for spellforce 3.

Very confusing. They changed keys, UI, everything. 

[Hurlshort]

I've been playing DC Universe Online again. It really is a fantastic character creation system with a great setting that is fun to swing, fly, or speed around. 

[melkathi]

I play CoH. I am more retro than you

[wolfrider100]

Went back to playing Atom RPG, since it just was updated to 1.1. Which includes 20 brand new side quests, along with 20 more locations added to the Dead City. Also new non-player characters. Plus what I was looking forward to most, several new random encounters (man I really do enjoy them). I have been playing this game for almost 131 hours, doing side quests, killing things, leveling my people up, finding new gear to use and I been enjoying ever hour of this. People on Steam have been saying the game's main story-line is pretty short but I don't think so, I can see myself replaying this game a heck of a lot, since I'm having so much fun.

Edited May 30, 2019 by wolfrider100

[GhostofAnakin]

So I ended up buying the remake of FFXII.  Haven't played it yet, but the original FFXII was one of my favorite FF games ever.  Certainly enjoyed it more than anything that came after it.  So I'm sort of excited to see how things go.

Still playing a bit of The Division 2, also.  Though honestly, I'm just not into it.  I'll get caught up when on a mission because some of the gun fights can be fun, but overall the story is just meh.

[Mamoulian War]

8 hours ago, GhostofAnakin said:

So I ended up buying the remake of FFXII.  Haven't played it yet, but the original FFXII was one of my favorite FF games ever.  Certainly enjoyed it more than anything that came after it.  So I'm sort of excited to see how things go.

Still playing a bit of The Division 2, also.  Though honestly, I'm just not into it.  I'll get caught up when on a mission because some of the gun fights can be fun, but overall the story is just meh.

It's still the same, but when you will use the new option to assign two jobs to one character, it gets kind of easier than the original. So on my first playhrough I decided to not use this option.

[Hawke64]

Neverwinter Nights 2: Storm of Zehir
Reached the northern part of Chult. There were 4 quests left (1 main, 3 "collect X of Y"). Found a tower in the middle of the jungle and went to explore it. The party was greeted by a giant floating skull. It did not attack us, but it was rather distracting. At the upper floor there was an undead illithid, Zecorian, with two vampire lords. I managed to aggro them one by one, and (after several attempts) they were defeated. Somehow the illithid kept "removing the brain" (literally, it was shown in the log) of my paladin, so I had to spend coins of life to revive him.

Volo followed our party to the Viper Temple. I had forgotten that he was an adventurer and was pleasantly surprised to see him. In the Temple of the World Serpent our party reached the throne room without alerting the local yuan-ti, and the Herald of Zehir and the other snake-guy (forgot his name, the red-scaled one) were slain on the second attempt, when the party focused attacks on the latter first.

I think, there's one quest to go (to see the results of Akila's investigation) and I should hit the epilogue. I take it, it is triggered manually? Like, talking to Volo and choosing to retire?

[Wormerine]

On 5/29/2019 at 1:30 PM, Mico Selva said:

After bouncing from game to game for around a month, I've decided to go back to Dark Souls 2 and finally finish it.

Uhhh... Need to get back to it. I got myself a pad couple months ago and picked up DS1 and loved it. Picked up DS2 and so far I found very little enjoyment in it.