What Are You Playing Now: The Other, Other Thread

[uuuhhii]

1 hour ago, melkathi said:

At least you played the patched version. On release some dialogue restrictions weren't done right so you could pick the disciple options you didn't have

 

The thing about the ending is that it actually makes more sense than other vampire games - you are but a fledgling not even a week old. You can't compete with centuries old vampires.

 

You can't really wrap up more than two companions. Though diAngelo and the Tremere will help you even if you didn't get to the end of their quest.

 

The disappointment with the irrelevance of clan you choose and choices you make is very much what everyone felt.

 

A shame, because the game has great writing. I adore Hope.

main character fail in the end was the good part

but so little clue are given

so little interaction with the ultimate antagonist

it isn't a good way to tell the story no matter how much sense it makes that main character are so clueless

[Oner]

That too. 

Spoiler

I haven't talked to the guy in the Elysium at the start, but judging from the other vignettes it wouldn't have been a long chat either.

It's not even you the player not connecting the dots and obvious-in-hindsight clues, the guy is just held back all the time so you can be SURPRISED by the writer's AMAZING PLOT TWIST. The thing is, I enjoyed Sophie's obvious manipulation attempts and would've like to see where that goes. Bloodlines basically did the same. Arguably everyone is manipulating you, barely bothering to hide it if it all, and the challenge lies in telling when they lied and about what.

[melkathi]

God, the stalker side quest was such a waste of writing. The whole point of it was "I came up with this npc, so read about her".

[melkathi]

But the real question now is: will you play Shadows?

[Oner]

Honestly? Not if it costs more than 8 euros.

[melkathi]

Yeah, I think that will be the problem: the devs will probably put it at a price similar to Coteries, maybe 15.99 or something like that, while a lot of us will wait for it to go on sale and get it under a tenner.

[Oner]

If Shadows will be a more nuanced product, I wouldn't mind forking over more, we'll see.

And now that I think about it, Coteries of New York? I'd have to squint really hard to justify that title.

[LadyCrimson]

On 4/10/2020 at 5:52 AM, melkathi said:

I am worried about the gameplay. But as it is split I'll wait to get it as a complete package when it goes on 50% sale in 10 years.

I've watched a lot of Twitch time and gameplay looks ok.  Some nice story moments/areas. Combat looks a bit chaotic at times, and most aren't using the Classic option so I don't know what that's l like.

It's hard for me to decide if it'd be something I want to really play myself or just watch others having fun with it. 

[GhostofAnakin]

I've actually gotten back in to Destiny 2.  Played through the various expansions, plus re-played some of the old story campaigns since I'd forgotten what mostly happened.

One minor issue: I don't like how you can't replay the old stories after you've done it.  Sure, you have 3 characters and can technically just run through the story with one of your other characters, but I don't really like using anything other than my Warlock.

I also have a love/hate relationship with the PvP portion of the game.  Half the time, if I get on a roll, I like it.  But the other half, when I get stuck on bad teams, I end up rage-quitting.

[MedicineDan]

Still playing Long Dark episode three five to ten minutes at a time.

[Mamoulian War]

The third game finished this year is the base game of Pillars of Eternity from GOG. I decided to go to the Burial Isle only after finishing every single quest I had in a journal. It took few hours and after that, I've descended into the Breith Eaman and Sun in Shadow areas and upscaled the encounters for final act. After few encounters with soul of Iovara ix Ensios, I've step in front of Thaos ix Arkannon and after a lengthy dialogue, the fight have started. Well my party and thier builds were not optimal, so I spent a lot bitching about how some of them dropped down few times during the fight . In the end, the biggest help for me was the summon of Concelhaut, which was hitting Thaos from distance, while Aloth and Devil of Caroc kept knocked out repeatedly . Before his final breath, he managed dow to knock out also Edér, but in the end, it was not enough for him to defeat the rest of my party. After the fight, I’ve released his soul back to the cycle, while keeping his memories, as an adequate punishment for his deeds. In the last step, I’ve returned back the souls to all of the Hollowborn children, as promised to Hylea. The endings I’ve got were mostly positive, with the exception of Sagani, which got lost in the blizzard, and Devil of Caroc, which got torn to pieces by angry villagers. All in all one of the best RPGs, I’ve played in the last few years, and can’t wait to jump into Deadfire with my final save.

 

There are some questions which would be nice, if you can provide me some answers

1) Skaen did not contact the Watcher with his offer after the fight with Thaos, are there any special prerequisites for him to turn up? I browsed few pages, but I was unable to find any clues.

2) I would like to have some recommendations for Zero Knockouts, Relative Pacifism and No Rest for the Pro achievements. I plan to make a quick run at the Story Mode difficulty some time during this or next year, and I would like to finish also some of the Companion Quests, and go for the "lawful good" type of character. Can you give me advice what to do and what not?

3) Also, at some point, I would like to try out The Ultimate achievement run, with evil character. The options are either Mage or Chanter, maybe, maybe Druid. Are there somewhere some depositories of hints for current version of the game. I found very good build and video of Mage run, but could not locate any advice on Druid. The Chanter which I found lacks the description of talents and skills and is using some kind of exploit, which I would like to avoid.

 

Many thanks!

[Keyrock]

I started up X4: Foundations. The X series of games are the Paradox grand strategies of space sims, they are deep, complex games with lacking tutorials and a STEEP learning curve. I've played all the games in the series from X2 onward, including X: Rebirth, the less said about that game the better, and even I am struggling with the learning curve. I'll persevere through it, though. I started up on the Young Gun starting scenario, which is the most vanilla starting scenario. They start you off as an Argon (human) with an Elite Vanguard, which is a pretty garbage light fighter, and 10,000 credits. I'm basically using this starting scenario to get through the learning curve and to unlock the hidden Unworthy Entrepreneur starting scenario. The Unworthy Entrepreneur starts you off with a small station (I forget what it produces), a freighter, and about 100,000 credits. More importantly, you are a Teladi in that scenario, and I'm #Teladi4Lyfe (On account of the fact that Teladi are the X universe's version of the Ferengi). Right now I'm just getting the hang of scanning stations and finding data leaks. The worst part of data leaks is that you have to get out of your ship and fly to them in your space suit to either repair or decrypt them and the space suit, besides being extremely slow, is so awkward to maneuver. Hopefully in the future once I have a ship big enough to field a decent size crew, I can just send one of my crewmen to handle that stuff for me. I'm not sure if the game allows for that. /crosses fingers

[the_dog_days]

6 hours ago, Mamoulian War said:

1) Skaen did not contact the Watcher with his offer after the fight with Thaos, are there any special prerequisites for him to turn up? I browsed few pages, but I was unable to find any clues.

Skaen is supposed to contact the Watcher in the room prior to the one Thaos is in. You can see it at 11:19 in this video: 

 

6 hours ago, Mamoulian War said:

2) I would like to have some recommendations for Zero Knockouts, Relative Pacifism and No Rest for the Pro achievements. I plan to make a quick run at the Story Mode difficulty some time during this or next year, and I would like to finish also some of the Companion Quests, and go for the "lawful good" type of character. Can you give me advice what to do and what not?

I haven't done this myself and most people I've seen get this achievement solo the game with a stealthy min-maxed character, avoiding almost all the fights where they can. Such as in this video: 

 

The above video is is only a couple of patches from the final patch and aside from some bug squashing there were no gameplay changes in between it and the current version.

I never tried to do any of this stuff because the amount of meta gaming involved saps all the fun out of the game for me.

[Mamoulian War]

Hmm, the video you posted related to Skaen is first video of whole playlist , so at 11:19, he was still in character creation

I checked the last episode and the guy experienced same issue as me He was not approached by Skaen as well So he had only 5 out of 6 solutions unlocked in the final dialogue

Anyway, many thanks about the recommendations, I do not plan to make anything of these feats anytime soon, and if planning to do them, I would like to go through that very fast, therefore my second playthrough will be definitely on story mode difficulty

 

Edited April 12, 2020 by Mamoulian War

[the_dog_days]

It's this video: 

 

[Mamoulian War]

I see, I had this encounter as well, it was Wael. There should be one more encounter after the final fight, which is the encounter in the same vein, but with Skaen, which should give you one more way how to handle all the souls.

[Hurlshort]

I picked up Elite: Dangerous, and it turns out I am a lousy pilot. 

[Keyrock]

1 hour ago, Hurlshot said:

I picked up Elite: Dangerous, and it turns out I am a lousy pilot. 

I see how it is, you're trying to out space sim me. Challenge accepted!

I Keed, I keed. I haven't played Elite Dangerous, but, to the best of my knowledge, it's a pretty hardcore space sim, and thus has a steep learning curve. Stick with it.

I can only imagine Frontier: Elite 2 was a major influence on the X series, just as it was the game that originally got me into space sims and later into Wing Commander,  Freelancer, X2, the X3 series of games, and now into X4.

Edited April 12, 2020 by Keyrock

[Chilloutman]

i really played only freelancer. I kinda like space sims i guess, which one to pick bois? Isnt elite online only?

[Keyrock]

21 minutes ago, Chilloutman said:

i really played only freelancer. I kinda like space sims i guess, which one to pick bois? Isnt elite online only?

I can tell you that X4 is definitely not online only, but I can also tell you that it has a BRUTAL learning curve. I will wait for Hurlshot to tell you about Elite:Dangerous. I will go out on a limb and say that if you are looking for a more casual experience, both of these games are ones to skip. These are hardcore space sims, with all the good and bad that hardcore entails.

Edited April 13, 2020 by Keyrock

[Mamoulian War]

2 hours ago, Chilloutman said:

i really played only freelancer. I kinda like space sims i guess, which one to pick bois? Isnt elite online only?

Wing Commander is the best with the story. If you get over graphics and difficulty of 1 and 2 you get awesome storyline about war of Humans with Kilrathis. If not you can still start with 3, which are kind of decent in these time as well. Shame that Origin was butchered after 5, because they started new awesome storyline

Then there is Descent Freespace 1 and 2, and Privateer 1 and 2. 

Also very good space sim was Starlancer, but i do really not know, if this one can be purchase anywhere.

I’ve heard I-War was decent, but I have never played it myself. And as Keyrock said, the X series is good as well, but for me, it needs loads of time investment to enjoy nowadays. Maybe when I get my backlog little bit smaller, I’ll jump on it as well.

All of them with the exception of Starlancer can be purchased on GOG very cheap in Sales.

[joels344]

I'm playing KOTOR 2 right now. I'm not the biggest Star Wars fan, but I'm absolutely loving this game so far. 

[Hawke64]

The Surge 2. I've successfully reached the Seaside Court. TS2 is a souls-like, but there are several notable differences - an actual quest log, crafting system (getting schematics first, then components to actually craft an armor piece), rechargable "Estus flask" (in combat you generate energy, which can be used to generate injectables), leveling system (Power level determines how much armor and implants you can use). The Seaside Court itself was a combat-free zone, so I did not worry about accidentally hitting NPCs, though the inability to mess with the story was not encouraging. From what I understand, at the end of TS1 the nanites were launched, somehow infected one city and the city is on lockdown. The PC's plane crashed when it happened and there were only two survivors - the PC and a random girl, whose luck apparently was better - she got some super-abilities from the nanites.

[Hurlshort]

Elite Dangerous has a solo mode, but you may still need to be online to play it. I think I'm in over my head and need a more arcadey game, but it does have some cool stuff going. You can actually land on planets and rover around. All I've done is run some courier missions at this point though, and I'm still trying to figure out how to fly efficiently. I spent 10 minutes trying to get to a planetary outpost last night because I entered orbit too soon.

I have Everspace in my library. Maybe that is more my speed? I don't know, I was looking for something more chill too. I want to just trade in goods like an honest merchant!

Edited April 13, 2020 by Hurlshot

[Zoraptor]

You do have to be online to play Elite Dangerous. That was a minor scandal, as it was kickstarted as having a DRM free option and initially they refused refunds based on its always online status.

45 minutes ago, Mamoulian War said:

 

I’ve heard I-War was decent, but I have never played it myself.

 

Both I-Wars are good, and 2 in particular has graphics that stand up very well for an early 2000s game. 1 is a bit more on the sim side of the scale, with 2 being a bit more arcadey (but  still on the sim side overall). They were running out of money when making it, so the story in 2 basically implodes in the 2nd half.

Everspace is pretty good as well, it's further onto the arcade side of the spectrum than the sim side. Sort of like a space flight version of Faster-Than-Light is probably the best description. While low budget/ kickstarter level it's also quite pretty.