What Are You Playing Now: The New Beginning Thread

[marelooke]

Got past the first ending boss in NieR Automata. Knowing what is coming rather helps one prepare. Who'd have thunk?

Ending sure was worth sticking around for, start of next chapter was weird...

Spoiler

...looks like they kept track of the dialogue choices during the reboot sequence (or faked it well enough), that was a nice touch. Was really anticipating a few dialogues that took place on the station that ended up not happening, like the one about the 9S memory wipe. Have my suspicions about why that might be, but I'm sure I'll find out

Kept trying to control the wrong character in combat at the start, that almost ended badly a few times

 

Edited August 26, 2020 by marelooke

[uuuhhii]

9 hours ago, melkathi said:

Total War:

my fleet is caught mid sea by the enemy fleet. A naval battle ensues.

It takes place on a forested hilltop.

 

When you can't see the ocean for all the trees.

still much better then the ship combat in older total war

which is probably why they made four game without it

[Bartimaeus]

15 hours ago, melkathi said:

Total War:

I offer to join another kingdom in their war against a third faction.

They demand I pay them all my resources in exchange for accepting my aid...

So I simply declared war on the other faction and laid siege to their city without "helping".

Don't know which Total War game you're playing specifically, but I've found the AI of Total War to be rather mindboggingly stupid. Like, they can't determine how to weigh the worth of anything and have a habit of giving absolutely outrageous trade offers - either in their own favor or against themselves, without much discrimination and in complete defiance of the realities of their situation. And really, once you start noticing the patterns that determine how they behave, you basically have to start setting your own limitations to make it so you're not abusing and exploiting their stupidity. I'd like to see a competent cross between a Paradox game (the underlying systems that it so everything works in a detailed and mostly sensible/consequent way) and a Total War game (real time battles and more cultural/leader/nation personality/variation) sometime in my life, but it's probably not ever going to happen.

Edited August 26, 2020 by Bartimaeus

[melkathi]

Troy.

They got the theme right. The problem of the game is that it is still a Total War game.

 

[213374U]

An AI that doesn't abandon its last city to take to the seas, doesn't demand resources from you as part of a peace settlement for a war they are losing badly and uses an approach to army composition and research different from "eeny meeny miny mo" is not particularly marketable, so they'll continue to focus on sexier  features instead because that's what you can take pictures and make videos of. Paradox is in the same boat.

I mean, they tried to build something resembling a competent AI for Alien Isolation and make it a central element for the game's marketing. It was both a commercial failure and a victim of IGN's notorious inability to fight their way out of a wet paper bag. It's something of a cult title now but that alone doesn't seem to warrant a sequel.

You simply aren't going to find good AI in mainstream games because there is no real market pressure for that. It is what it is.

[Mamoulian War]

Right after Najka, I've skipped Royal Rat Authority, and started to clean the Brightstone Cove Tseldora. After a while, I managed to go again before Congregation mist gate. The fight was as easy and straightforward as in New Game. I've summoned Bernhart to finish another part of his NPC quest.

 

[MedicineDan]

I'm mostly playing Fantasy Grounds lately.  Truly splendid!  I've also been tinkering with Grounded, but I'm tempted to put it aside until the game ships.  I prefer playing the finished product, but it has certainly been a lot of fun.

[Malcador]

Sticking with Brno, decide the challenge of managing a club who so little money that the players are being paid what I am sure is below the average working wage in Czech Republic is for me.  Sure does suck though to see talented German kids out of contract...but spurn me by directly telling me my club is too broke for them

And to top it all off I qualified for CL...but have to play Ajax who is going to beat me 11-0 or something

[Chilloutman]

1 minute ago, Malcador said:

Sticking with Brno, decide the challenge of managing a club who so little money that the players are being paid what I am sure is below the average working wage in Czech Republic is for me.  Sure does suck though to see talented German kids out of contract...but spurn me by directly telling me my club is too broke for them

And to top it all off I qualified for CL...but have to play Ajax who is going to beat me 11-0 or something

Hell yeah, thats the spirit! and yeah, Ajax will kick your nuts xD. Just for my curiosity, how much you pay your best player? xD

[Malcador]

My best players all came with the team. The best player I've bought I paid 100k for and that one decision looks like it's doomed the club to eventual bankruptcy if the projections are accurate, he's my midfield staple though, so is probably worth it.

[Humanoid]

It's the board's fault for sanctioning the transfer anyway. It's always the board's fault. Dunno how it is with newer versions but for smaller clubs I always felt that if you played to the budget, the club would go broke, and if you didn't play to the budget, you wouldn't have enough players to even fill the bench. It's almost if they're designed to be stepping stones, to be managed to the brink of bankruptcy before you move on to the next club, to do the same with. Then again, they have the gall to complain about my financial management when they've hired me mid-season and there hasn't even been a transfer window yet, so I don't feel the least bit bad about it.

SI probably just leave it like that because in the game the clubs always survive anyway so there are no long term consequences like clubs being poofed out of existence in real life. It's a little bit disappointing that I'm not actually an existential threat to the club.

[bugarup]

Finished "Technomancer", really liked it, in some aspects (sci-fi setting) more than "Greedfall". Additional fun is to see Spiders evolve throughout their games, and they also have their own quite distinctive style with themes and often used elements and stuff what is really good thing to have for a creative collective. Although I do wish for one of their favorite gameplay elements -- backtracking combined with respawning trash mobs-- to go away forever. Really wanted to do another playthrough different from "Lightning storm, shoot survivors in the back", but remembered that particular set of corridors I traversed, like 200 times before, fighting same trash again and again and....nah. Don't wanna.

On to "Bound by flame" now.

[Malcador]

FM2018's match engine is some rigged BS, Ajax misses 2 penalties, and then once I use up my last sub, my keeper gets injured and I lose 2-1.  Once you use up your last sub, this crap happenes 75% of the time, I find.

[Humanoid]

Give them a taste of their own medicine and switch to hard tackling, get stuck in, etc, once they make all their subs.

[Malcador]

19 minutes ago, Humanoid said:

Give them a taste of their own medicine and switch to hard tackling, get stuck in, etc, once they make all their subs.

That leads to red cards for me

[Keyrock]

I finished Beyond a Steel Sky, good game overall. The first 2/3 of the game was great, the last 1/3 felt a bit rushed. I mean, on the one hand I like the fact that the last 1/3 ramps up and speeds up, a plot is generally supposed to do that as it nears the climax, but it felt a bit too sped up snd somewhat disjointed. Not terrible, by any means, though. Kind of a soul crushing ending, though it does bring things full circle.

Visually, the game was a mixed bag. The cell shaded aesthetic will likely be divisive, but I personally thought it looked great. Animations looked good some of the time, kinda herky jerky occasionally, like there was a frame or two missing, and a few times the character model froze then kinda just glided into place. It very much looked like a developer working with this kind of tech for the first time, which is the case afaik. Issues aside, I hope they stick with the 3rd person perspective for future titles (Broken Sword 6 pretty please).  I enjoyed playing it even with the issues and now that they have a bit of experience, it stands to reason that there would be less bumps in the road next time around if they stick with the same tech.

 

[Humanoid]

I completed a university degree in The Sims 4 for the first time. And also probably the last time. Getting a degree involves completing twelve units, at the rate of 1-4 (your choice) per "semester". Each semester is one week, resulting in an overall duration of 3-12 weeks. After going for a maximal four units first up and getting overwhelmed, I scaled back to three, and even then it was a scramble. The issue as I see it is that for anything but the lightest workloads essentially for each of those weeks you're either:

a) waiting for the Sim to complete the progress bar while they attend a lecture
b) waiting for the Sim to complete the progress bar while they do their homework
c) waiting for the Sim to complete the progress bar while they they write their term paper

Actually that last one is a lie. I had to wait for them to complete it just like all the other tasks, except the progress bar was invisible. I also tried joining a sports club, this led to:

d) waiting for the Sim to complete the progress bar while they attend soccer training

So yes, attending university involves simply initiating each of the above activities then putting the game on fast forward for a few hours. Between all those activities (I quit the sports team after a few days), there's really no time to do anything else but attend to your most simple biological needs. At the end, the reward is that you get to start your normal career several ranks up instead of at the very bottom of the ladder. Consider the fact, however, that if you had simply joined at the bottom of the career ladder instead of busying yourself with university, you'd probably have been promoted up to at least that point anyway, and earned money while doing so, instead of ending up in debt. Well, at least the student loans are easily paid off within a couple weeks of graduating, which I gather is not realistic in real life.

I suppose this is standard fare for the level of interactivity the entire mediocre history of The Sims 4 has already established, but disappointing all the same. Even the task of simply eating each day involved waiting for one of your roommates to magically conjure a roast chicken or lobster out of thin air because that's the only way to get decent food into the dorms.

[Skazz]

I gave up on 4 pretty fast after launch, but I am glad to be vindicated in my belief that The Sims 3 is the far superior entry.

[Humanoid]

And now I see the next expansion is a Star Wars crossover. Not that I really see myself buying any further DLC for the game, given that the well is, well, well and truly dry by now. I mean, the last DLC before this Star Wars one was based around knitting. Just knitting. Yeah...

[Mamoulian War]

The next in line was Royal Rat Authority, compared to last time, knowing how his vulnerabilities made the fight much much easier, and I was able to finish him just in two tries and in around 2 minutes

 

 

[ShadySands]

Kingmaker - Just finished Season of Bloom and about to head back to the Tenebrous Depths since the next part is now open.

WL3 - Only played through the intro area so far

Edited August 28, 2020 by ShadySands

[uuuhhii]

7 hours ago, ShadySands said:

Kingmaker - Just finished Season of Bloom and about to head back to the Tenebrous Depths since the next part is now open.

WL3 - Only played through the intro area so far

maybe best to do all 20 level of that dungeon at once

otherwise missing an quest item would be a much more irreversible mistake

really expected wasteland 3 tutorial level to have some medical item

didn't find any at all

[MedicineDan]

I never finished kingmaker.  The endgame kingdom building stuff was kind of opaque so I stopped and never got back into it.

I've been owning soldier ants in Grounded but the ant eggs still aren't there.

I put in the channel turn undead effect on wife's cleric for the campaign I'm running in fantasy grounds.  I was seriously iffy about it, but gave it a shot.  I'm so glad I did.

[Sarex]

Playing the new dlc for Control. As for the game so far, I would say it's good. Not amazing or anything like that, but it keeps you engaged and the lore is interesting enough for you to pay attention to it.

[marelooke]

Playing NieR Automata, made it through the second ending (Ending B) and now working through the third chapter.

Spoiler

Ending B didn't lead to any major revelations. The "why" of the deception was interesting, and made sense. I'd say that in the second playthrough the side quests, especially the one with 21O (and then her behaviour at the start of playthrough 3) were some of the more interesting interactions.

Losing 2B was a bit of a gut punch, albeit not entirely unexpected. The main things I noticed were at the end of playthrough 2 and start of 3 there were holograms popping up at various locations, will be interseting to find out what that was all about.

Currently continuing as A2, fun little touch that none of the vendors in the Resistance Camp will sell to you, as they don't know you, nor can you access 2B and 9S' quarters in that camp.

Been a while since anything has sucked me in like this, and that even despite that mechanically this game isn't exactly my shtick...