What Are you Playing Now: Living the Good Life

[LadyCrimson]

9 hours ago, bringingyouthefuture said:

I beat the game pretty quick, do most people play it on the hardest difficulty?

When I picked it up again on console (where I hadn't played it at all for 4-5 years maybe) I found myself increasing the difficulty constantly, to whatever the game let me do at each stage, when initially going thru story mode.  Back at original release it wasn't like that, and was a tad tougher from the get go. They really did lower even the base difficulty drastically, over time, I think in part to allow for their crazy amount of more incremental difficulties (vs. huge jumps) added later.

Anyway, most people use whatever difficulty they can manage, since you can change it at any time.  Edit: well, in stages periodically at first, I can't recall exactly...

@Lexx  Personally I think items in most "action-rpg's" of any genre (this includes stuff like Borderlands) have all adopted the same mindset re: bonuses/item stats as well as skills and ofc, "loot explosions", and I largely find it not as long-term satisfying, because even "uniques" often don't feel very special.  Even D2 started to go that route by the end of all their expansions/updates.  It's all designed for single-chr. endgame concerns, because people want to keep progressing/respeccing forever and ever with the same character or three, so you have to draw it out somehow to keep players playing/coming back and stay ... relevant? ... while you're spending 5+ years developing your next game. 

Diablo3 at least still has some fun Legendaries/Uniques (and Sets) with fun effects - not necessarily always about uber chr. dps - like the Puzzle Ring or the one that generates a little exploding imp follower periodically.  I like stuff like that. Plus you can put the latter on a Follower because it's funny.    Plus of course the Seasons rewards if one does like starting from scratch again.

Edited April 27, 2021 by LadyCrimson

[Bartimaeus]

12 hours ago, Lexx said:

I'm playing Diablo 2 again recently, because of the Resurrected announcement and alpha test. It's so much better than Diablo 3. Like, Jesus, how could they f-up D3 so much, it's incredible. It's been years since I had touched D2, and I totally forgot how it felt like.

Anyways. Usually the normal difficulty is reasonably easy (though D2 is still harder than D3, imo). It's picking up the pace in nightmare and hell difficulty. However, you will also get a lot better item drops to power up your character. This is pretty much where the fun-part comes in.

Now that being said, I guess the reason why D3 just feels so unfun to me is that the item drops are just bad. The game is throwing so much stuff at you, it just doesn't feel as interesting and rewarding as in D2. It was even worse at release, when clearly the mechanics were tweaked with the auction house in mind - for example, monsters would more likely drop items for any but not the class you are currently playing with ... thus you are forced to shop in the auction house for better gear, etc. What a crap.

Not to mention atmosphere...D2's atmosphere isn't as good as D1's, but it sure is light years ahead of the pure high fantasy that is D3.

[ComradeYellow]

Grim Dawn is better than any Diablo game.

[Malcador]

I wasn't impressed by D1 or D2 so never played much of it back in the day in lieu of other games with friends, so I never see the things people really adored about it - luckily not many rave on about D2 having "compelling" characters or mature storytelling, heh.  Think I'd done with D3 for now, minor increases in gear so no worth it and not like anyone really cares what GR I hit

Back to wasting time in FM2018, see if I can do a threepeat with Brno

Edited April 28, 2021 by Malcador

[bringingyouthefuture]

So in the D4 cinematic trailer did they intentionally make the scholar guy look like the Angel Tyrael?  Or did I not finish the expansion and miss something?  That is what I really want to know.  I think I am gonna jump on the bandwagon of Diablo and get D2 Resurrected ... those trailers really got thier hooks in me, I even find myself waiting for the Quarterly updates, maybe this belongs in the fool thread

[Bartimaeus]

my buddy and I theorized that tyrael would fulfill the deckard cain role for D4, considering they killed him off lol

[Keyrock]

I was unsurprised, but nevertheless happy to find out that Ace Combat 7 has official support for my Thrustmaster T16000M FCS HOTAS flightstick. Good chance they'll have a default profile included, though I'll undoubtedly wind up tinkering with it. I'll wait until the next time I'm home to download it, since 52 GB would take FOREVER on truck stop wifi. I'm pretty pumped to fly a jet in a melodramatic motions on a drink coaster anime story. 

[Malcador]

12 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

my buddy and I theorized that tyrael would fulfill the deckard cain role for D4, considering they killed him off lol

Maybe will be Lorath, he's a Horadrim. Probably only one from what I remember of RoS' story.  Wonder if any of the D3 characters will be about, too.

[LadyCrimson]

20 hours ago, Malcador said:

I wasn't impressed by D1 or D2

Heathen! 

...I think I became stuck, in D3, on GR69 (with a summon Necro). I couldn't clear 70 quite fast enough on whatever difficulty I was on (or it required, per usual I forget) with the way I was set up.  Necro was the only class I really liked playing in the end.  Wizard and Monk were ok but ... yeah, I like summons.  I don't like D3 enough to play the story mode/start over or make another Seasonal chr, so after checking out the follower gear,  and running around a little bit, I put it away again. 

Diablo2-R looks all right/they seem to be doing a good job with it, but I'd also like an HD polish of Diabloi1, personally.  they don't have to "improve" gameplay at all, just do that graphic overlay improvement.  

[Bartimaeus]

1 hour ago, LadyCrimson said:

Heathen! 

...I think I became stuck, in D3, on GR69 (with a summon Necro). I couldn't clear 70 quite fast enough on whatever difficulty I was on (or it required, per usual I forget) with the way I was set up.  Necro was the only class I really liked playing in the end.  Wizard and Monk were ok but ... yeah, I like summons.  I don't like D3 enough to play the story mode/start over or make another Seasonal chr, so after checking out the follower gear,  and running around a little bit, I put it away again. 

Diablo2-R looks all right/they seem to be doing a good job with it, but I'd also like an HD polish of Diabloi1, personally.  they don't have to "improve" gameplay at all, just do that graphic overlay improvement.  

Probably too much for you to bother with, but there's a quite good engine remake of D1 called DevilutionX that attempts to keep all the gameplay and feel of the game exactly the same while providing quality of life features and fixing some ages old bugs: https://github.com/diasurgical/devilutionX#readme

 

Edited April 29, 2021 by Bartimaeus

[Hurlshort]

Conan Exiles has put some fantastic enemy camps around the Isle of Siptah. They used to be pretty cookie cutterish on the mainland, but these ones have their own sort of story to them. Also the loot seems a lot better. I'm level 40 now and it's a good challenge to go in with my Stygian sidekick and try and pillage their belongings.

Also there is this awesome Stygian fortress near my base that I've only scratched the surface on. Plus this island is made with the horse in mind, so it is actually enjoyable galloping across the grassy plains near my home.

[LadyCrimson]

2 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

Probably too much for you to bother with, but there's a quite good engine remake of D1 called DevilutionX that attempts to keep all the gameplay and feel of the game exactly the same while providing quality of life features and fixing some ages old bugs: https://github.com/diasurgical/devilutionX#readme

 

I seem to recall having a mod at one point that allowed me to play D1 at much bigger resolution - although it was a little buggy. I could see practically the entire town (including Wirt) at once. I can't recall if it was an actual "mod" or that one tool that I also used to play Stardew Valley at similar crazy resolutions.  Anyway...I know there are still some HD D1 mods around but many change/add stuff to the game and all I'd want is graphic/HD, not gameplay changes. I didn't even like Hellfire very much.  >.>

Edited April 29, 2021 by LadyCrimson

[Bartimaeus]

That one literally doesn't change any gameplay at all that I can think of - everything feels exactly the same. There are some optional stuff you can enable in the settings .ini like being able to highlight items with the ALT button or enable monster health bars, but they're optional. You can set a higher display area so you that you can see more of the area if you want (what you just described), or you can just keep the same display area while simply increasing the resolution with the same display area - up to you.

e.g. I set mine to 800x600:

...but you can just as easily set it to the original 640x480:

It also doesn't require Hellfire - in fact, Hellfire was only recently made compatible, as it was originally only for D1.

Edited April 29, 2021 by Bartimaeus

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

I think Diablo 2 was one of the first game I played on PC. The remake may be worth checking out. Though it may not hold up because the real Diablo was the friends we made on the way.

1 hour ago, Bartimaeus said:

That one literally doesn't change any gameplay at all that I can think of - everything feels exactly the same. There are some optional stuff you can enable in the settings .ini like being able to highlight items with the ALT button or enable monster health bars, but they're optional. You can set a higher display area so you that you can see more of the area if you want (what you just described), or you can just keep the same display area while simply increasing the resolution with the same display area - up to you.

e.g. I set mine to 800x600:

...but you can just as easily set it to the original 640x480:

It also doesn't require Hellfire - in fact, Hellfire was only recently made compatible, as it was originally only for D1.

This looks interesting.

[Vaeliorin]

10 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

That one literally doesn't change any gameplay at all that I can think of - everything feels exactly the same.

So you can still easily dupe stuff?

[Malcador]

FM deciding to screw me over again, my star DM with me for half a season got poached by Arsenal.    What's funny is that my players get poached, then never play for the new team and then are back on the transfer list in a season or two. 

[LadyCrimson]

14 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

That one literally doesn't change any gameplay at all that I can think of - everything feels exactly the same. There are some optional stuff you can enable in the settings .ini like being able to highlight items with the ALT button or enable monster health bars, but they're optional. You can set a higher display area so you that you can see more of the area if you want (what you just described), or you can just keep the same display area while simply increasing the resolution with the same display area - up to you.

I might download it so I can try it next time I play D1.  I assume out of all those options, the file I'd want to d/l is the "devilutionx-windows-x86_64.zip"

<---little old lady brain doesn't like github

[Lexx]

IMO Diablo 1 really didn't age very well. Played it a bit last year or so and made it till.. I think level 3 or 4 and then stopped, because it felt like I've seen it all again. : >

Edited April 29, 2021 by Lexx

[Bartimaeus]

7 hours ago, LadyCrimson said:

I might download it so I can try it next time I play D1.  I assume out of all those options, the file I'd want to d/l is the "devilutionx-windows-x86_64.zip"

<---little old lady brain doesn't like github

Correct. Also, for the devs to stay legal, the one thing you need to do to finish "installing" it is to drop and drag the "DIABDAT.MPQ" file from a Diablo installation into the DevilutionX folder. That is one annoyance I run into every time I update it - have to remember to get my DIABDAT.MPQ from the previous folder before deleting it. If you need help with that/don't feel like finding your CDs or whatever, just send me a quick PM.

3 hours ago, Lexx said:

IMO Diablo 1 really didn't age very well. Played it a bit last year or so and made it till.. I think level 3 or 4 and then stopped, because it felt like I've seen it all again. : >

One thing I particularly like about Diablo 1 compared to most ARPGs is that how short and self-contained it is. You can play the game for 5 hours, complete it, and feel satisfied with that. ...Although now with DevilutionX, you can actually play and continue singleplayer games on Nightmare and Hell like old multiplayer Battle.Net characters used to be able to do, so you can continue with that if you really want to. Don't need to farm for a trillion years, don't need to engage with some bullcrap economy...the game was 95% designed as just a simple, consistent singleplayer experience, and I appreciate that a lot.

(e): My one complaint with the game used to be that it was just a bit too slow-paced, but DevilutionX solved that too by allowing you to adjust the speed of your game on the fly if you want a faster-paced game.

Edited April 30, 2021 by Bartimaeus

[LadyCrimson]

I use the GoG version on Win10.  Which reminds me, it already has some HD support, but I forget how much, outside of it not being of the show-entire-town variety.
I do have two or three original disc copies of the game (including a Hellfire disc...) but I think that website said the gog file would work too.

2 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

Although now with DevilutionX, you can actually play and continue singleplayer games on Nightmare and Hell like old multiplayer Battle.Net characters used to be able to do

I'm not sure what you mean.  If you meant the battle.net like gameplay (with no quests like Poisoned Water etc) - you've always been able to do that, using the IPX multiplayer option to create a character instead of picking battle.net.  It's what I used al the time, so I had to pick up any town ground-tosssed loot and exit only with what I could carry, because it would disappear/not be saved  like in SP games.

I liked it because it was harder in a way (especially S. King), plus I could start Normal and once I got to a certain clvl I could change difficulty immediately (or use whichever I wanted) and start at dungeon lvl 1 again to gain XP faster.  eg, grind.  lol. 

Edit: maybe you mean doing the same but with SP quests and items vs. bnet-like gameplay

The SP campaign with the quests - I did play it a lot initially and yeah, it's a nice fun quick ride.  I remember crossing my fingers that I'd get the quest sets I wanted.  There were a couple I preferred getting. I always felt so bad for Lachdanan. 

Edited April 30, 2021 by LadyCrimson

[Bartimaeus]

Yeah, the GOG .mpq works fine too. Oh, yeah, you could always play on local multiplayer as well for unlocking nightmare/hell, but DevilutionX gives that option to singleplayer characters as well now.

Lachdanan was a cool dude - his voice always reminded me of Tyrael's too (surprisingly not him, though), so I always liked him just for that, . Fun fact about Tyrael - he's first mentioned in Hellfire, of all places:

"And in the year of the golden light, it was so decreed that a great cathedral be raised. The cornerstone of this holy place was to be carved from the translucent stone Antyrael, named for the angel who shared his power with the Horadrim. [...]"

[LadyCrimson]

A forum post on GoG claims you can at least start a SP game on a higher difficulty: I don't know how well it works tho, I never knew of/tried it.  Interesting.

-All you have to do is to start a multiplayer game on "Nightmare" or "Hell" difficulty. Then simply quit back to the main menu and start a singleplayer game. The singleplayer game will be the same difficulty as the multiplayer one, including the value of experience per monster, gold drops, etc.

Anyway, the MP was mostly my jam because it was harder, even Normal.  Enemies had more HP by default than in SP, IIRC.
I'd guess GoG's "HD" just = 1080 at most.  Dangit now I want to fire it up and check out a few things. 

[Gorth]

Stated a new game of Pillars of Eternity. I never completed the game. Ended up last time struggling to decide which companions to keep and which to drop. Still not sure who I want to keep this time, but I still got some time to think about it, as I only just made it to the main map.

Edit: I didn't have the dlc's first time around, so as good a reason as any to pick up the game again

[LadyCrimson]

@Bartimaeus  I do not understand which setting to use/change so it looks better on a "4k" screen but doesn't end up like this:

...that is cool /fun and all, but I cannot actually play like that.  My chr/everything is like 1.5 cm tall onscreen.

If I define height/width 1920x1080 (fullscreen and upscaling enabled) it's still a lot wider FoV than original game (edit - upscaling at 0 changes nothing FoV wise)

If I make it 1280x720  it's more tolerable and might work but I'll likely still feel like I have a massive advantage in the dungeon...and if I leave it at the original 640x480 then it doesn't really look much better then non-modded except it's true widescreen/slightly wider side view vs. weirdly stretched like if you only forced original game to have no black bars.  I'm going to guess this mod/method works/"feels" better on lower resolution monitors/tv's.... (edit: tried on the 1440 monitor, FoV is still the same. So maybe it's a Windows/Display setting issue? Dunno).

editeditedit: 800x600 on a 55" tv doesn't improve clarity/sharpness much either, although fov ofc becomes more tolerable/sensible. Yes I know it's still going to be pixels/original graphics, I just mean blur/sharpness etc.  Better for 27" and under monitors I suppose.

I do like having town fast walk.  The site mentions a negative shrine disable setting which isn't actually in the .ini file.  So I copied/pasted it in.  Does it still work or was it removed? I never clicked on the negative or unlabeled shrines anyway, wouldn't mind if they were non-clickable at all.

 

Edited April 30, 2021 by LadyCrimson

[Bartimaeus]

Hm, I'm unsure what you want re: the resolution. It's a 2D sprite-based game - the only way you could "more detailed" sprites is by completely remaking them. How do you want the game to look, exactly?

"Disable Crippling Shrines=1" under [Game] in the .ini should work.