What are you Playing Now? Games = Life

[melkathi]

Just to impress @Lexx, I salvaged an Urban Mech

[Bartimaeus]

1 hour ago, majestic said:

I just checked my playtime, I'm at 90 hours, that includes grinding an awful lot to reach 100% achievement completion, three complete runthroughs of the game and me repeating certain areas in the game ad nauseam to see if I can stealth kill every enemy. I don't think From Software designed the game with single 50 hour playthroughs in mind, but I'm pretty sure I also spent around that time for the first one.

Thought the final chapter was a bit rushed and not at all properly set up, the combat arts were all mostly useless, the best one got knocked down because it trivialized (read: one-shot) the final boss - and that arguably fell under high risk, high reward, because a misstep and it doesn't look good for the player - and making the secret boss twice the size of your screen and the same colour as the warning kanji that tell you what sort of dodge you need to perform was one hell of a terrible design decision.

Being stuck in one way to play the game didn't bother me, or at least not that much compared to all the customization options that are by far and large useless (although those two issues are interconnected) but... I am also not an avid fan of Dark Souls. I liked, but not loved, the first one, and never played any of the others.

The raving reviews it got were certainly helped by an unhealthy FromSoftware hero worship, but as far as games go, I liked it well enough and I played worse, for much longer.  

IIRC, my first and only playthrough took me just a little over 40 hours, but I did and got everything except for the

Spoiler

secret ending nonsense, because doing that would've required extensive foreknowledge that I did not have and I was not prepared to restart the game because of it, spoilered for wormerine's sake

howlongtobeat places a "completionist" run at 70 hours, "main + extras" at 43 hours, and a "main story only" at 29 hours, and overall average at 45 hours. So 40-50 seems about right to me unless you were doing as little as possible, especially since the other person I asked was in late 40s as well.

I got really, really bored of parrying, running around, and having kind of poor weapon damage on the exact same weapon the entire game. There was a critical lack of variety in attacks and in how you could approach or fight bosses. Worse, the game does almost nothing to reward you for exploring because there are literally almost no items except for worthless consumables to pick up, so going out of your way to explore really just makes you find more incredibly dull regular enemies or annoying bosses to fight. The entire game flow of Sekiro did not feel rewarding or satisfying to me, and I should've made the correct decision of simply speeding through it as fast as possible.

Edited November 28, 2021 by Bartimaeus

[majestic]

39 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

IIRC, my first and only playthrough took me just a little over 40 hours, but I did and got everything except for the

  Hide contents

secret ending nonsense, because doing that would've required extensive foreknowledge that I did not have and I was not prepared to restart the game because of it, spoilered for wormerine's sake

howlongtobeat places a "completionist" run at 70 hours, "main + extras" at 43 hours, and a "main story only" at 29 hours, and overall average at 45 hours. So 40-50 seems about right to me unless you were doing as little as possible, especially since the other person I asked was in late 40s as well.

The things I wasted the most time on:

Spoiler

• Overcoming 30 years of muscle memory and trained behaviour by learning how to Miki-counter the regular spear mooks by dashing into their attacks - the most difficult boss in the game was the first spear mini boss in the memory before Lady Butterfly. Not proud of that one. Sure I spent more time at other enemies, but actual deaths? Nope. That one wins. By a LOT.
• Fighting Lady Butterfly the moment she became available with barely any upgrades, which turned out to be a really good thing because it trivialized all other boss fights (but nonetheless took hours).
• Spending what felt like an entire afternoon fighting the Demon of Hatred.
• Hopping around on the roofs finding the perfect route and ways to easily kill all the WOOOOOO GUYS before Genichiro (and to farm divine confetti which the game ever so helpfully does not tell you increases damage against every enemy, not just spirit types).

Subtracting that from the 45 to 50 hours I needed for the first time to complete the game I'm at the mid 30 range - and that's with looking almost everywhere. 70 for a completionist run seems really high, unless that means grinding out every achievement, which I really needed the 90 hours for. It would probably have gone quicker with just playing a third NG+ game to reap the increased XP rewards from enemies, but I really did not want to... restart the game again.

However that was just my experience, and everyone else I know who played the game except you did not complete it.

But yeah, if the average main story + extras completion time is really 43 hours, then that's definitely too long for what the game offers.

1 hour ago, Bartimaeus said:

I got really, really bored of parrying, running around, and having kind of poor weapon damage on the exact same weapon the entire game. There was a critical lack of attack variety and in how you could approach or fight bosses. Worse, the game does almost nothing to reward you for exploring because there are literally almost no items except for worthless consumables to pick up, so going out of your way to explore really just makes you find more incredibly dull regular enemies or annoying bosses to fight. The entire game flow of Sekiro did not feel rewarding or satisfying to me, and I should've made the correct decision of simply speeding through it as fast as possible.

I get that the game would be super frustrating if attack variety matters for the player. Most bosses come down to parry, parry, parry, sidestep, slash, sprinkled with a combat art or two in between, or some firecrackers. There's not even any variety in how to defend against enemy attacks. There's the right way, and that's it. It never bothered me, but there are points in the game where style was clearly chosen over substance.

[Hurlshort]

I have been playing Disco Elysian with a beer in hand the last couple nights. It is interesting. I had a heart attack after kicking a furnace, so that ended my playthrough yesterday, but I'll probably pour a glass of dark stout and boot it up again tonight. 

[melkathi]

For you to be posting means you are OK though?

Do be careful though.

You were supposed to be joking when you said you wanted me to look after the kids if something happened to you...

[Malcador]

Back to King's Bounty Crossworlds, making progress, think I'm on the Rusty Anchor island having cleared out most of the earlier ones.  Army is mostly pirates, heh, oddly for a Paladin

Edited November 29, 2021 by Malcador

[Hurlshort]

Today a game asked me if I believe the status quo is preferable to chaos and bloodshed. I was deep into my drink. I had been swirling around the last sip of the dark liquid in the glass. I decide it was. Perhaps I will regret that in the morning.

[melkathi]

Purchased my first heroic mech. It's a Javelin, so not all that scary at 30 tons, but I guess I'll know what my light mech of choice will be to fill up tonnage.

I am also in an industrial hub that sells heavy and assault mechs. I could buy a Victor, or a Grasshopper, or a Warhammer or. a. ZEUS!

 

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

6 hours ago, Hurlsnot said:

I have been playing Disco Elysian with a beer in hand the last couple nights. It is interesting. I had a heart attack after kicking a furnace, so that ended my playthrough yesterday, but I'll probably pour a glass of dark stout and boot it up again tonight. 

 

1 hour ago, Hurlsnot said:

Today a game asked me if I believe the status quo is preferable to chaos and bloodshed. I was deep into my drink. I had been swirling around the last sip of the dark liquid in the glass. I decide it was. Perhaps I will regret that in the morning.

I need to (re?)play this. With some whiskey or some beer, I'll see what I have before starting it up.

[BruceVC]

6 hours ago, Hurlsnot said:

Today a game asked me if I believe the status quo is preferable to chaos and bloodshed. I was deep into my drink. I had been swirling around the last sip of the dark liquid in the glass. I decide it was. Perhaps I will regret that in the morning.

I had some really good laughs with the humor in Disco and how they create parodies for numerous SJ realities and SJ exaggerations. I loved the likes of Inexplicable Feminist Agenda explained below 

"Something stirs in you -- something *interdisciplinary*. Is it a newly formed reaction to the tyrannical gender roles around you, or something you've always had? One thing is for sure: you're not a *mild* feminist. Oh no, these are incendiary thoughts aimed at undermining the very pillars of society. Could you fashion them into some sort of *weapon*, perhaps? A first strike weapon to decapitate the XY chromosome hegemony..." 

 

 

[HoonDing]

cringe

[ShadySands]

LOTRO Gundabad expansion

[Hurlshort]

23 minutes ago, ShadySands said:

LOTRO Gundabad expansion

Gah, I've been getting the LotRO itch again, too.

[Wormerine]

Mostly wrapped up my time with Deathloop. I might jump back for couple more games as Julianna, but overall I think I got all that I will get out of the game.

It's very, very meh. It's three games in one: Immersive sim, time loop, multiplayer invasions, and those three don't work with each other. I liked invasions the most, as I didn't get a chance to use Dishonored skills against another player, though p2p connection and poor balancing made it an uneven experience.

[LadyCrimson]

Spent an hour fiddling with Guardians of the Galaxy settings and running the included benchmark.
Then I started the prologue and spent 30 minutes using Photomode to gaze around Teen-Lord's bedroom full of geek. I could even play the Rubik's Cube, kinda.

The game allows you to individually define quite a lot of difficulty parameters (vs. only "Easy/Normal/Hard presets") - that's always a nice feature, that more games should adapt. So you can have some stuffs on "Very Hard" level (like damages) and other things on "Easy" setting (like how long death-delay or ability timers are). All up to you.

[Keyrock]

I defeated the final boss of the Shinagawa area in SMT V. It's pretty obvious who it is but I'll spoiler tag it anyway.

 

It's Lahmu. Again.

It's a lengthy, multi-stage battle, so if you can avoid using chakra drops earlier in the game and save them, they will come in handy here.

Given that I'm lev 39 and MegaTen games tend to finish between levels 70 and 80, I'm guessing I'm roughly halfway through the game and there are 2 more areas to explore. As an aside, I've not yet been tempted to drop the difficulty down from hard. The game certainly hasn't been easy, I have died many many deaths, but there hasn't been that Matador in SMT 3 moment where I encounter a main story boss that stomps me into the ground so hard that I'm at a loss as to how I will get past them. No BRUTAL difficulty spike like that in SMT V so far, it seems very well tuned.

Edited November 30, 2021 by Keyrock

[Malcador]

Lost all my Sea Dogs in KBAP, amazing AoE in the fight to kill the lizardman who overthrew the legitimate King.   Think I've used them all up can't find more anywhere, bah.

[LadyCrimson]

Guardians of the Galaxy ... I might get out of the easy/early chapters one day. I've turned the game on twice, spent most of my time in Photo Mode.  Did you know Drax keeps a "SARCASM for DUMMIES" in his bunkroom? Me either.

Dysmantle ... I spent more time with this one today, because at least early on, it's simple but almost immediately kind of addictive. Definitely feels a bit more akin to Torchlight vs. 7 Days to Die, except for the destroy and collect everything aspect. And there's cooking (healing or effects, not "food survival"), and fishing. So far, no huge mobs, so less ARPG in that sense (so far). You can barrel through or spend a lot of time grinding, your choice. The world map you're gonna have to traverse seems quite huge, although I dunno if it'll feel huge. Combat seems ok, too early to really tell. Mostly, I just like destroying and collecting and upgrading and ... when you start, enemies respawn every time you rest, but there's a quest goal of making it so that won't happen anymore. Seems like a fun little game.

Edited November 30, 2021 by LadyCrimson

[Zoraptor]

4 hours ago, Malcador said:

Lost all my Sea Dogs in KBAP, amazing AoE in the fight to kill the lizardman who overthrew the legitimate King.   Think I've used them all up can't find more anywhere, bah.

Royal snakes.

Thank me later.

[Amentep]

8 hours ago, Keyrock said:

I defeated the final boss of the Shinagawa area in SMT V. It's pretty obvious who it is but I'll spoiler tag it anyway.

  Reveal hidden contents

It's Lahmu. Again.

That's the next thing I need to do, but I'm clearing out the few remaining Minman before trying to tackle him.

[Malcador]

6 hours ago, Zoraptor said:

Royal snakes.

Thank me later.

Yes, have seen them and Paladins as units to get, can't access them though looking at the islands I can reach.  Not all that bad going though, I just need to go into fights with Strong or Very Strong enemies with more rage I think.  Still have Sea Dogs as a viable unit, shame Resurrection isn't across all of my units.

[LadyCrimson]

Guardians of the Galaxy - I often like subtitles on even if they're speaking my language, so I don't "miss" anything or so I can speed them up when allowed. But the subtitles in this game are terribly done. I think this is partly because the dialogue is very movie-like, with rapid fire delivery and even occasionally overlapping voices. So the subtitles come up in multiple stacking conversation lines at once like a teleprompter.

Rocket: xxx xxx xxxx xxxx
Drax: bbbbb bbb bb b bb bbb bBBB
BBBBBBbb bbbbbbbbb
Starlord: ccc cccc ccccc

And the worst thing is words even get divided into other lines so:

Rocket: can you get your handspan
ner out of my face

...it's very distracting and clutter-y and I had to turn them off.

[Malcador]

Found some royal snakes, also got one dragon. Not that useful by itself.  Being able to fly has made exploration so much easier, as I can scout out the are first.  I have to say I hate those fights with the gremlin towers

[melkathi]

Got hired to cause a mech-crisis to force the Lyran Twentieth Sky Rangers to respond... so that their regimental baseball team misses their match.

[Malcador]

6 hours ago, melkathi said:

Got hired to cause a mech-crisis to force the Lyran Twentieth Sky Rangers to respond... so that their regimental baseball team misses their match.

The real tragedy is that people still play baseball in the 31st century.

Edited December 1, 2021 by Malcador