What are you Playing Now? Games = Life

[majestic]

38 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

Curses are super useful...though my favorite usage of curses is having either a Wand of Life Tap or a Wand of Lower Resistance on the weapon swap of a sorceress. Either one increases the effectiveness of a sorceress greatly - Life Tap makes it so your mercenary can tank just about endlessly unless they're truly outmatched, while Lower Resistance...yeah, lowers enemies' elemental resistances and makes them that much more vulnerable to sorceress' already overpowered spells, . Sadly, Decrepify (the slowing curse) can't spawn on items with charges, .

The biggest slow the Necromancer has since the introduction of syngeries is the clay golem. Taking most synergies will make him really sturdy, it can be readily recast (decidedly less so without +mana gear, but still possible) and whenver it hits an enemy or is hit by an enemy it slows them by upwards of 85% when combined with Decrepify.

I don't know if there was a bit of nerfing applied in the past patches but bosses, for instance, you can slow down so much you can almost see the individual frames of their attacks. The biggest problem is getting a summoner's retinue to deal damage. Most skeletons survive when you can reliably slow enemies, but it gets really ugly against teleporting enemies with elemental attacks (burning souls just trounce you unless you have good enough gear to resist them), or in small, enclosed spaces where the summons can't swarm enough (similar to a Hammerdin's issues in Act 2).

Boss kill speed is fine, could be better, but also really safe. Duriel is a joke when he can't move. It's trying to get your summons to do what they're supposed to that makes it a lot less fun than it could be. Artillery Necros are theoretically fun to play, but those you can't play without having the gear for it first. Well, at least not while having any fun, at any rate.

Hm, now I want to fire up some D2. Yay...

[Malcador]

Doing farming runs in D2 sure is boring,  but have lightning fury which is fun to wipe an entire room out.  Not so fun when there's a lightning immune mob in there, D3 was nice with their affixes but no immunity to an element, I find.  Got through Act 1 Nightmare, Act 2 has once again killed my will to play.

In FM18, still desperately trying to find a way to use the 3 creative midfielders I have, the talented one is a 5'3" feeble midget so he's not much use as the AI will mark him out.

[Bartimaeus]

2 hours ago, majestic said:

The biggest slow the Necromancer has since the introduction of syngeries is the clay golem. Taking most synergies will make him really sturdy, it can be readily recast (decidedly less so without +mana gear, but still possible) and whenver it hits an enemy or is hit by an enemy it slows them by upwards of 85% when combined with Decrepify.

I don't know if there was a bit of nerfing applied in the past patches but bosses, for instance, you can slow down so much you can almost see the individual frames of their attacks. The biggest problem is getting a summoner's retinue to deal damage. Most skeletons survive when you can reliably slow enemies, but it gets really ugly against teleporting enemies with elemental attacks (burning souls just trounce you unless you have good enough gear to resist them), or in small, enclosed spaces where the summons can't swarm enough (similar to a Hammerdin's issues in Act 2).

Boss kill speed is fine, could be better, but also really safe. Duriel is a joke when he can't move. It's trying to get your summons to do what they're supposed to that makes it a lot less fun than it could be. Artillery Necros are theoretically fun to play, but those you can't play without having the gear for it first. Well, at least not while having any fun, at any rate.

Hm, now I want to fire up some D2. Yay...

Gear: Yeah, I didn't generally ever play anything that required gear because high-end builds didn't interest me that much. Exactly three characters really matter PvE in Diablo II: your generic Sorceress (early ladder do-it-all), a Hammerdin (later ladder magic/rune-finder), and a Smiterdin (Uber/Pandemonium-killer). Everything else is really just for PvP or for fun, because nothing else can really match those three's effectiveness for the jobs they do. Though there is something to be said for fun, of course, if you like a particular class' playstyle. But I'm not a huge fan of D2's janky PVP, so my experience with non-Sorceress/Paladin characters is admittedly a lot more limited - I've probably made exactly one "serious" attempt each at Barbarian, Druid, Necromancer, and Amazon...and never an Assassin because playing an Assassin is basically playing a worse Sorceress if you go the traps route OR a worse Barbarian if you go the martial route. One ladder, I finally did enough to slay Uber Diablo and Pandemonium, and I have never been particularly tempted to put that much work into another ladder since. If I ever play, it's just as a glass cannon sorceress built to boss-rush* that I play for the first week or two of ladder to make some quick early ladder money** and then I run out of steam and quit, .

*One of my favorite strategies is using my horribly-equipped, too low-level sorceress to join nightmare and hell Baal run games (in nightmare, she'll usually be around level 55, in hell around level 70) to slay quest-bugged Andariel, Duriel, and Mephisto before the rest of the players are able to kill Baal, thereby repeatedly giving me quest boss drops every single time I kill them as well as not suffering from the no-drop mechanic*** without having to ever share drops, and then I'll just stay with the same group of Baal runners and keep doing it in new games. And the reason my sorceress is always horribly equipped is because I sell all of the good stuff I find (e.g. SoJs) to other players immediately as I get them because I don't need them. How I play Diablo 2 is probably a little different from most people, .

**As a comparison point, and I just checked right now, and a Stone of Jordan now a few months into the current ladder is worth literally 1/100th of an SoJ a week into the ladder - makes no sense to even play right now.

***The no-drop mechanic being what determines when items drops - when you have only 1 player in a game, most of all drops are deleted before you can see them, hence the term "no-drop". With additional players in the game, the no-drop chance drops significantly, so it doesn't make much sense to ever magic-find in games that aren't at least mostly full...unless you're having a bot do it for you. Of course, more players makes it a lot more difficult...

Edited October 12, 2021 by Bartimaeus

[majestic]

That reminds me of an old LOTR-GIF:

 

2 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

If I ever play, it's just as a glass cannon sorceress built to boss-rush* that I play for the first week or two of ladder to make some quick early ladder money** and then I run out of steam and quit, .

I've finished Hell difficulty once so far (killed Baal, that is, this was before the Ubers or Pandemonium), and that was early in Lord of Destruction with the absolutely fantastic Guided Arrow bug. While I put a lot of hours into Diablo 2, mostly it was more of a theoretical exercise for me. I knew all about builds, the items necessary to play them, all that stuff. But I never really played anything but self-found. I'd join random games for the better drop rates, but interactions were limited, and trading? Yeah, no... not at the time, anyway.

Things would be different nowadays, except my interest in ARPGs kind of died away too. For the record, I just downloaded D2, then got supremely annoyed at having to download an installer to download the installers to install D2, then LoD separately, had to manually download the newest patch after a non-descript error message from the game, created an account and finally be greeted by a "realm unavailable" message (might just have been something else, but I really don't want to bother checking right now) and then played a character to level 6 in single player, only to find out that the feeling of "been there, done that" is surprisingly overwhelming.

Edited October 12, 2021 by majestic

[Bartimaeus]

The excitement of a new ladder is literally the only draw to ever playing again for me, and that possibility will be gone soon once the original game dies what with D2:R and all. I'll probably never play an ARPG ever again, for a few different reasons. Trading was a disaster in that game until d2jsp came around. Can't imagine going back to in-game trading.

Uber Diablo was added back in 2003 (1.10), while Pandemonium came in 2005 (1.11). But if you were using the ancient Guided Arrow bug, that was in 1.09 before either of those, .

[majestic]

1 hour ago, Bartimaeus said:

The excitement of a new ladder is literally the only draw to ever playing again for me, and that possibility will be gone soon once the original game dies what with D2:R and all. I'll probably never play an ARPG ever again, for a few different reasons. Trading was a disaster in that game until d2jsp came around. Can't imagine going back to in-game trading.

I traded a couple times in Path of Exile. Way way back when the game was a beta and it had like two or three acts with difficulties instead of ten acts with a sliding increase in enemy damage (and decrease in resistances), all it had was an overspammed trade channel. It's still all the game has, but trading works by looking at one of the larger trading sites, ruffle through the listings, find what you want and click on "copy" which copies a /whisper into your clipboard to post in game.

Then you wait for the guy to invite you, pick the item from the stash and coordinate indicated in the whisper, then you need to join his hideout, complete the trade, say bye bye and leave. It's as clean as an interaction in the game can get, but it's still incredibly tiresome. Simply because you have to join the other party in his personal instance. Why can't we just have action houses like in MMORPGs. A trade waste my time, and the other party's time, because they have to interrupt whatever they are doing. Or just ignore a potential sale.

Never felt any excitement for the ladder race. Trying my best to do the impossible with just self-found gear on the other hand, that was always a draw. Took a bug and some Mephisto drop luck to work, but work it did. I mean, aside from conveniently bypassing the worst part of the D2 online experience. Obviously never tried anything with d2jsp.

1 hour ago, Bartimaeus said:

Uber Diablo was added back in 2003 (1.10), while Pandemonium came in 2005 (1.11). But if you were using the ancient Guided Arrow bug, that was in 1.09 before either of those, .

Yep, that was in 1.09. I almost said feels like ages ago, but... that's because it was. Ages ago.

[bugarup]

Deadfire. Antagonized a group of Vithracks (Vithraki?) in Forgotten Sanctum I diploed before, got obliterated. Twice. I'll get them next time since now I know what I was doing wrong (and maybe even without swapping Serafen aka Mr Friendly Fire with actual tank), but...I don't think I will be able to do in the Oracle on Veteran. 

[ComradeYellow]

On 10/11/2021 at 10:01 AM, BruceVC said:

I like the way the " baddies " in Far Cry games always have such unique and interesting personalities ...I love Pagans eccentricities In FC4 

Obsidian "baddies" knock the Hell out of Far Cry pseudo villains.

EDIT:

I am playing Path of Exile as a Duelist, which is a class clearly catering to my standards.  Let's hope I can actually get through it this time and not get bored 1/3 of the way through due grind fatigue.

Edited October 13, 2021 by ComradeYellow

[Chilloutman]

You guys need to drop your sub-par ARPGs and finally embrace Grim Dawn

[bugarup]

5 minutes ago, Chilloutman said:

You guys need to drop your sub-par ARPGs and finally embrace Grim Dawn

I tried it once! But instantly got lost in crapton or classes, sublasses, what does what yadda yadda, and well, couldn't be arsed to do a research for an ARPG. Is there an overpowered ranged class that can also summon something to stand between them and mobs? 

[Chilloutman]

14 minutes ago, bugarup said:

I tried it once! But instantly got lost in crapton or classes, sublasses, what does what yadda yadda, and well, couldn't be arsed to do a research for an ARPG. Is there an overpowered ranged class that can also summon something to stand between them and mobs? 

there are 3 summoner classes (necro, ocultist and shaman) I would go with necro + any other of these two based on what flavor you like. 

 

you can respec quite easily and cheaply at for first few times (but not change classes) so go nuts and experiment. You don't need much strategy for normal diff especially because your equip will be all over the place but in late game its advised to focus on one or two damage types and max out your resistances

 

Also try to get to lvl 30 in one class before you pick second one to get to exclusive skill first

Edited October 13, 2021 by Chilloutman

[BruceVC]

4 hours ago, Chilloutman said:

You guys need to drop your sub-par ARPGs and finally embrace Grim Dawn

Its in my Steam library so its only a matter of time 

[Keyrock]

4 hours ago, Chilloutman said:

You guys need to drop your sub-par ARPGs and finally embrace Grim Dawn

Some people can't handle the sublime gameplay and near limitless viable character builds of GD. Let them enjoy their casual game. 

I keed, I keed, D2 is a fine game.

As for me, I'm still on The Great Squirrel Hunt in Lost Judgment. I've found and completed 36 of 56 so far. I refuse to look up the locations, I'm determined to find them all myself.

Edited October 13, 2021 by Keyrock

[Malcador]

It is somewhat satisfying to go back to D3, despite everyone decrying the dumbing down or whatever, it's still very fun to motor through oceans of mobs and slaughter them all.  Did also find some interesting trivia, the Amazon's voice actress is the same one as C&C's EVA.

[LadyCrimson]

Still on Tales of Arise. And no, I haven't quite beaten the story.

After that long dialogue/skit heavy few hours romp, there was finally ... some action! ... then more not-action. Then finally ... some action! In the forum of a dungeon.This room by room/floor by floor went on, and on, and on.  A situation where once begun you won't leave because you'd have to clear it all again. I finally reached the spot for the FINAL FIGHT (game warns you), which thankfully also had a teleporter thingie so I could leave and come back if I wanted.  Park, and exit.

That all said, this game still has things that have made me giggle, and I like some of the mild grind (even if you don't have to actually grind) and later side-quests and one or two chrs etc. so I give it bonus points for that. it's mostly this end-story-train I haven't liked/leaves a sour taste after a while. Most of the rest I've enjoyed well enough.

[Bartimaeus]

17 hours ago, Keyrock said:

Some people can't handle the sublime gameplay and near limitless viable character builds of GD. Let them enjoy their casual game.

It's less to do with however good Grim Dawn might be, more to do with that I am not, and have not been, interested in any ARPGs for many years now, so I'm not going to put any time into playing a new one. Path of Exile was the last one I put more than a couple of hours into (probably about a handful of years ago now) and I stopped playing it when I had a lagspike that killed my character on the (then) final boss of the game. Felt no urge to keep playing, and have never felt any urge to play any new ARPGs since. With D2, there's nothing new to learn, it's not complicated or particularly challenging, it's just a matter of playing an old game for a few days until I've had my fill.

[Katphood]

Tried Akiba's Trip.

The fighting system leaves a whole lot to be desired honestly. This game seems to be more of a visual novel at heart, but we'll see.

[Bartimaeus]

The Red Strings Club. Feels like a game that's kind of trying to be like VA-11 HALL-A, but instead of having a fun group of characters carrying the game through silly dialogue, went for some investigation of a grand conspiracy plot instead. It's...alright, but isn't quite what I wanted, I guess.

[Keyrock]

The Great Squirrel Hunt stands at 43 of 56 completed. This squirrel graffiti is getting harder and harder to find. I found one on a tree, on the ceiling, underwater, granted it was about 6 inches of water, but still. I usually walk Amasawa's adorable dog while I look for squirrels. Since finishing the main story, I have no desire to fight random mooks any more and a side benefit of walking the dog is that all enemies disappear off the map while you are doing it. I guess random thugs wearing loud shirts are scared of Ranpo. 

[LadyCrimson]

Last few times I've fired up Tales of Arise, I stand at the Final Battle spot for a minute...then turn around and teleport back out to do something else. The thought of a couple of maybe slightly extended fights then likely 20+ minutes of cutscenes or something just makes me go pffft.

I'm getting close to lvl 60 tho (max is lvl 100 I think), meaning maybe I can do that one lvl 60ish side quest that I've heard opens up a costume sidequest. Costumes are good. Maybe I'll do that first. *Then* do the Final Battle to unlock the few things that unlocks. Maybe.

[LadyCrimson]

I am not sure, but I think I was pecked to death by a 50 foot rooster.

...the costume quest I wanted needed more than one sidequest to make it pop, but I got 'em. The cutscenes were hilarious too.
...any outfit showing off Dohalim's 8-pack abs are all right by me.   (they all get a version of the themed costume)

Hmm...I feel like there may not be tons to do after post-game, doing all this stuff before then. I'm sure a few things, just not a lot. NG+ sounds rather pointless (nothing changes), outside of wanting to try the uberuber difficulty and taking over your gear/skills etc. to help out if you wanted. Not interested.

I wish there had been more visual enemy variety. Just like with most costume stuff, a lot of them are basically reskin/recolors.
I suppose the very end could change my mind a little bit, but overall I'd give the game maybe ... a 7-7.5 out of 10? Something like that? Great visual presentation most of the time, good first half, a pretty decent and visually fun combat system (even if I suck at it), some pacing/chr./dialogue issues and that too long back third. Not anything that will be considered a classic or must-play, but good enough to waste time in.

The combat Ai has been interesting to tweak around with.  The chr. AI can act really strangely/differently, or even sometimes "break" depending on settings and what skills you define they can use/not use. It doesn't feel consistent across all players. If you sorta want to solo, you could put the AI on "Do Nothing" or "Heal only", something like that, and all they will do is dodge and/or heal, leaving it up to you.  But that changes the enemy AI as well - they get a lot dumber, especially adds. It's either purposely oddball or just simply broken in some ways.

Edited October 16, 2021 by LadyCrimson

[the_dog_days]

Took me way longer than I thought it would (25 hours, which is twice as long as the first game), but I beat the final boss in Huniepop 2. It was unironically the hardest boss encounter in any game I've ever played. One minute I'm cruising through the game and the next they kick the difficulty up to a 12. Devs must've got a lot of feedback about wanting a tougher final boss.

Now on to a Pokemon fan game: Xenoverse. While the Pokemon Company has let me down with the last few main series entries, recently there've been a lot of fan games to come out. I've got about six on my to-play list. The game mechanics are similar to 4th gen but Xenoverse has all the later gen pokemon, too. Of all the fan games I looked at Xenoverse definitely looks like it had the biggest budget. There's even an animated intro that must've been a pain to implement in RPG Maker. So far I'm liking Xenoverse more than I did either Sun/Moon or Sword/Shield.

[marelooke]

Been playing a bunch of Timberborn. It's a city builder about beavers and your greatest enemy is drought. Every x in-game time a draught happens and you have the rest of the time to prepare for it, basically.

Aside from the obvious solution (building vats to store water) you're also leading, you know, beavers, so building dams, redirecting flow, creating artificial lakes, are all tools you can use to store water (or just keep your crops hydrated)

Wouldn't say the game is hard, at least so far, on normal, but you can get caught unawares pretty easily, especially when your beavers start "getting it on" and your population explodes. The draughts do get longer though, not sure if they keep getting longer, and longer, until things become unwinnable or whether there's a cap to them.

Note the game is early access, but it runs great, haven't had any crashes or seen any obvious bugs, so mostly hoping for the devs to add additional stuff to do. Maybe add some more (optional) challenges. Stuff like that.

Edited October 17, 2021 by marelooke

[Keyrock]

The Great Squirrel Hunt is nearing its end; I have completed 51 of 56 squirrel graffiti challenges (They're not much of a challenge, I just don't know what else to call them.  The challenge is finding them). I'm also getting close to finishing all the school stories. I've completed 6 of 10 of the school stories, I just need to complete the robotics club, the boxing club, motorcycle racing, and the MRC. The completion gauge on the MRC hasn't budged in forever despite the fact that the story has progressed through the other clubs. I'm guessing I won't get to the meat of that story until I finish all the other ones. I'm looking forward to that since I really like working with Amasawa, she's the best.

[Humanoid]

Knocked over every single level in the Overcooked series (in All You Can Eat guise) over the past couple weeks in two-player mode. Previously over the past five year it'd mostly been a three/four-player experience over the holidays but it's just too hard to get everyone together now and figured it was time to see everything through.

I know there have been quite a few complaints about the multiplayer performance/reliability for the game, and indeed there was one day where we couldn't connect at all and had to resort to Steam Remote Play. But overall it was a generally satisfactory experience, even if I'd never be able to tell the graphical difference to the original release in a blind test.

Other than that, we're also trying the new Age of Empires 2 co-op campaigns. As with the original release, the missions are of pretty uneven quality and I doubt that will ever change, but it's a decent enough change of pace.