What are you Playing Now? No really, tell us more...

[Wormerine]

6 hours ago, Lexx said:

Next thing is.. Fallout 1 doesn't even have *that* much content. The only way for you to run out of time is if you literally waste it.

3 hours ago, Oner said:

Yeah, the 150 days in FO1 were generous. Except you wouldn't know that until you played enough to learn this. 

As Oner said. Knowledge that Fallout1's timer is generous comes from metaknowledge. In my case, from looking it online and learning that: 1) I don't need to worry about it 2) there are ways to extend it if I need it. 

And if the situation is "time is generous enough that you can complete everything in the game before it runs out". Then there is no point to the timer being in the game in the first place. It adds to new player anxiety while objectively not adding anything of value to the game. Fallout1 with or without timer plays and works the same, only missing the failed ending if you manage to have it run out.

People don't like it, when it is implimented in games not fit for it. If you create a handcrafter RPG when you want players to explore (or demand for them to explore) then threatning them with gameover if they explore too much is not what you want in your game. If you don't want them to access all content - then fine. But then you need to give players a way to gauge how much content they can do before running out of time, and what more or less can be consequences of ignoring content. and IMO even so, there are better ways of achieving it in a cRPG then a timer. 

[Lexx]

Not *all* content, but the content up to that point of the game. Which means Vault 15, Shady Sands, Junktown, and important bits of The Hub. Hell, you even learn about these locations in that order, and the NPCs will always send you to the next town in line.

[Keyrock]

I beat and then fused Mother Harlot in SMT V. She's not in the base game, she's part of the Return of the True Demon DLC. Because I'm a sucker for MegaTen and just a sucker in general I bought all the content DLCs except the Artemis one, since it was the most expensive of the single demon DLCs and thus the worst value.

Mother Harlot is the last of the 8 fiends you get to fight and then fuse, if you so wish, before getting to square off with the Demi-Fiend of SMT III fame. By all accounts, the Demi-Fiend is the single hardest enemy in the game, as he should be. He's the Emerald Weapon of SMT V, if you will. I won't be fighting him any time soon (I will eventually), but I'm super happy to have Mother Harlot on my team. She is so freakin' strong. I'm surprised she's only level 64 in this game. I consider Mother Harlot to be a S+ Rank demon, right up there with Metatron, Lucifer, Asherah, Brahma(n), and such. She has a very high magic stat, extremely strong skills, including the ludicrously powerful Babylon Goblet, her only weakness is force (which I already addressed via essence fusion with Null Force), and, most importantly, she reflects physical damage.

Hitting a resist no longer costs an extra turn like it did in some previous games. Hitting a null does cost an extra turn. Hitting a reflect or a drain IMMEDIATELY ends your round, regardless of how many turns you had left. I've only had Mother Harlot on my team a short while and I've already run out of fingers to count how many times enemies have ended their round prematurely by foolishly physically attacking Mother Harlot. Needless to say, Mother Harlot is a keeper for the rest of the game and more often than not on my active team. I cannot overstate how insanely strong she is.

Edited December 17, 2021 by Keyrock

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

8 hours ago, Hurlsnot said:

I finished Disco Elysium. It seems like it is a new evolution in adventure games. It was very well done.

  Reveal hidden contents

At the end of the game you find out you have been trying to get over your lost love for 6 years. The writers make it seem like that is too long. But like Harry Du Bois, I am also 43 years old, and that number sounds perfectly reasonable. This poor guy gave up his spiritually fulfilling job as a teacher to become a respected detective, and it seems like he did it to impress a woman. He found professional success and paid the spiritual price for it, and still lost the love of his life. 6 years sounds about right. Just my 2 cents.

The game definitely spoke to me on a deeper level. It helped that I was a beer or two in when I played it, and a bit deep in my winter moribundity. I didn't expect to have nearly this much in common with this down on his luck detective.

I haven't been able to play too much in a while but it is a damn good game that managed to make me laugh and think pretty regularly. Often in the same dialogue.

The first time I played it a couple of years ago I ended up as a communist and the last communist of the failed revolution called me a liberal. 

[Amentep]

New thread split off

Old thread

 

[Vaeliorin]

I am, admittedly, anti-timer in games, but I really liked the "timers" in Wizardry 7.  For those unfamiliar, the game revolved around finding pieces of a map that were scattered across a planet, and if you didn't make it to the various map pieces in time, instead of failing, they'd been found by members of the various factions in the game, and then you had to get them from the factions (for money or you could just kill them.)  The first time I got to a chest with a map piece and it was actually there, I was stunned, because I didn't realize it was possible (I started that game over an absurd number of times.)  I always thought that was really awesome, and I can't recall any game doing something similar since.

[MrBrown]

6 hours ago, Wormerine said:

As Oner said. Knowledge that Fallout1's timer is generous comes from metaknowledge. In my case, from looking it online and learning that: 1) I don't need to worry about it 2) there are ways to extend it if I need it. 

And if the situation is "time is generous enough that you can complete everything in the game before it runs out". Then there is no point to the timer being in the game in the first place. It adds to new player anxiety while objectively not adding anything of value to the game. Fallout1 with or without timer plays and works the same, only missing the failed ending if you manage to have it run out.

People don't like it, when it is implimented in games not fit for it. If you create a handcrafter RPG when you want players to explore (or demand for them to explore) then threatning them with gameover if they explore too much is not what you want in your game. If you don't want them to access all content - then fine. But then you need to give players a way to gauge how much content they can do before running out of time, and what more or less can be consequences of ignoring content. and IMO even so, there are better ways of achieving it in a cRPG then a timer. 

Have you played Pathfinder: Kingmaker? It has a way more annoying timer, IMO.

[Wormerine]

12 hours ago, MrBrown said:

Have you played Pathfinder: Kingmaker? It has a way more annoying timer, IMO.

I did. In Fallout1 timer might have not been there, in Kingmaker it was one of the conflicting design choices which made it insuffarable for myself. 

 

12 hours ago, Vaeliorin said:

I am, admittedly, anti-timer in games, but I really liked the "timers" in Wizardry 7. 

Darn I loved the game. And in spite of loving it, I never got close to finishing it. I think last time I tried I got stuck in some tree city thingy. 

[marelooke]

Finished the FF XIV Endwalker Main Story Quest. As far as MMORPGs go FF XIV easily has some of the best story and world building. The combination of setting things up many expansion in advance as well as how they manage to just make things that were more than likely not planned entirely deliberate is pretty awesome.

As an example they reused the "Answers" song (this one, used when the Calamity struck on FF XIV 1.0 to reboot the game into 2.0, aka A Realm Reborn) three times over the course of the last decade, and three times expanded upon its meaning. It's pretty hard to believe that was the intent when they rebooted the game, but they sure manage to make it look extremely intentional.

Pacing was bit off this expansion, some things that should have gotten more attention, didn't, others dragged on way too long. But the 5th map and associated trial (the second one) absolutely delivered and were definitely the high point for me, though the ending was satisfying as well.

Aside from that, just getting into the game is a chore on a technical level. Square Enix, despite which FF XIV became a good MMO, has refused to invest in servers for a long time (the European data center was already close to capacity before the WoW exodus, or the silicon shortage, basically during a "low" player activity period there were still queues), so now that we have both (alongside New World refugees), along with a new, highly anticipated, expansion release servers are just way over capacity with multi-hour long queues just to get in.

They even stopped selling the game, or allowing trial accounts in. So yeah it's bad... The good part is that the game is actually stable and once you get in you can actually play without really having to worry about crashing out.

Edited December 18, 2021 by marelooke

[melkathi]

Best line in Rogue Lords:

"I heard you... you called me three times!" (Bloody Mary)

[Hurlshort]

Picked up AC: Odyssey and it seems like a fun historical romp. It even has the exploration setting that removes all the random acts of violence. 

[Wormerine]

Finished Sekiro. And just in time for December gaming break. 

I had a really great time with that one. Found it easier to digest then the usual FromSoftware title. Finished this one from beggining to the end, though it also could be because it took be able half the time of usual Dark Souls. Outside couple of bosses this game isn't particularly challenging.

[melkathi]

So in Encased apparently there is a city called Crystal Sands.

Question:

If Shady should play Encased and really like it, will he change his name to Crystal?

[Hurlshort]

42 minutes ago, melkathi said:

So in Encased apparently there is a city called Crystal Sands.

Question:

If Shady should play Encased and really like it, will he change his name to Crystal?

Pretty sure that is already his stripper name.

[Malcador]

You never want to hear sand when it comes to strippers.

[Sarex]

6 hours ago, marelooke said:

Finished the FF XIV Endwalker Main Story Quest. As far as MMORPGs go FF XIV easily has some of the best story and world building. The combination of setting things up many expansion in advance as well as how they manage to just make things that were more than likely not planned entirely deliberate is pretty awesome.

As an example they reused the "Answers" song (this one, used when the Calamity struck on FF XIV 1.0 to reboot the game into 2.0, aka A Realm Reborn) three times over the course of the last decade, and three times expanded upon its meaning. It's pretty hard to believe that was the intent when they rebooted the game, but they sure manage to make it look extremely intentional.

Pacing was bit off this expansion, some things that should have gotten more attention, didn't, others dragged on way too long. But the 5th map and associated trial (the second one) absolutely delivered and were definitely the high point for me, though the ending was satisfying as well.

Aside from that, just getting into the game is a chore on a technical level. Square Enix, despite which FF XIV became a good MMO, has refused to invest in servers for a long time (the European data center was already close to capacity before the WoW exodus, or the silicon shortage, basically during a "low" player activity period there were still queues), so now that we have both (alongside New World refugees), along with a new, highly anticipated, expansion release servers are just way over capacity with multi-hour long queues just to get in.

They even stopped selling the game, or allowing trial accounts in. So yeah it's bad... The good part is that the game is actually stable and once you get in you can actually play without really having to worry about crashing out.

The story is very good and I only watched the last 2 expansions, but sadly it's still an MMO and the gameplay and quests look absolutely boring and like a chore.

[Keyrock]

I've essentially cleared out the Taito area in SMT V except for the 3 (presumably) boss battles to get the 3 keys. I got all 200 Miman, I think every glory container, and every treasure chest. I'm level 68 and I still haven't used a single gospel. I have 15 of them and I plan to start using them once I hit level 70. I don't plan to use all of them at once, probably 8 to go up to lev 78. I'm going to save a few for the final push in the high 80s and low 90s, since I have to beat Shiva to get the true neutral ending and Shiva is the hardest enemy in the base game (Demi-Fiend is reportedly stronger but that's DLC content).

[Mamoulian War]

Started few days ago my second New Game+ playthrough of Megadimension Neptunia V-II and it's kinda to much custscenes compared to some previous Nep-Nep games party level is around 50 so start can be pretty boring, but I am already at second nation, so soon the game will catch up with the party

 

[Vaeliorin]

10 hours ago, Wormerine said:

Darn I loved the game. And in spite of loving it, I never got close to finishing it. I think last time I tried I got stuck in some tree city thingy. 

Yeah, Wizardry 7 is one of my favorite games of all time, but I don't think I ever got close to finishing it.  I always got lost in the forest area, and since it didn't have a map (until Wizardry Gold) I just ended up giving up.  I can't tell you how many times I started that game over (I was crushed when we got a better computer and the game just wouldn't run because apparently it didn't play nice with the new CPU somehow...) and I think it's the only game I've ever bought 3 times (the original version, the Gold version and I've got Wizardry 6-8 on Steam.)

[marelooke]

2 hours ago, Sarex said:

The story is very good and I only watched the last 2 expansions, but sadly it's still an MMO and the gameplay and quests look absolutely boring and like a chore.

They're mostly running around and talking to people. There was surprisingly little combat involved in Endwalker (if we ignore the mandatory dungeons). The side quests (which became entirely optional in Endwalker, due to the main quest giving you enough XP to get to level cap) at least tend to deepen out the lore, though they are usually more typical MMO-fare (go there, kill/fetch that)

Older expansions, and especially ARR, were worse in that respect, but I wouldn't really have any qualms playing the game just for the story (and as a matter of fact, a not insignificant part of the playerbase does just that)

If they handn't just shut down registration of new trial accounts I'd recommend just giving it a go, base game and first expansion are free nowadays. Maybe something to keep in mind once the server congestion situation blows over.

[BruceVC]

12 hours ago, Hurlsnot said:

Picked up AC: Odyssey and it seems like a fun historical romp. It even has the exploration setting that removes all the random acts of violence. 

As usual Ubisoft does such an excellent job at recreating the historical accuracy of their game worlds and Odyssey is no different in respects to Ancient Greece 

But why would you remove the ability for random acts of violence, thats a huge part of the fun in Ubisoft games?

 

[BruceVC]

@Wormerine

Wormie I took your advice and started on Bioshock 1 last weekend, 45 hours in and I am thoroughly enjoying the game design and mechanics and overall experience 

Its very different to Infinite and vastly superior, as you mentioned the weapon variety and ammunition selection  is just one example of how its more complex and better than Infinite 

[Wormerine]

17 hours ago, BruceVC said:

Wormie I took your advice and started on Bioshock 1 last weekend,

I am glad you are liking it! 

[majestic]

On 12/18/2021 at 6:20 PM, Wormerine said:

Finished Sekiro. And just in time for December gaming break. 

 

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I had a really great time with that one. Found it easier to digest then the usual FromSoftware title. Finished this one from beggining to the end, though it also could be because it took be able half the time of usual Dark Souls. Outside couple of bosses this game isn't particularly challenging.

 

Did you fight the Demon of Hatred?

[Malcador]

Picked Rebel Galaxy from my backlog, so will see how this goes and if it was worth the $10.