What are you Playing Now? Who needs a life anyway?...

[BruceVC]

21 hours ago, Raithe said:

I picked up Red Dead Redemption 2 in those easter sales and have been roaming around.

I'm still trying to get my head around the whole "we had to flee this place and go up the mountains and brace snow over winter to travel east...."

But then you've come down out of the mountains about 5 miles from the place you fled, set up shop and are then surprised they found you again...

Come on its not that bad, I spent 300 hours on the single player version and about 1150 on the online game 

I dont understand some of the other criticism towards the game. Their are lots of activities outside the missions that include hunting,  bounty-hunting, train robberies, kill the KKK and fishing. In fact here is an interesting list of 101 things to do 

https://www.gameinformer.com/2018/11/21/101-things-you-can-do-in-red-dead-redemption-ii

Money has a purpose to upgrade weapons and buy expensive horses and upgrade your camp. Its no different to GTA4&5 meaning its typical Rockstar design and mechanics 

[Malcador]

8 hours ago, Chilloutman said:

finished normal in D2R. now grinding countess in nightmare for runes

I gave up in Act 3 nightmare, should try it again. Just...hate Act 3.

[Lexx]

I'm doing a casual countess, andariel, diablo run every evening since a while. Just one run and then stop. The rarity of certain items annoys me to no end and I just can't be arsed to farm more, especially since leveling up at 90+ takes an ungodly amount of time.

It's crazy how much the difficulty depends on the gear, though. I remember when I first went into Hell, it was a huge pain and everything was wrecking me in seconds. Now I'm breezing through everything and only a few mobs in act 5 / Baal are still able to hurt me.

/Edit: The real pain is that I can't wear my valkyrie helmet anymore, because harlequin crest is so much better ... if it just wouldn't look so ugly.

Edited May 4, 2022 by Lexx

[Chilloutman]

oh man,  Lexx you are so ahead! If you guys wanna join up I am all for it!

[Lexx]

I'm playing this character since D2R was released.

Not gonna do any ladder stuff, though, that's way too much grind for no gain, imo.

[Chilloutman]

Is it not same as playing single player? You will get you char into single player after ladder is done? Also there are some new rune words?

[Wormerine]

9 hours ago, BruceVC said:

Their are lots of activities outside the missions that include hunting, bounty-hunting, train robberies, kill the KKK and fishing. In fact here is an interesting list of 101 things to do

I suppose I just do not find them interesting. Once done once, I feel no need to do them again. They have minimal gameplay, and offer little or no reward.

9 hours ago, BruceVC said:

Money has a purpose to upgrade weapons and buy expensive horses and upgrade your camp. Its no different to GTA4&5 meaning its typical Rockstar design and mechanics 

As I said, without doing much I have over 1000k at all times. Camp got fully upgrated within first or second camp, and weapons are few, they are cheap, and honestly all feel the same to use so outside. Also have an elite horse, that everyone complements me on (and don't feel much improvement from my good, old Whiskey). I am not familiar with typical Rockstar games - I am just disappointed how little there is to it as their games are hailed as "sandbox" - it's just a lot of pretty window dressing.

EDIT: Googled Zero Punctuation as I was curious what Yahtzee thought. 100% on point as usual. Also slaps me on the wrist for still not playing Obra Dim. Why didn't I play it yet? It's made by a guy whose previous game I adored, all reviewers I follow loved it, and I had a strong recommendation from a trusty colleague. I am the problem.

 

Edited May 4, 2022 by Wormerine

[Lexx]

28 minutes ago, Chilloutman said:

Is it not same as playing single player? You will get you char into single player after ladder is done? Also there are some new rune words?

Nah, multiplayer stuff stays in multiplayer. At least I'm not aware of a way to get your stuff into singleplayer.

I'm playing in multiplayer, though, because then I still have the option of trading with other players if necessary.

[Chilloutman]

26 minutes ago, Lexx said:

Nah, multiplayer stuff stays in multiplayer. At least I'm not aware of a way to get your stuff into singleplayer.

I'm playing in multiplayer, though, because then I still have the option of trading with other players if necessary.

That’s why the ladder is worth it

– The ladder provides veterans with a fresh gaming experience and the incentive to play through Diablo 2 with a new hero.

– Some items can only be obtained in the ladder, if you take them to the standard world after the reset, they are especially valuable there.

– Certain upgrades and rune words are also only available to ladder players.

– You do not lose your inventory and have no other disadvantages when the hero later moves to the normal realm.

[melkathi]

Played some more Stranger of Sword City.

I farmed and farmed and finally managed to survive the intro / tutorial part of the game. I even killed the chocolate thief Mukabu the Third. I am now running through the second dungeon, a maze like forest, and I have already forgotten what useful information the npcs there told me.

[Lexx]

Yes but it requires to start a new character and it's hours of grind to get into high level range where all the cool stuff drops. Easier to just wait it out till the ladder is over and the items get sold on marketplaces. 

That said, the old ladder-only items and rune words were already available in regular D2R now. I think the only stuff locked behind the ladder now is whatever they added new (the new rune words I guess).

Edited May 4, 2022 by Lexx

[Chilloutman]

1 minute ago, Lexx said:

Yes but it requires to start a new character and it's hours of grind to get into high level range where all the cool stuff drops. Easier to just wait it out till the ladder is over and the items get sold on marketplaces. 

Hey, its quick with friends! I have suspicious you are avoiding us! First mech warrior, now this!

[Lexx]

Well, there's also the time zone to put into consideration. And I only play a little bit here and there. The thought of grinding up everything again just feels so off-putting to me.

[LadyCrimson]

Death Stranding - using a couple cheats so I can say screw it and just get some road sections built before doing much in the main quests. Those first sections crossing rivers make life a lot easier even if you stay on foot - the rest are only sorta needed for some late mega-truck-load cargo orders if you bother with them.

It's interesting how extra empty the world is before doing all those main story quests, since more and more "lost cargo" and other materials dots the landscape as you make friends with each delivery post and get them on the tech grid. Before that forward areas remains empty wasteland with nothing to pick up outside of the MULE camps.

I also noticed those floating exploding balloon bag BT's in the air above a couple fringe edge map spots where they didn't exist before on console. Dunno if they were always there since early PC release or what, but I found that interesting. I just gotta get to Mama, where I can start building ziplines. Because to me, ziplines is where it's at.  Edit: designing their routes/placing them is half the fun of the game.

Edited May 5, 2022 by LadyCrimson

[BruceVC]

6 hours ago, Wormerine said:

I suppose I just do not find them interesting. Once done once, I feel no need to do them again. They have minimal gameplay, and offer little or no reward.

As I said, without doing much I have over 1000k at all times. Camp got fully upgrated within first or second camp, and weapons are few, they are cheap, and honestly all feel the same to use so outside. Also have an elite horse, that everyone complements me on (and don't feel much improvement from my good, old Whiskey). I am not familiar with typical Rockstar games - I am just disappointed how little there is to it as their games are hailed as "sandbox" - it's just a lot of pretty window dressing.

EDIT: Googled Zero Punctuation as I was curious what Yahtzee thought. 100% on point as usual. Also slaps me on the wrist for still not playing Obra Dim. Why didn't I play it yet? It's made by a guy whose previous game I adored, all reviewers I follow loved it, and I had a strong recommendation from a trusty colleague. I am the problem.

 

Wormie !!! Stop being naughty

You breaking our solemn code, you remember the code? You and I never disagree with each other when it comes to games.....we always like the same games

I like BG3, you like BG3. I like Elder Scrolls games, you like Elder Scrolls games. You like DS games, I like DS games

The code has existed since the dawn of time and we cannot break it. Gamers globally rely on  us to adhere to  the code. Without it their will only be chaos and we dont want that 

Edited May 5, 2022 by BruceVC

[Bartimaeus]

17 hours ago, Lexx said:

Well, there's also the time zone to put into consideration. And I only play a little bit here and there. The thought of grinding up everything again just feels so off-putting to me.

I'm both sad and glad D2:R exists, because it's kind of killed any motivation for me to ever play a new ladder. If people are now playing D2:R, then it makes it hard to want to go back to the original...but conversely, I used to run a pile of accounts at once, and the thought of trying to play without that is...unappealing. Maybe I could do that with D2:R as well, but I don't feel like paying a hundred plus dollars for multiple keys just for it to be ye olde Diablo II timesink - I'd get to level 80 within a couple of days, then burn out within a week or two.

[Lexx]

Why would you play with multiple accounts tho? D2R has much better character / inventory management, so splitting up items between characters isn't really necessary anymore.

[Bartimaeus]

36 minutes ago, Lexx said:

Why would you play with multiple accounts tho? D2R has much better character / inventory management, so splitting up items between characters isn't really necessary anymore.

When I played, I employed a strategy of using additional characters to generate socket quests (especially useful for creating early runeword bases...think Spirit, Insight, Heart of the Oak) and Hellforge runes (two Guls become a Vex, which isn't bad when you can get Guls from Hellforge - very useful early on into a ladder if you play like an absolute fiend and can manage to quest kill normal/nightmare Baal with just one garbage-equipped sorceress while a bunch of other accounts get glitched into the next difficulty when you kill Baal for the quest with that one sorceress). Additionally, Diablo II also has the stupid no-drop mechanic wherein an arbitrary 62.5% of all drops are eliminated before they're dropped when you're playing in a one-player game - going up even just a few players drastically reduces that amount, effectively making your drops better than any amount of magic find can add. You can either use your own secondary accounts for that or join e.g. public Baal run games to get the benefit of that (if you can successfully boss-rush with 8 players in the game all by yourself, that is...which I used to have down to an art even with just trash for gear on Nightmare and Hell). Combine all that with getting glitched quest drops from Andariel/Duriel/Mephisto, and magic finding isn't quite as terrible as it would be if you're in a single player game just mindlessly killing bosses over and over...and the ticking time element in killing all three bosses before the Baal run ends so you can join the next without missing anything was a little bit of a thrill in of itself. I used to have a really weird hybrid sorceress build using Fire Wall (bosses) and I think it was Frozen Orb (non-bosses) specifically for early Ladder...combined with a Life Tap wand that I would use to make it so the mercenary could tank bosses.

It now occurs to me that they probably fixed all the glitches and exploits that I used to use as well, which also makes me not want to play. Quest Duriel drops are awesome for SoJs and Tal Rasha's amulet in Nightmare (and some other stuff like Rainbow Facets in Hell), but non-quest Duriel is probably the most worthless boss to kill in the entire game because all he drops are potions and scrolls (...which he literally can't when it's Quest Duriel). There were exploits for both Andariel and Duriel to make it so your character would always get the quest drops instead, the former of which was well-known and used by almost everyone, but hardly anyone ever knew about or used the one for Duriel.

Edited May 5, 2022 by Bartimaeus

[Lexx]

4 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

It now occurs to me that they probably fixed all the glitches and exploits that I used to use as well, which also makes me not want to play.

Actually they kept many of the old glitches in the game. Andariel for example is still bugged.

[Bartimaeus]

7 minutes ago, Lexx said:

Actually they kept many of the old glitches in the game. Andariel for example is still bugged.

Oh wow, that's...surprising. At that point, why not just make the quest drops the default? That might mean the Duriel one is still around as well...which, while almost nobody else ever used it, was very important to my triple glitched boss rush strategy, and is how I would make thousands of FG on d2jsp every early ladder, selling the SoJs and Tal's Amulets I would find within the first few days to a week. Honestly, magic finding in that game gets a little miserable even with all the exploits that made it significantly more wortwhile...

Edited May 5, 2022 by Bartimaeus

[Lexx]

Yeah, tbh people being "required" to use that stuff kinda shows that the game has some balance issues.

[Malcador]

Been lazy so tooling around with the ArmA 2 editor.  Should move on to 3 but I like the "real" world weaponry present there. 

[LadyCrimson]

Death Stranding Game Logic:

-Rain/Timefall, even the smallest drop, ages your skin/self! Stay unprotected in it for even a short time and you'll look like a 100 year old mummy!
---but apparently wearing a poncho type hood without a mask (or maybe just some sunglasses on) etc. protects your face 100% enough even in the wind or driving a motorbike at high speed.

-Rain/Timefall damages cargo containers and gear with megaspeed deterioration.
---but apparently they can make clothing material/shoes etc that is not only "waterproof" but "Timefall effect proof" - it doesn't deteriorate. So why not make cargo containers or rucksacks out of that stuff? Wrap the cargo in your pants? Hm?

[uuuhhii]

13 hours ago, LadyCrimson said:

Death Stranding Game Logic:

-Rain/Timefall, even the smallest drop, ages your skin/self! Stay unprotected in it for even a short time and you'll look like a 100 year old mummy!
---but apparently wearing a poncho type hood without a mask (or maybe just some sunglasses on) etc. protects your face 100% enough even in the wind or driving a motorbike at high speed.

-Rain/Timefall damages cargo containers and gear with megaspeed deterioration.
---but apparently they can make clothing material/shoes etc that is not only "waterproof" but "Timefall effect proof" - it doesn't deteriorate. So why not make cargo containers or rucksacks out of that stuff? Wrap the cargo in your pants? Hm?

pretty sure there is a joke about plastic in this

Edited May 6, 2022 by uuuhhii

[Oner]

I'm playing Chaosgate: Daemonhunters and it's good so far.
Gameplay is pretty much a well done XCOM: Enemy Unknown clone with some changes. Hit chance is always 100% but the damage dealt fluctuates based on various factors like distance, de/buffs, cover etc. The Chaos corruption you're fighting charges up every round or whenever your units use their psychic powers and causes a random effect when it hits Warp Surge. A debuff area, penalties for your units, reinforcements popping in, random enemies gaining mutations. Won one mission by the skin of my teeth when an enemy patrol, objective-based reinforcements and Warp Surge reinforcements decided to all gang up on me at once.
You have a ship as your base that you upgrade similar to Harebrained's Battletech, repair sections to increase your out-of-combat capabilities, research stuff to make your in-combat mojo better.
Units are divided into classes, they rank up, have their own upgrade trees with an atrocious UI, etc.

Unfortunately there's some bugs that need ironing out, there's two area denial weapon abilities I can't use at all so far. The cinematics are pretty enough, though you can tell they could've use more time working on those. The tutorial was super cheesy, though I enjoyed it.  Music is alright so far, the kind of choir chanting and haunting orchestral stuff you'd expect, but it's music that's playing quietly in the background instead of something adrenaline pumping so it doesn't stand out much.