What are you Playing Now? Whatever happens, at least we're out of that mudhole, Gilded Vale.

[Humanoid]

I installed it on GOG as well to get a fresh new install instead of my Steam one which I don't even know will run. Too lazy to research what fixes and mods to install yet, but no plans to play it this year anyhow.

But yeah, never felt there were many grey solutions to problems other than simply ignoring the entry on your quest log. I suppose it makes sense in that it would always be, at the earliest, the third solution to be implemented for any given quest, and therefore the first on the chopping block when it comes to designing those quests. Still don't get why they cut the easiest way to go grey though: the ability to leave and just go home to California.

[bugarup]

Is Courier even from California? In any way, I spent many hundreds of hours in NV, never sided with the Legion once and likely I never will. Was kinda committed a couple of times, but as soon as I get to the Legion encampment they say Legion things aaaaaaand look at the time, it's murder o'clock again. 

[TruckerJay]

2 hours ago, bugarup said:

Is Courier even from California? In any way, I spent many hundreds of hours in NV, never sided with the Legion once and likely I never will. Was kinda committed a couple of times, but as soon as I get to the Legion encampment they say Legion things aaaaaaand look at the time, it's murder o'clock again. 

Same story. After like 5 attempts to side with Legion I said "screw it" and watched what questlines n stuff you get by siding with 'em on Youtube

[Lexx]

Funny, just 2 days ago I finished a FNV playthrough again. First one in 7 years. Sure the game has issues, but it's still exceptionally well done and well written. One of the best RPGs of the last 20 years for sure. There is lots of great dialog in the game, the ending slides are great, the world has great atmosphere.

I get why some people like Fo3 more than FNV ... especially in the beginning FNV can be a bit boring since it doesn't force-feed you with everything right away. There are areas where you literally don't meet any enemies at all, while in Fo3 you get dogs, bloatflies, raiders, ghouls, supermutants around every single corner. So terrible.

Anyways, here is me watching the president.

Spoiler

The biggest issue I have is that even with JSawyer mod, it just gets so easy later. Nothing is a threat, mere a hassle.

Edited November 15, 2022 by Lexx

[TruckerJay]

7 minutes ago, Lexx said:

Funny, just 2 days ago I finished a FNV playthrough again. First one in 7 years. Sure the game has issues, but it's still exceptionally well done and well written. One of the best RPGs of the last 20 years for sure. There is lots of great dialog in the game, the ending slides are great, the world has great atmosphere.

I get why some people like Fo3 more than FNV ... especially in the beginning FNV can be a bit boring since it doesn't force-feed you with everything right away. There are areas where you literally don't meet any enemies at all, while in Fo3 you get dogs, bloatflies, raiders, ghouls, supermutants around every single corner. So terrible.

Anyways, here is me watching the president.

  Hide contents

The biggest issue I have is that even with JSawyer mod, it just gets so easy later. Nothing is a threat, mere a hassle.

I'm yet to meet a person who actually likes FO3 more than FNV. FO3 beggining isn't that exciting either outsisde of Megaton hub. At the same time overall writting for FO3 is miles behind.
Man, all this FNV talk kinda giving me an itch to replay it again... This time I'll be Legion for sure 

[Humanoid]

5 hours ago, bugarup said:

Is Courier even from California?

The original delivery was from California wasn't it? So regardless of origin, that's where they work now.

Anyway, I may have played NV for a few hundred hours (which is nothing compared to some of you here I'm sure) but only ever finished it once. I think it was the NCR ending but my memory is foggy. I've also only ever played one DLC, being Honest Hearts, so there's still so much content both in terms of base game and DLC for me to do.

Meanwhile, I played Fallout 3 for maybe 10-20 hours. I can't tell you much about it other than it was aggressively and pervasively green. I don't think the game ever gave me a sense of place, just generic green ruins all the way to the horizon. Not that I know much about DC, I know there's the White House and, uhhhh, that obelisk thing? I don't remember encountering either of them.

[Tale]

Fallout 3 has the same problem I have with Oblivion. Aggressively terrible level scaling. At high levels of Fallout 3, you can't go for a jaunty stroll without running into a constant stream of Deathclaws and Albino Radscorpions. All sorts of enemies that ignore armor. It was not fun running around in power armor and getting 3 shot like I was naked by some enemy with a standard rifle because their name had Master in it.

I not only like it less than New Vegas, I hold hate in my heart for it.

[Lexx]

I tried playing it again a few years back. Made it probably 2 or 3 hours or so. The intro is just absolutely terrible on every level imaginable. And once I was outside the vault, the game kept crashing every 30 minutes. Uninstalled it again after, since there is nothing in the game that makes me not feel like I'm just wasting my time.

My biggest issue with FNV after the lame difficulty settings is that I know it too well and there are no surprises left for me to discover.

Edited November 15, 2022 by Lexx

[Malcador]

Dragonflight pre-patch, played a bit with the new race and the flying mechanic, fun enough to zoom about. Shame the events didn't start sooner, not much time to enjoy the gear on my alts before the expansion replaces it all quickly.

[Theonlygarby]

I have also only finished NV once.  Went independent.  Absolutely loved how even though I tried to do the "right thing" I had a ton of negative slides.  It's something that was disappointing with TOW.  Every choice I made had a positive impact in the ending slides.  Which is fine I guess, but I loved the realism of unintended consequences

[Mamoulian War]

18 – October 18, 20:30 – I have finished the main storyline of Final Fantasy XV on PS4. It is still mixed bag for me. Chapters 1-9 were pretty bland and boring, due to the mostly empty open world, and everything taking so long. The exceptions was dungeon crawling. On the other hand in chapters 10-14, I had pretty solid fun. Almost 86 hours spent means, that I enjoyed the game enough, to not throw it out of the window, as I was planning to do, after playing the Platinum Demo . Still it seems to me, that this game was failed live service, which did not achieve to hold enough interest for keeping player going back to the game. Having full story put in between movie, anime, DLCs, novels and audio dramas, did not help either. For Royal Edition, which wanted to bring the users back to the game, even the newly added mandatory storyline trophy has been unlocked by less than 6% of the owners. Which probably caused 3 more planned DLCs cancelled.

[MrBrown]

Started playing Valheim with friends. Horribly addicting, lots of 6-7 hour days.

I'm sure the content will run out at some point, but so far very good.

Also, this Smelter goes up to 11: 

[Hawke64]

Pentiment. Just started the game, after hearing a lot of its flaws. So far I can tell that looks beautiful, the writing is adequate, the journal, unskippable animations (on text appearing, journal/menus opening, location transitions, etc.), and 1 save slot per playthrough are indeed undesirable.

[Tale]

Played through Miles Morales. Definitely shorter than the first one and reuses the same map, but I'm still happy with it. It has a lot less filler and the same strong storytelling. Miles's new powers are great fun.

[Sven_]

After having finished Pentient, I just bought Solasta for a bit of change in pace.

Initially I wanted to go with something a tad more experimental. One or two melee characters alongside a group of "expert archers". No natural casters. I once played through Icewind Dale I think entirelly with a group of casters exclusively.

Not an expert with D&D5eish, I'm wondering which class would make that archer. 
Fighters could.
Rangers could, with the added bonus of gaining a few useful spells (plus at level 11, apparently getting a bonus range attack, need to recheck. Then again, not sure how much you level up in Solasta's main campaign).
Rogues could -- even coupled with a sneak attack bonus which can be quite easily triggered.
 

Edited November 20, 2022 by Sven_

[Humanoid]

41 minutes ago, Sven_ said:

Rangers could, with the added bonus of gaining a few useful spells (plus at level 11, apparently getting a bonus range attack, need to recheck. Then again, not sure how much you level up in Solasta's main campaign).

I hit the level cap of 12 in both the original campaign and the Lost Valley DLC, and I played a Ranger in the latter. That said, it only happened in the final (major) dungeon in Lost Valley, even with the high rate of random encounters in that DLC (easily grindable for those so inclined).

I picked the Marksman subclass, which in hindsight is one of the weaker ones. As you mention, they do get the option of using their bonus action to take a third shot per turn, which must target the same enemy as your prior regular shot. However this is not as useful as it seems, because not only do you get it so late in the game, your bonus action up to that point in the game will typically be used to apply Hunter's Mark. Therefore any damage applied by that shot is offset by the loss of damage from not having applied the mark to the target. It also means you do eat up ammo 50% faster.

I now think the Hunter sub-class is therefore the better pick. You don't get a third attack (the multishot from volley doesn't count) but take Colossus Slayer at level 3, which adds 1d8 damage to any attack against an already-damaged enemy. That means by the time you get your second attack at level 5 you'll be operating at almost peak efficiency, so the Hunter is strong for most of the game. (As an alternative to Colossus Slayer you can take Horde Breaker which does give you an extra attack when you deal a killing blow, once per turn, but I suspect this is the weaker option)

Edited November 20, 2022 by Humanoid

[Sarex]

Still on God of War R. I am doing the hardest difficulty and trying to clear all the optional content as it becomes unlocked. The constant dying and 30 sec reload time are really making me think about getting a ssd for the ps4...

[Lexx]

Started playing some Pentiment. So far I like it, but one thing that was bugging me already is that even in the beginning I was kinda backtracking 3 times. Hope I won't have to run over the whole map all the time later in the game.

[Sven_]

12 hours ago, Humanoid said:

I hit the level cap of 12 in both the original campaign and the Lost Valley DLC, and I played a Ranger in the latter. That said, it only happened in the final (major) dungeon in Lost Valley, even with the high rate of random encounters in that DLC (easily grindable for those so inclined).

It's a bit meta naturally, but I figured similar as well when thinking about higher level benefits. It's kinda nice that they have marked skills that don't come to any use in their campaign, that said.

For the time being, I have picked rogues. Both so far skilled similarily. The "front line" consists of two fighters, so a really rather simply setup.  For both of the fighters I picked the protection fighting style. So I tend to have them stand next to each other, so that attacks can be succesfully blocked by either of the two. Whilst the fighters engage in the frontline, it's the rogues dealing their bonus sneak damage from aback. So far works like a charm, but obviously, there's bound to be ambushes and stuff later on.


I have to admit it's kinda refreshing to play a game / party in which I don't have to go through lenghty repetitive buff routines like every fight. Kinda reminds me of playing BG1 in that way, with D&D 5e scaled back from 3e (or Pathfinder) either way. Naturally, there's not much to pick on level-ups... but I also kinda enjoy that whilst melee/fighter types have their own unique stuff, they're not quasi-wizards as in some other games, throwing spectacular non-spells left and right, just to "make up" for that they aren't actually casters (PoE does this too).

This makes classes a bit more unique too. In a party game in particular, what does it matter anyway if not every class has the same amount of "equipment" to chose from?

Edited November 21, 2022 by Sven_

[ShadySands]

7 hours ago, Lexx said:

Started playing some Pentiment. So far I like it, but one thing that was bugging me already is that even in the beginning I was kinda backtracking 3 times. Hope I won't have to run over the whole map all the time later in the game.

I find that I'm constantly running from one end of the map to the other

[Sven_]

17 minutes ago, ShadySands said:

I find that I'm constantly running from one end of the map to the other

That's the weakness of the game's "loop".  Running from place to place and triggering dialogue is basically the name of the game. And some kind of "backtracking" is a given in any game that doesn't treat its gameworld as levels, but a confined space (System Shock 2, Prey, Alien:Isolation too, and that's wonderful in there). The "reward" of this is that you are getting as familiar with this place and its characters as if you had actually kinda "lived" there. And there's a payoff for that in the end, without spoiling.

However, maybe some sort of fast travel from the map, say from town to abbey and stuff, would still improve things  a bit. As would (optionally) highlighting on the map where the crucial path lies, and what your next stop is to progress things further. It didn't bother me enough to become a major annoyance, as the game is this decelerated an experience in general. I heard from some that they had finished this in like 10 - 11 hours. Personally it took me ~23-24. Not only did I backtrack to check for whether there was new (optional) dialogue. On the occasion, I simply stood in the game's forest, and listened and adored the ambience...

I recently described Pentiment as less of a traditional game, and more of a mood experience.

Edited November 21, 2022 by Sven_

[kanisatha]

20 hours ago, Sven_ said:

After having finished Pentient, I just bought Solasta for a bit of change in pace.

Initially I wanted to go with something a tad more experimental. One or two melee characters alongside a group of "expert archers". No natural casters. I once played through Icewind Dale I think entirelly with a group of casters exclusively.

Not an expert with D&D5eish, I'm wondering which class would make that archer. 
Fighters could.
Rangers could, with the added bonus of gaining a few useful spells (plus at level 11, apparently getting a bonus range attack, need to recheck. Then again, not sure how much you level up in Solasta's main campaign).
Rogues could -- even coupled with a sneak attack bonus which can be quite easily triggered.
 

Yes all three of those classes can work. But fighters and rangers can get multiple attacks which rogues cannot, and that in my Solasta-playing experience makes a huge difference.

All of Solasta is capped at level 12.

[Mamoulian War]

Started to do a playthrough of Comrades Multiplayer DLC for FFXV for Trophies, on older patch, because SE did removed the DLC from the game woth 1.27 patch… Another excellent example how live services ****s with paying customers… At least it is possible to play it with AI now. anyway one positive, the atrocios magic system from main game is gone, and replaced with less atrocious system of weapon crafting. It still sucks. But at least, if you happen to be lucky with monster drops, and are able to create good weapon, you can have much more fun with magic, than in main game. This is kind of positive for the DLC.
 

Everything else is just a plain negative, enemies are just walking HP pools, so it feels like another festival of slowness. At least I was lucky, than in 6 hours I got the most annoying RNG trophy in the game. Some people have been complaining to spent tens of hours after finishing all other trophies, without being able to trigger the right trigger for this trophy. So in 12 hours or so, I have already 3 easiest trophies and 1 extremely annoying trophy in my collection. 6 more to go, which needs more or less grinding to get them. We’ll see how fast I get bored with unlpcking new missions to level up and grind more monster drops to proceed

[Tale]

What's wrong with me? I now have 99 hours in Fallout 4. The only reason I picked it up again was because I heard great things about Far Harbor and wanted to give that a second chance. I'm almost 100 hours in and have not gone to that accursed island. I'm building themed robots to do supply chains between settlements...

I have time management issues.

[BruceVC]

2 hours ago, Tale said:

What's wrong with me? I now have 99 hours in Fallout 4. The only reason I picked it up again was because I heard great things about Far Harbor and wanted to give that a second chance. I'm almost 100 hours in and have not gone to that accursed island. I'm building themed robots to do supply chains between settlements...

I have time management issues.

Its  a great game FO4 and Im not  surprised you finding it so entertaining, I spent about 280 hours on it but I used lots of mods and explored most of the map