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

[Keyrock]

Well, I just uninstalled Scorn, thank goodness I didn't pay for it. The game makes a great first impression. It looks and sounds great, the vibe is awesome, albeit gross, and puzzles are decent enough. Then the game introduces combat and it all falls apart. Simply put, the combat in this game is SHOCKINGLY AWFUL, and this is coming from a guy who plays Piranha Bytes games regularly. The first weapon you get is more a tool. It has a super short range, essentially melee, and you only get 2 attacks with it then you have to wait for it to recharge, which takes forever. Most enemies take 5 or 6 hits to kill and they hit you like a truck and attack far more frequently than you can. You can't block and you are slow as molasses, making dodging very difficult. You can heal but it's useless, counterproductive even, in combat since it takes eons for the animation to play out and you'll take more damage than you heal. It was one thing when there were enemies in open areas where you could run around them and just not fight. Then they started putting enemies in very tight corridors where you can't go around them. Then the put an enemy in a corridor in front of me and dropped one behind me so I couldn't even retreat. Maybe you get a better weapon later and it gets less frustrating. I'll never find out.

It's a shame, this had so much potential.

[InsaneCommander]

1 hour ago, Keyrock said:

Well, I just uninstalled Scorn, thank goodness I didn't pay for it. The game makes a great first impression. It looks and sounds great, the vibe is awesome, albeit gross, and puzzles are decent enough. Then the game introduces combat and it all falls apart. Simply put, the combat in this game is SHOCKINGLY AWFUL, and this is coming from a guy who plays Piranha Bytes games regularly. The first weapon you get is more a tool. It has a super short range, essentially melee, and you only get 2 attacks with it then you have to wait for it to recharge, which takes forever. Most enemies take 5 or 6 hits to kill and they hit you like a truck and attack far more frequently than you can. You can't block and you are slow as molasses, making dodging very difficult. You can heal but it's useless, counterproductive even, in combat since it takes eons for the animation to play out and you'll take more damage than you heal. It was one thing when there were enemies in open areas where you could run around them and just not fight. Then they started putting enemies in very tight corridors where you can't go around them. Then the put an enemy in a corridor in front of me and dropped one behind me so I couldn't even retreat. Maybe you get a better weapon later and it gets less frustrating. I'll never find out.

It's a shame, this had so much potential.

Well, thanks for posting this. I was about to buy this game. Now I'll at least watch a combat video before considering it.

[BruceVC]

I completed BG2 EE ToB today and it was truly an exciting and brilliant gaming experience. I have now played BG1&2 together and I started with BG1 the end of July, I confirmed now on Steam and I have spent 380 hours on these D&D epic games and it was worth every second

These games together score a 80/100 on the globally followed and respected " BruceVC game rating system" and I can imagine what everyone is thinking " thats a high score for BruceVC game rating system " but its a legitimate and scientifically proven score and as I mentioned in a previous post its based on several metrics that include
 

• I love all games that use the D&D, or similar, rulesets and FR is my favorite setting
• The high level battles are varied and exciting, it reminds me of D:OS2
• The overall ToB narrative is excellent where you face different Bhaalspawn and where you have to consider your own dark destiny.
• Side quests are worthwhile and interesting
• The party interaction and Romance arcs are very entertaining

The battles with Draconis, Abazigal and finally Melissan were the hardest and most exciting battles in the series. I was able to defeat Melissan, 4th attempt, by using the following tactics
 

• I used spells like breach,warding whip, ruby ray, pierce shield and dispel magic
• I used summons that included planetars, golems and mordenkainen's sword to distract her summons
• I used my HLA to attack with my tanks
• I found lower resistance spells useful and then I bombarded Melissan with Energy Blades

I also decided to reject the Bhaal taint and its powers, I was confident my character could ignore its evil but I wanted to be mortal and not face the endless divine temptation and enemies that come with it

Great games and highly recommended for all who love party based RPG 

[Hawke64]

Completed the second DLC for Wasteland 3. Between collecting 3 McGuffins, infinite waves of enemies in every location, and quest markers, it was not impressive. I suppose, it is ironic that the worst aspects of the game, the DLC, had DRM, while the base game did not. The base game was complete, consistent, and trusted that the player is reasonably intelligent or prone to loot every container and corpse and talk to every NPC.

[Gfted1]

@BruceVC And you never found the Staff of the Magi. I am disappoint.

[BruceVC]

35 minutes ago, Gfted1 said:

@BruceVC And you never found the Staff of the Magi. I am disappoint.

No  I looked its stats up now and it is very impressive

 

https://baldursgate.fandom.com/wiki/Staff_of_the_Magi

Edited October 15, 2022 by BruceVC

[Gfted1]

Thats the hint I was trying to give you earlier. Its a hard, fun, fight if you ever feel like circling back to it.

[Gorth]

14 hours ago, Gfted1 said:

Thats the hint I was trying to give you earlier. Its a hard, fun, fight if you ever feel like circling back to it.

It somehow reminds me of a certain sword. It might have been BG1. You fight your butt off against overwhelming opposition, overcome it and get the gadget/weapon. At which point you no longer need it, because the hardest opposition in game is now behind you

 

(the sword I'm thinking of is a sword of spider slaying, +5 against spiders or some such, being the reward for killing off the last spider boss in the game)

[Bartimaeus]

2 hours ago, Gorth said:

It somehow reminds me of a certain sword. It might have been BG1. You fight your butt off against overwhelming opposition, overcome it and get the gadget/weapon. At which point you no longer need it, because the hardest opposition in game is now behind you

 

(the sword I'm thinking of is a sword of spider slaying, +5 against spiders or some such, being the reward for killing off the last spider boss in the game)

Believe it or not, Spider's Bane is only +2 and applies the spell "Free Action" to the wielder...but the general idea of "kill all the spiders before you can obtain the spider-killing sword that you can't really use for its specific purpose of killing spiders because you already killed all the spiders" remains, .

Edited October 16, 2022 by Bartimaeus

[Gfted1]

Yeah, thats true, I guess the Twisted Rune would probably be a pushover at his current level. But still, how do you NOT have the SotM? Its like not having the FoA. He probably didnt even improve everything to +6!

[Wormerine]

18 hours ago, BruceVC said:

No  I looked its stats up now and it is very impressive

https://baldursgate.fandom.com/wiki/Staff_of_the_Magi

Huh. In my multiple playthroughs of BG2 I don’t think I found this one either. Noice

[Oner]

I've been playing the Darktide closed beta this weekend and it's tons of fun, though there are some obvious beta flaws.

[Wormerine]

I dipped back into Elden Ring after a lengthy break. I find it harder and harder to find content that I haven’t done before. Fighting same mini-bosses for the x time really looses its charm. I think I finally finished underground sections which makes me sad, as it’s been mu fave part of the game (outside actual classing boss dungeons). I fought the Astel Naturalborn of the Void, which was first new thing in a while. I am over level 100 and most of my weapons seem to be maxed out. I feel like I am running out of progression as well, and there still seems to be a lot of the game.

Playing some more Cyberpunk - I need to motivate myself to keep going, it bores me. Easily worst CDPR game so far. I am shocked how little there is to it and how poorly paced missions are. I didn’t expect CDPR to have uninteresting quests - that one thing that’s been carrying their games since Witcher1. There are some interesting ideas and characters here and there so perhaps they lack couple rewrites and re-designs. Cyberpunk is euro-jank, except euro-jank tends to have something interesting and unique at its core. Cyberpunk is a generic junky title with nice looking screenshots being all it can offer. Bugs and unfinished state aside, it just lacks creativity and that can’t be patched in. 

[Gfted1]

7 hours ago, Gorth said:

It somehow reminds me of a certain sword. It might have been BG1. You fight your butt off against overwhelming opposition, overcome it and get the gadget/weapon. At which point you no longer need it, because the hardest opposition in game is now behind you

 

(the sword I'm thinking of is a sword of spider slaying, +5 against spiders or some such, being the reward for killing off the last spider boss in the game)

Theres also The Sword of Balduran (silver weapon), which you get as a reward for defeating the greater werewolf boss. :doh: 

[BruceVC]

58 minutes ago, Gfted1 said:

Theres also The Sword of Balduran (silver weapon), which you get as a reward for defeating the greater werewolf boss. :doh: 

This is the best sword I found, Carsomyr and I upgraded it. I didnt have a paladin in my party but my thief used the high level ability " Use Any Item"  and Vienxay could use it 

https://baldursgate.fandom.com/wiki/Carsomyr

 

[majestic]

Never mind.

[Bartimaeus]

44 minutes ago, majestic said:

Never mind.

I had to look: hoo boy, I do believe this helps explain a few things, .

Edited October 16, 2022 by Bartimaeus

[LadyCrimson]

Gedonia -

Pros (at least in my opinion)
---rather charming to explore around. Nothing special, but still charming enough.
---there's an alchemy pot for respec talent tree pts but you cannot respect attribute/chr. points. Thus you actually have to replay if you want to try multiple min/max type builds, if that's your thing.
---skill trees are totally up to you/build your own class, altho attribute points affect what you can do/how good you are, beyond just dialogue or quest options. Example, 0 INT means no crafting, 0 Agility means no Dodge mechanic for u. The layout/structure of the talent/skill trees remind me a little of Grim Dawn. A little.
---There's an option to turn off enemy respawning, which I'm using. It's nice to not have to fight/avoid anything just to go "back" long distances. I may turn it on and off periodically, dunno.
---the usual skills like alchemy, cooking, weapon/outfit crafting, ingredient collectables and  nodes.
---one magic tree eventually gets Flying. I...must...have...it...

Cons
---combat, especially melee, feels clunky and a little unresponsive or with little "impact" feel. It works but...
---companion/summon AI follow is glitchy at times. There's a button combo to teleport them back to you and I find I have to do it constantly to make them effective. Creep up to enemy, hit those buttons to make them appear next to you so they start a fight, then use a bow myself. Twice they've gotten totally stuck but an exit/reload fixes it.
---the horse riding is clunky, no surprise. I prefer walking but default walking is pretty slow and I don't have 10000 staminia potions yet, so the horse is useful for long treks to towns or whtaever.
---one of those games where if you explore/battle randomly, a lot, early on, you start getting rep with factions that you know nothing about or whether the rep is something you even want. I would guess it doesn't matter tons tho, outside of when you finally choose a faction.

Initial summary:
----reminds me a little of a cross between Elder Scrolls and an ARPG like Grim Dawn or Torchlight, perhaps
---there's a plot but don't know much about it yet. Good light fun if you like such gameplay, probably decent replay value if you like trying different builds/options.
---for a one-man developer, not a bad game for the low price. eg, so far I like it.

Edited October 16, 2022 by LadyCrimson

[BruceVC]

9 hours ago, majestic said:

Never mind.

I wish you would stop doing that, if you have something to say just say it. Dont be scared, I dont bite 

Whats the point  you want to make about  Carsomyr, I doubt I will play the BG series again so Im interested in retrospective insight ?

 

[bugarup]

So, uh, had the brilliant idea of "I'll just install that GOG's Skyrim real quick to see if it works and if I can play anything but a sneaky archer now". Now weekend is gone as if never happened, I'm saving for a homestead and no, I can't play anything but a sneaky archer. What do they put in those games 

[Humanoid]

Apparently I haven't played Skyrim since 2015. Would be tempted to if I could maybe get the GOG version for less than a tenner. Unfortunately my Steam version is no good because I never bought Dawnguard, which in itself would be okay because I don't care about Dawnguard, but some interesting mods require it. And you can't buy it at all now, let alone for a reasonable price. And the Game Pass version doesn't support SKSE so that's out too.

[BruceVC]

1 hour ago, bugarup said:

So, uh, had the brilliant idea of "I'll just install that GOG's Skyrim real quick to see if it works and if I can play anything but a sneaky archer now". Now weekend is gone as if never happened, I'm saving for a homestead and no, I can't play anything but a sneaky archer. What do they put in those games 

As someone who is a huge fan  of Bethesda games I can answer that question, they fun and entertaining. Sometimes the proven  success formulas are still the best 

Are you using mods?

[LadyCrimson]

Gedonia - I found the spot for the player house. Near a castled town.

But I ran out of gold. 

Anyway, that's how you get a "stash" - purchase and plonk down some chests in your house, or anywhere. Backpack is decent size (3 pages) but chest stash is always handy. Can also place crafting stations and the like within that circle. I think you can build up to three-story, but ... need more gold!
Forgot to mention, the game has a simple modding editor/Steam Workshop capability. Add your own caves/bosses or chests or even basic towns or quests, I think, to the map if you feel like it for some reason. So that's a bonus.

[bugarup]

24 minutes ago, BruceVC said:

As someone who is a huge fan  of Bethesda games I can answer that question, they fun and entertaining. Sometimes the proven  success formulas are still the best 

Are you using mods?

Just ones that come with that extended aniversary yadda yadda edition. Skyrim's section at Nexus is Sturgeon's nightmare and I cannot be arsed to dig for that 5% gold in piles of dreck. 

Edited October 17, 2022 by bugarup

[BruceVC]

1 hour ago, bugarup said:

Just ones that come with that extended aniversary yadda yadda edition. Skyrim's section at Nexus is Sturgeon's nightmare and I cannot be arsed to dig for that 5% gold in piles of dreck. 

You right it definitely takes time to find the appropriate mods , I mentioned this before but I spent about 10-12 hours finding the right mods for Oblivion. Its part of the fun of playing ES games, imagine how long its going to take me  when I play Skyrim AE because that comes with 500 creation club mods and you can load additional mods which I will source from Nexus 

What I find always speeds up finding mods on Nexus is to filter the mod list to "Most endorsed " or " Top Files " or use the " Mod Categories " so that you can easily find specific mods like NPC or Creatures. It makes your mod selection much easier