What are you Playing Now? It's not how you play the game, it's how you place the blame

[BruceVC]

So I completed Kingdom Come:D after about 100 hours, I loved this game and its highly recommend if you want to play a Medieval RPG

 

Its gets a solid 78/100 on the globally respected " BruceVC game rating system". I made several posts already on what is great and well done in this game but to summarize

 

• its makes a nice change to play a historically accurate Medieval RPG 
• the skills advancement and perks makes sense and you get rewarded for using abilities in a realistic way
• the combat is fun and exciting, you really  learn to appreciate how Combos work. The combat is one of the most endearing parts of the game
• I loved how activities like lockpicking and alchemy works. I enjoyed doing these mini-games right to the end, I didnt get bored once by the repetition 
• I appreciated  the open world design and how most quests you can do at your own pace 

Has anyone played the various DLCs, are they worth it?

I hope they release a sequel because I will definitely be investing in it and well done to Warhorse for this RPG gem 

Edited March 18, 2023 by BruceVC

[majestic]

10 hours ago, LadyCrimson said:

LOL  Well,  they wanted those saying that they 100% the game, to truly mean it.

But yeah, I have those two and the battle areas (so, 3) left. I think the Collections one is worse because when you're missing one or three it can be hard to figure out how to get them. It's probably Butterflies one missed, something like that. Or a chest/counter bug.

What you get out of collection chests is random, so there's no telling at all what you missed, made worse by the 27 untrackable collection chests* that are in the game. Everything else has a counter on it, why not those?

Well, at least I'm cured of trying open world games for the forseeable future. Every now and then I do, and the experience is almost always a sour one. Cyberpunk 2077 stands apart there, for some reason. Probably because everyone else complained how small the city is.

*Well, technically, 15 of them show up on the map in some fashion, it's 12 that don't at all.

Edited March 18, 2023 by majestic
where did my quote go?

[Bartimaeus]

2 hours ago, majestic said:

Probably because everyone else complained how small the city is.

CP2077 has a small open world? Well, first things first, the character creator...

Edited March 18, 2023 by Bartimaeus

[majestic]

26 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

CP2077 has a small open world? Well, first things first, the character creator...

I lack a frame of reference, so do take that with a grain of salt, but the city being small was a complaint from launch, as far as I can remember.

[Keyrock]

I would definitely not consider Night City a small open world. Then again, I play a lot of RGG games whose open worlds are the size of postage stamps compared to most.

[Malcador]

Early days in D4, memory usage is kind of nuts and I do get stuttering, but 8 year old machine so.  Is pretty much what I'd want from a Diablo game so far, kill things en masse.  Only had one crash/disco in about 2 hours so maybe luckier than most

[uuuhhii]

there are a lot game with of bigger map than cyberpunk

mostly empty land

[LadyCrimson]

7 hours ago, majestic said:

Well, at least I'm cured of trying open world games for the forseeable future.

Problem with many open worlds imo these days is they end up being collection games because Achievements. I personally think this idea that most games need Achievements has altered the way games are designed. I usually ignore them - if I get a lot of them it's just cause of game/easy trophy design or because I like goofing off in the game long enough. I doubt I'll ever bother getting those last three. Hogwart's world really isn't that large - but it would have been more interesting if the collecting had more purpose outside of trophies and the only way to level up. If they're going to make it action-rpg in a way, do more with it for replay value.  Imagine Diablos with almost zero loot variety or "builds". No one would play it for long.

 

2 hours ago, Malcador said:

Early days in D4

Can you turn off the other-player aspect of the Events or just turn Events off? Or is the only way to not see/interact with other players to ignore Events etc. entirely?

Edited March 18, 2023 by LadyCrimson

[Sarex]

19 hours ago, majestic said:

Everyone involved in making these two achievements needs to die, perferably in a very uncomfortable, painful way, something out of the medieval ridiculous executions book. To quote Lindsay Ellis: "Thanks, I hate it!"

You liked the game that much?

[Malcador]

3 hours ago, LadyCrimson said:

Can you turn off the other-player aspect of the Events or just turn Events off? Or is the only way to not see/interact with other players to ignore Events etc. entirely?

None that I could see, was wondering why some random elite was yelling at me, was an event I walked past and didn't see.

[LadyCrimson]

3 hours ago, Malcador said:

None that I could see, was wondering why some random elite was yelling at me, was an event I walked past and didn't see.

lol   

that's too bad tho...if I was bored enough I could probably at least put up with reinstalling the bnet client/online etc. But if I'm playing solo, it's because I don't want to see/interact with other players ... ever. Even on accident.

[Hawke64]

Immortal: Unchained. It is a sci-fi TPS/Souls-like that is not related to Immortal Plant, which was an isometric sci-fi Souls-like. Defeated the second boss and progressed through the jungle area. The game being a coverless shooter and a Souls-like at the same time works curiously, though it feels somehow odd that melee weapons are supplementary instead of primary. The location design is decent, but includes quite a lot of traps (spikes for the frozen world and vines for the jungles), which do not work on the foes. The armour progression is linear and locked behind Armour Shrines, each of them provides a specific improvement and may slightly change the appearance. So, now I have the Scarf of Not-Flinching 10%. The controls are mostly rebindable, with the exception of Shoot/LMB and Aim/RMB.

[marelooke]

On 3/18/2023 at 2:16 PM, majestic said:

I lack a frame of reference, so do take that with a grain of salt, but the city being small was a complaint from launch, as far as I can remember.

I recall people were unhappy large parts are underused (which I don't mind, this obsession with filling every square cm with "content" is horrible), but small is one I clearly missed.

Anyway, since I can't even get into Star Citizen atm since they literally broke my character's ability to log in like a week ago with no way to do anything about it, I grabbed Elite Dangerous to get my space fix

(oh, in case you were wondering how the major Star Citizen patch is going...not well )

I must say, ED is the game with the absolute worst new player experience of any game I've ever touched (and I've played some of the X games, EVE online, and, well Star Citizen). Even watching loads of videos didn't particularly clear anything up. Most are just videos about how to make massive amounts of moneyz pretending to be tutorials, and then skim over how you get the stuff you need to do so, because why would anyone watch a tutorial to get mechanics explained to them, right?

There's also this obnoxious issue I already reported years ago (I tried ED once before around 2019 and ended up refunding because of this issue), that apparently it is still around (in slightly less gameplay impacting form). For some reason the game decides it knows better than you which keyboard layout you should be using. Being Belgian this means it forces an azerty layout on me, even though I didn't even have an azerty layout configured in Windows at all (which it "helpfully" rectified by adding said layout to Windows ).

So yeah, can't make heads nor tails from the keybindings section, super helpful. Thankfully this is such a simple game...

Somehow I did manage to get things done, since it now forces the layout at least the keys are somewhat where you'd expect them to be, but the more specialized stuff (like scanners) is a massive pain in the neck to figure out like this, even after you know what you're looking for...

[MrBrown]

22 hours ago, LadyCrimson said:

lol   

that's too bad tho...if I was bored enough I could probably at least put up with reinstalling the bnet client/online etc. But if I'm playing solo, it's because I don't want to see/interact with other players ... ever. Even on accident.

Isn't D4 online in the same way D:Immortal is, that there's always other players in the areas?

[LadyCrimson]

4 hours ago, MrBrown said:

Isn't D4 online in the same way D:Immortal is, that there's always other players in the areas?

You're asking the person who doesn't own the game. 

But no, it's not true MMO style. You may see people in towns (I find this acceptable, aka PoE), in the overworld maybe pass them as you're going place to place (or you may never see anyone depending on when you play, or waypoints maybe, not sure etc). And ofc if you join Events or the World Boss or whatever that is.

Dungeons seem to be instances, so you can be totally alone or with just your friends, and a lot of the story stuff/missions seems like it's going to be in those. (edit - I've seen a few people stream for an hour or three and never saw another player, but they did no Events). I've seen some say they felt like they ran into people constantly and others saying they got to lvl 25/finished the Act (max level in the beta) and never saw/talked to anyone. So the answer is ... it depends on what you're doing, I guess.  

What I was hoping for was - people in towns but otherwise not unless you specifically joined an Event. Sounds like you could see other ppl more often than that, but could also largely avoid. No one knows about end-game tho - that isn't part of the beta.

Edited March 20, 2023 by LadyCrimson

[LadyCrimson]

^ I wrote all that, walked away for minute or so and realized I should've just said:

"My impression from watching some streams is that the story campaign can be played entirely solo but there may be other non-campaign reasons to wander the "world map" areas where players may compete for crafting resource nodes/enemies or whatever may be needed for, say, seasonal or other goals, but not sure."

Brevity, they name is not LC.

[BruceVC]

I have some exciting news,  I have decided to play IWD2 next. Not the player made EE edition but the original on GOG

I have loaded some mods, further updates to follow 

 

[Malcador]

On 3/18/2023 at 8:31 PM, LadyCrimson said:

lol   

that's too bad tho...if I was bored enough I could probably at least put up with reinstalling the bnet client/online etc. But if I'm playing solo, it's because I don't want to see/interact with other players ... ever. Even on accident.

Well, I didn't interact with anyone bar rezzing a dead guy, I didn't find it too bothersome but it was the early access beta and when I played it was hard to get in so maybe was just a reduced population.   Had trouble with one boss, but was just me not dodging attacks and probably not apply vulnerabilities. 

Only got to lvl 14 with my rogue before the window shut, so not the greatest picture.  Seems fun enough, the world building is nice, the writing is acceptable for Diablo.  There's another beta period soon, will make an effort to try the dungeons out.

[LadyCrimson]

I'm waiting for the Necro beta let's plays...I think that's the next one. I have a feeling Necro is the only class I'd care for much, just like D3.

At any rate, if I eventually cave and get/try it, it'll be at least a few months from now. I remember D3 release server madness - not going through that again. Plus as much as Acti-Blizz will patch, add to, and re-balance the game over time, waiting 3-6 months may be better (for me) anyway.

[Malcador]

45 minutes ago, LadyCrimson said:

I'm waiting for the Necro beta let's plays...I think that's the next one. I have a feeling Necro is the only class I'd care for much, just like D3.

At any rate, if I eventually cave and get/try it, it'll be at least a few months from now. I remember D3 release server madness - not going through that again. Plus as much as Acti-Blizz will patch, add to, and re-balance the game over time, waiting 3-6 months may be better (for me) anyway.

Wait for the Reaper of Souls expansion to fix everything.  

[majestic]

On 3/18/2023 at 7:16 PM, Sarex said:

You liked the game that much?

[uuuhhii]

trying lords of infinity

ridiculous amount of debt only increase with each year

not sure how to deal with that

royal sibling are so disgustingly delusional and cruel

at least writer know how to write villain

Edited March 29, 2023 by uuuhhii

[Hawke64]

Lost in Random. So far the most challenging part was getting the game to run. It cannot be family-shared on Steam, it uses an online-only double DRM, and has no graphical or control options. Unless it is a masterwork in terms of storytelling and gameplay, which I strongly doubt, these flaws are critical. 1 hour in, and it has been a linear action-adventure, granted, fully voiced and well animated. In terms of story, it is a fairytale about a girl who went looking for her kidnapped sister.

Immortal: Unchained. Still in the jungle area, Veridian. Encountered an optional boss, whose arena was littered with suicide bombers who were digging themselves out of the floor (i.e. I couldn't shoot them first, but could bait them one by one, or three by three), and who could (and did) one-hit-kill me. Fortunately, I was able to loot the containers in the corners of the arena without fighting, but with a lot of running and dodging. The floor being slightly underwater (ankle-deep) did not affect the movement speed anyhow. Also, I met a single non-hostile (yet) NPC in the area. During the third meeting he was sitting in a hole, and talking to him after jumping down triggered an ambush. The NPC was just standing and doing nothing (the zombies did not attack him either), but told me afterwards that we were victorious. Probably, playing it after Lost in Random makes Immortal: Unchained significantly more enjoyable, despite the occasional unpredictable ambushes. It is also much more quiet - no overly-talkative narrator.

Edited March 21, 2023 by Hawke64

[BruceVC]

Im only 4 hours into IWD2 and still killing goblins but I can feel its going to be another excellent IE D&D game experience

My party  is made up of the following, I loved the customizations and choices in the party creation 

 

• " ME" which is a human male  wizard  ( but anyone can be leader )
• Half-orc male barbarian
• Half-elf male ranger
• Drow female cleric ( I had to include a Viconia lookalike )
• Halfling female thief
• Human male Druid 

 

[Gorth]

11 hours ago, BruceVC said:

• Human male Druid 

It's been quite a few years since I played the game, but I seem to remember druid being quite powerful in this game (both offensive and support capabilities)