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

[xzar_monty]

What the IWD games hammered home for me was that I really like inter-party interaction, even if it's often quite superficial. I just couldn't get into IWD2 at all, knowing that none of the characters in my party had a backstory or anything to say about anything.

Edited March 22, 2023 by xzar_monty

[BruceVC]

17 minutes ago, xzar_monty said:

What the IWD games hammered home for me was that I really like inter-party interaction, even if it's often quite superficial. I just couldn't get into IWD2 at all, knowing that none of the characters in my party had a backstory or anything to say about anything.

I installed a mod for that, there is an official IWD2 banter pack 

https://www.gibberlings3.net/mods/npcs/iwd2npc/

[xzar_monty]

Wow!

I have once played BG2 with all sorts of mods installed, and the quality varied immensely. Some of them are pretty good, I have to say.

[LadyCrimson]

Tried to find last 2 missing Conjurations in Hogwart's. Butterly walkthru's - nope, got those, all map icons say I got them, ran thru dungeons 2nd times to be sure etc. Finally went and double checked all the Vivariums - apparently I missed two in those. >.> Then couldn't figure out what 2 "exploration" outfits were. Looked it up. Got those.

During getting those outfits, the Achievement for "defeat enemies in all battle Arena's" popped, even tho I'd only done two of them. Is that supposed to happen? Whatever, they were boring so glad I didn't have to do the other four or six or whatever there is. Good enough - not doing that last one re: A. magic on all enemies. Just wanted one save with all the outfits/ and personal room deco/conjurations. Y'know, the important stuff. 

[majestic]

13 hours ago, Gorth said:

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)

That is true for the first IWD. Druids in IWD2 are used in cheese builds for Barkskin and the fun fact that Druid/Bards can sing while shape-shifted, allowing for some really wild character stats. Having a character with 12 levels in Druid is more or less a requirement for smoother Heart of Fury play as Barkskin yields an impressive generic +5 AC that stacks, but otherwise, nah.

8 hours ago, LadyCrimson said:

During getting those outfits, the Achievement for "defeat enemies in all battle Arena's" popped, even tho I'd only done two of them. Is that supposed to happen?

There are only two. Three if you count the Dark Arts one from the DLC.

[Wormerine]

Finished Wo Long.

Yeah, it's fine. Level design and story are poor, and combat is decent but could be better.

There are some interesting systems at play with kind of Sekiro like posture bar, that also acts as mana for skills and spells - I really struggled to find use for those, and spending mana on emporing heavy attack just seemed infinitely more effective.

Combat revolves around blocking enemy attacks, especially charged, red super attacks - unlike Sekiro those are parried exactly the same as normal attacks, so due to long windup and clear telegraphing those are more desirable than regular attacks - any more challenging encounters came down for me to figuring out what player behaviour is more likely to trigger enemy heavy attacks. There is also notacable lack of enemy variety. That is also amplified by simplicity of counter mechanic, that results in enemies feeling kinda the same to fight, no matter their apperance.

The game has odd difficulty spikes, but for the most part the game is easy. Definitely the easiest souls-like I played.

[Hawke64]

Immortal: Unchained. The jungles of Veridian, day 4 (?). I have lost track of time and the sight of the only other non-hostile humanoid, and started talking to rocks. A flying rock offered to "rub its sphere" and to "delight in its awe".
I have defeated the third main boss by shooting it mostly in the face and in the weak point on the back when I could. The newly-found assault rifle, surprisingly, was shooting reasonably straight, unlike the other assault rifles I had tried, and dealing decent damage. It also was the only "Good" (upgraded to +3 from the start) weapon I had.

At the moment, I can say that I like the visual cues - the armour upgrades and "bonfires" are marked by large cables running across nearby walls, thus clearly visible from a distance. There are no inventory limit or weapon durability (unlike Decay of Logos), the enemy and weapon variety is decent so far (unlike Mortal Shell), the level design is generally nice - not on the level of DS1 or The Surge, but not too linear either, and it is possible to continue from the exact point you left (unlike Ashen). Though, I am not looking forward to backtracking back to the hub, even considering that it should be faster with the shortcuts unlocked. I can see the fast travel option in the menu, but it is locked at the moment.
Edit. Took about an hour to find the way back. The new gun is a wonder.

About a half of the foes can be shot in the face, the other half must be shot in the weak point on the back, which means either baiting them (some approach if cannot reach, some hold their ground) or running to them. The latter is not recommended due to the high likelihood of ambushes - the undead can raise from the floor without a chance to spot and attack them first, but quitting to the main menu resets their positions and occasionally breaks the spawn triggers. Additionally, there is a light dismemberment system - damaging a body part sufficiently destroys it, but the opponent usually is almost dead at that point.

Also, the optional chests require a certain number of key items to be unlocked and these key items are not consumed upon use.

Edited March 22, 2023 by Hawke64

[LadyCrimson]

On 3/22/2023 at 10:13 AM, majestic said:

There are only two. Three if you count the Dark Arts one from the DLC.

Oh. I do have the Dark Arts stuff but I guess for some stupid reason my brain was often mixing up Dungeon icons as being Arenas so I had it in my head there were a lot more.  >.> 

[majestic]

120+ minutes queue in D4. Congratulations ActiBlizz.

[MrBrown]

Played a few hours of D4.

Dunno why all these diablo-likes insists on having really slow starts. It's ok one time, but if I have to level all future characters like this, I just might not.

Cutscenes are loooong. Got bored and skipped all I've come across so far.

Otherwise seems quite similar to D3. Just early game though, dunno how it'll end up.

[LadyCrimson]

So...I'm guessing Asmongold has never played a Diablo summon Necro before.  
...they always feel broken...until you reach that boss/enemy that curbstombs your army in 5 seconds and there are no corpses. Or Blizz nerfs them to death, like they do with all classes eventually.
...D3's necro was fairly broken for a long time tho. I needed no meta/gear to make the summoned mages kill near everything

Edit: video language warning. 

 

Edited March 24, 2023 by LadyCrimson

[uuuhhii]

3 hours ago, LadyCrimson said:

So...I'm guessing Asmongold has never played a Diablo summon Necro before.  
...they always feel broken...until you reach that boss/enemy that curbstombs your army in 5 seconds and there are no corpses. Or Blizz nerfs them to death, like they do with all classes eventually.
...D3's necro was fairly broken for a long time tho. I needed no meta/gear to make the summoned mages kill near everything

Edit: video language warning. 

 

 

 

[LadyCrimson]

RE4-Remake.

I was bored.
Installed. Set settings. Start new game. Two cutscenes, then standing somewhere. Take four steps. Crash, with my TV screen turning two-toned blue with any windows on it being squished (like a resolution/scaling/display error), which goes away if I turn on/off/on the TV. Repeat 20 times as I fiddle. Verify game integrity, seemed to reinstall something, no more crash. Ok, whatever. Per usual since I want to run in 4k, I don't have RT on, mostly High settings, mostly 50-60fps. Never played the original so don't know how it compares visually but it looks pretty good here.

TV screen still turns that two-tone blue when I exit the game however. No clue.

The game? I dunno, I investigated then "escaped" the first grimy hut, found a save typewriter, and that's it. The crash stuff wore me out.

[Gorgon]

I wonder if there's been anything done to the last of us 1 remake on PC. It's out next week.  Would be cool if it looked as good as the sequel, but it's probably just a money grab on the strength of the TV series. 

[MrBrown]

12 hours ago, LadyCrimson said:

So...I'm guessing Asmongold has never played a Diablo summon Necro before.  
...they always feel broken...until you reach that boss/enemy that curbstombs your army in 5 seconds and there are no corpses. Or Blizz nerfs them to death, like they do with all classes eventually.
...D3's necro was fairly broken for a long time tho. I needed no meta/gear to make the summoned mages kill near everything

I've played Rogue and Necro on D4 so far, Necro is way easier.

But yeah, summoners are hard to balance.

[Mamoulian War]

More Tales of Arise. My gametime became very limited since my last update about the game Thankfuly, the breaks are not that big to forget the story, so I am still enjoying it a lot I have landed on Rena today, and my oh my, a lot of surprises in the story since defeating the lord of Mahag Saar exactly one month ago

I have defeated one more Renan lord, and learned about the forgotten history of both Renan and Dahnan nations, and big secret behind it

The game has much much better pace than FFXV or any previous Tales of Games, which I played, with the exception of Tales of Berseria and Tales of Xillia 1. We'll see how this will look like after few more hours, as the game as a typical JRPG just opened the pre-final boss quest hub in front of me

[LadyCrimson]

5 hours ago, Gorgon said:

I wonder if there's been anything done to the last of us 1 remake on PC. It's out next week.  Would be cool if it looked as good as the sequel, but it's probably just a money grab on the strength of the TV series. 

From the original game, much visual improvement/definitely looks "modern" far as I can tell. The remake is already on PS5 etc tho and from what I can see it likely won't look tons better on PC - the usual extra lighting/shadow type improvement. So you could just look at videos from PS5 to get a general idea.

[LadyCrimson]

RE4-Remake:

Reach the first village. Try to "fight off" a dozen and more of baddies. Run out of ammo, can't figure out melee fast enough. Die, die, die. Try to avoid/semi-stealth baddies. Die. Wait are they respawning?? Die. Try to kill some baddie with a chainsaw who pops up at some point. Die. Finally manage to defeat chainsaw-thing. Run around the place looting. Oh look, a cute pig! It attacks me. Die. 

Exit Game?
Yes.

...I know it's 99% that I simply suck at l2play stages iof this sort of game, but first PC game where the microseconds between seeing a (controller) prompt, pushing the button, and game reacting to pushing the button feels very sluggish/off. That is not helping. Also, everything is a bullet sponge, even direct shots to the face.
...I do like that there's a minor crafting element (I think that is new to this remake?) so there is more to pick up/collect then just ammo/weapons.

Edited March 25, 2023 by LadyCrimson

[MrBrown]

Done with D4 beta for now. Seems good. Will probably buy the game when it releases, unless something weird comes up.

Feels more like a typical RPG with the huge number of side quests.

[LadyCrimson]

^ I'll just watch/skim Asmongold's 6 hour Necro video, then I don't have to play the game. 

I found a cheatengine thing for RE4-M, so I played a little longer. It's not the sort of game where it's still fun even if cheating, since it's basically all combat/confront moments but at least I could see more of it within 2 hrs to judge whether I'd like it enough to gitgud. I do kind of like the game, the two chrs. I've met so far, but I don't think I'd want to spend the time to figure out how to not die 10 times per fight.   Not the fault of the game, just my skillz/mentality. It definitely looks great, has a nice horror feel (lots o' gore kills if you don't turn it off), little things/goals to do between confrontation areas. Very linear but has a minimal exploration feel. But I'm too lazy, so I'll probably refund it. It's cinematic enough, maybe I'll watch  MKIceandFire story walkthru of it. 

...in another 10-15 years I'll probably always just sit in my recliner and watch videos like that vs. actually playing anything. Hahah.

Edited March 26, 2023 by LadyCrimson

[Malcador]

My Rogue had a lot of trouble with the beta boss at 18, cheesed it by running around with poison traps. Reminds me of so many WoW raids hah. 

[Hawke64]

Lost in Random. Defeated the boss of the second area, Two-Town. The visual design, writing, and VA are lovely. The location, combat, and quest design are awful - the former are corridors with designated arenas, where you stand against spongy and same-y waves of foes, while the combat consists of firstly charging your abilities (cards) by shooting off crystals growing on the enemies' bodies, then selecting an ability from a pool (the abilities available at any given moment are random, but limited to the pool, which is customisable and it is possible to select the same ability several times; some give an actual weapon, such as a sword or a bow, others heal or summon AoE attacks), then possibly killing 1-2 opponents before it needs recharging. The writing is similar to a fairytale with a fourth-wall-breaking narrator, and the dialogue puzzles, while not deep, are amusing. With the difficulty decreased to the Story Mode, the combat became bearable, but not enjoyable. The controls being hard-coded did not help. It should have been either fully tactical turn-based or fully hack-and-slash action. Or just a combat-free adventure or platformer.

Immortal: Unchained. Reached the third main area, Apexion, an imposing city surrounded by storms. There were teleporting snipers, accompanied by suicide bombers rising from the concrete floors, while the main boss of the area could infinitely summon drones before the previously-summoned ones have been destroyed. Fortunately, the auto-saving with Windows Explorer works like quick saving with extra steps, so backtracking was minimal. Also, the area was much smaller than the previous one, the forest of Veridian.

[Wormerine]

Played a bit of Diablo 4. Seems alright. Always online would make my eye roll, if I didn't expect it from Blizz at this point. It doesn't help though, that I am constantly reminded of it with frequest lag as I assume the game tries to connect to a new region. Also, I don't think I have seen an atmosphere in the game dissolve as quickly as in D4 when after pretty decent opening I started game proper, and bunch of player avatars spawned at the same time around me.

Started with Druid and had a decent time as a Werebear. Decided to give Sorcerer a short go, and it turned out Druid is kinda crap. Iceshield made my sorcerer pretty much involnourable, while recovering Mana, and incinerate melted everything in my path.

Ended up running into Butcher, which seems to be some kind of hunter boss - he just popped up in one of the dungeons and completely obliterated me. Dissapeared afterwards, so it seems like a more one-off event.

I had my fill of clicking until things die, but outside connection issues, it seems solid.

[LadyCrimson]

7 hours ago, Wormerine said:

Decided to give Sorcerer a short go, and it turned out Druid is kinda crap.

All the videos I've seen re: the Druid is that sure, it can kill/do everything but it's the clear speed (vs. the other classes and while not needing very specific gear pieces) people are complaining about. If your long-term goal is to level up a chr to max level and then farm endlessly for paragon and gear/upgrades/craft, or climb a season Ladder, you want a fast clear speed. If you don't care about that/aren't in a hurry, and simply enjoy Druid skills/style play, nothing wrong with it. 

But I'm sure Druid will get buffed and Necro/Sorc get nerfed before release.   

[Keyrock]

I reached my first ending in AI: The Somnium Files - nirvanA Initiative. Well, that's not entirely accurate, earlier I got a joke ending, similar to one from the first game, where I forgot about the case and ran off with the big breasted receptionist at Lemniscate. This was the first "real" ending. Spike Chunsoft tradition is that all the endings besides the true ending range from sad to horrifying to WTF!? and this was no exception. It's a branching paths type game, so I'm going to go through several of these, unlocking new routes along the way, until I get the true ending and the full story.

So far the game is already fairly weird, with corpses cut in half at the molecular level appearing and talk of simulation theory. Of course, if previous Spike Chunsoft games are anything to go by, it's going to get way weirder and more complicated from here on out, stuff like simulation theory (which is not THAT crazy, if you think about it. I'm not saying it's necessarily correct, but it is plausible) is liable to only be the tip of the iceberg. I fully expect much more crackpot stuff ahead.

A nice feature is that there are separate difficulty options for the somniums and for QTEs. The first game didn't have a lot of action scenes, and neither has this one, so far, but there were a few and they were the worst part of the game, by virtue of the "gameplay" being just QTEs. At least in this game I can make the QTEs so trivial that I can breeze through them and the action scenes essentially just become cutscenes without changing the difficulty of somniums. Somniums are puzzles and I like puzzles, hence I don't want to make those trivial, but QTEs are not fun (does ANYONE think QTEs are fun?) and while I can't remove them entirely, the next best thing is to just make them trivial.