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

[Raithe]

I have been idling along some time doing a NewGame+ run through on Horizon Zero Dawn. Interesting to see how the pacing feels when you know all the story beats in advance. Still think some of those audio and written data-points have some great emotional gut punches in them.

 

Out of curiosity, I picked up Humankind in the sale the other week and gave it a poke. Very much that Civilisation lite type of game, just with the gimmick that every age you can reset your culture to have different goals, bonuses, and specialty building / unit. I think it would flow better if you had a generic name, and then just adopted those bits as part of your culture. As it is you can start Babylonian, turn Greek, then Persian, then French, then Swedish. Just feels a little jarring.

It's nice enough as is, and you can spend a weekend filling your hours up growing a civilisation up and such like, but there's nothing gameplay wise that jumps out as that new or fresh.  Luxury and Strategic resources discovered as you go up the tech tree, some glitchy diplomacy routines, military units to roam after bandits/barbarians/mercenary units, or engage in warfare with other (AI or not) players. Wonders to build. Influence to spread.

Nice enough, but if you've already got a couple of these types of games in your library, there's not much point to adding it in.

 

[Malcador]

Giving Space Haven a go. Not entirely sure I know what I'm doing, but failed my first try.  Crew member had a mental break and set fire to the toilet and then died due to smoke inhalation, then the ship reactor ran out of energy and everyone died.

[Hurlshort]

Outward has me hooked. Last night I managed to travel to a ley line and unlock my ability to do magic. I was ready for bed, so I took a boat back to a beach and looked for a place to camp. There was a fortress nearby, and the guards seemed friendly enough (they didn't try to kill me on site). I asked for shelter, but they knocked me out, took all my stuff, and threw me in a cell. So I guess I will be trying to escape the next time I play. At least I have a couple spells now, so I'm not defenseless. 

Not having a quicksave or reload option puts you in some strange spots.

[Wormerine]

Just to me up to date for Dragon Age4, I playthrough through of Dragon Age: Inquisition - did main campaign with minimal amount of open world, and completely it's three DLCs.

What an absolute ****show.

Someone here told me a way back that the game gets better after Hinterlands. That's really strange to me, as nothing really changes, beside a change in scenery, story missions getting worse and worse, and swaping small keep, into large, overly spread out and frustrating to navigate keep.

I didn't like the main campaign. The opening hours were junky, but I liked set up for an inquisition, Demonic threat seemed interested and main villain peaked my interest (never played DLCs for DA2, so he was new to me). In true Dragon Age fashion, Inquisition has interesting world and teases interesting directions but chooses to ignore every interesting thread it could pull and went for a boring, generic story, with a bland baddy who.... what was he trying to do? Now when I think of it, I don't think I even know. Demons are just another darkspawns, and in spite of hinting at Inquisition's tricky political situation the player never gets engaged with it. Easily the most interesting mission was in the WInter Palance, but the potential of the concept was killed by tying it back to Coryphius, rather than being an intrigue of its own. Combat was tedius, main missions undercooked, open world bland and repetitive, it was nice to see returning faces but their inclusion brought nothing of value beside a shot of nostalgia.

I thought companions were decent, though having to chase them around the keep, and getting teleported around with every cutscene really soured the experience for me. Stories written for the war table were more interesting than anything in the actual game. I wish I had one of my advisors' job.

DLCs were fine. Open world area had at least context to it. Deep Roads dive I could do without, but what can one do with that terrible combat. Trasspaser is easily best part of the title, but keeping the only really compelling character in the game as a teaser for the sequel just feels hurtful after so many hours of absolute ****e. If all of the game was Trasspaser I would be much happier.

I need to check Andromeda and Anthem at some point, as I can't just imagine things getting worse that this.

[Wormerine]

Ah also picked up Kena: Bridge of Spirits. It is not as pretty as I expected, but I have been enjoying it so far. Reminds me of a kind of a game Ubisoft would put out in the good old days before AssCreed - just a charming, well crafted third person adventure.

[MrBrown]

17 hours ago, Wormerine said:

Trasspaser is easily best part of the title, but keeping the only really compelling character in the game as a teaser for the sequel just feels hurtful after so many hours of absolute ****e. If all of the game was Trasspaser I would be much happier.

This is something they did with ME2->ME3 too, having a "teaser" DLC. I hope they don't continue.

[MrBrown]

I'm trying to play FF7 remake, but gawd, the story is dragging on.

Gameplay is ok though.

[Sandro G Meier]

After Triumph announced AOW 4, I've been back in AOW 3 again, still quite fun. Just the flow was too slow, cost too much time though.

By the meantime, I still working on TOEE. And the clock of Chinese New Year vacation is ticking.

Happy time is always that short, I guess...

[ShadySands]

On 1/24/2023 at 6:03 PM, Wormerine said:

I need to check Andromeda and Anthem at some point, as I can't just imagine things getting worse that this.

Oh man, it can and will. I look forward to your Andromeda playthrough as it's basically DA:I in spaaaace. A lot of interesting ideas that they bring up and then discard to instead keep on with the same tired stuff. It's not as bad if you skip as much open world stuff as possible just like you did with DA:I.

Edited January 26, 2023 by ShadySands

[Hurlshort]

Did anyone even play Anthem? That game had nothing I was interested in.

[ShadySands]

Since they went from revamping it to pulling the plug on it, I'm going to go with no

[Wormerine]

On 1/25/2023 at 6:10 PM, MrBrown said:

This is something they did with ME2->ME3 too, having a "teaser" DLC. I hope they don't continue.

Yeah, I forgot about that one.

21 hours ago, MrBrown said:

I'm trying to play FF7 remake, but gawd, the story is dragging on.

I quite liked spending more time with characters early on, but later parts did feel like padding though. Still, considering that they stretched 4 hours long intro into a 40 hours long game, they did it pretty smoothly. They completely lost me at the end, though.

6 hours ago, ShadySands said:

Oh man, it can and will. I look forward to your Andromeda playthrough as it's basically DA:I in spaaaace.

But jetpacking and shooting folks is suppose to by satisfying at least on a very basic level, no? Maybe I did a mistake by picking two handed melee fighter as my Inquisitor, but combat felt really bad and unresponsive in DA3.

[Gorth]

On 1/25/2023 at 11:03 AM, Wormerine said:

Just to me up to date for Dragon Age4, I playthrough through of Dragon Age: Inquisition - did main campaign with minimal amount of open world, and completely it's three DLCs.

What an absolute ****show.

Someone here told me a way back that the game gets better after Hinterlands. That's really strange to me, as nothing really changes, beside a change in scenery, story missions getting worse and worse, and swaping small keep, into large, overly spread out and frustrating to navigate keep.

I didn't like the main campaign. The opening hours were junky, but I liked set up for an inquisition, Demonic threat seemed interested and main villain peaked my interest (never played DLCs for DA2, so he was new to me). In true Dragon Age fashion, Inquisition has interesting world and teases interesting directions but chooses to ignore every interesting thread it could pull and went for a boring, generic story, with a bland baddy who.... what was he trying to do? Now when I think of it, I don't think I even know. Demons are just another darkspawns, and in spite of hinting at Inquisition's tricky political situation the player never gets engaged with it. Easily the most interesting mission was in the WInter Palance, but the potential of the concept was killed by tying it back to Coryphius, rather than being an intrigue of its own. Combat was tedius, main missions undercooked, open world bland and repetitive, it was nice to see returning faces but their inclusion brought nothing of value beside a shot of nostalgia.

I thought companions were decent, though having to chase them around the keep, and getting teleported around with every cutscene really soured the experience for me. Stories written for the war table were more interesting than anything in the actual game. I wish I had one of my advisors' job.

DLCs were fine. Open world area had at least context to it. Deep Roads dive I could do without, but what can one do with that terrible combat. Trasspaser is easily best part of the title, but keeping the only really compelling character in the game as a teaser for the sequel just feels hurtful after so many hours of absolute ****e. If all of the game was Trasspaser I would be much happier.

I need to check Andromeda and Anthem at some point, as I can't just imagine things getting worse that this.

You’re a much more tolerant person than I am

 

three failed attempts at getting through the games intro and now I just can’t be bothered. The most i uninteresting part of the first games was for me the church vs mages thing

[uuuhhii]

mea have better combat design than me3

if the other part of the game are not so horrible it might attract more attention

hard to say how good dai combat are

npc and pc run on completely different system are certainly a problem

[BruceVC]

I havent been able to post for a month due to my Chrome posts being eaten so I have updated gaming news

I finished ELEX 2 and it was fun, its not as good as ELEX 1 but I enjoyed the noticeable crafting improvements and the faction interaction is always entertaining. The main narrative is a little meh until I learnt the origins of the Skyands and then it was more interesting. Its gets 65\100 on the globally respected " BruceVC game rating system"

And then I decided to finally play DA:I, Im 10 hours in and Im enjoying it. I have some reasonable criticisms around combat mechanics and exploration but I  will make a detailed post later when I have played more. I am using both  DAI and Frosty mods and getting them working together is also a story  I will share later 

[bugarup]

ME3 is DA:I reskin with moar fun combat, blander companions and equally inane story. Even some monsters had the same behavior pattern as DA:I's titanium-skinned lootless bears that would home in onto you from across the opposite corner of the map, stealth or not. 

What I remember the most from DA:I was a bug that allowed some fighter subclass be invincible and do, like 300x than supposed to be damage at the same time when doing a roll , so my dragon strat was to roll on'em to death. Also how crafting system allowed for splendiferously glorious garb combining yellow tartan and blue paisley. Good times.   These memories sometimes make me nostalgic enough to think of replaying, but then I remember the rest of the game and yeah, nah. 

 

[BruceVC]

1 hour ago, bugarup said:

ME3 is DA:I reskin with moar fun combat, blander companions and equally inane story. Even some monsters had the same behavior pattern as DA:I's titanium-skinned lootless bears that would home in onto you from across the opposite corner of the map, stealth or not. 

What I remember the most from DA:I was a bug that allowed some fighter subclass be invincible and do, like 300x than supposed to be damage at the same time when doing a roll , so my dragon strat was to roll on'em to death. Also how crafting system allowed for splendiferously glorious garb combining yellow tartan and blue paisley. Good times.   These memories sometimes make me nostalgic enough to think of replaying, but then I remember the rest of the game and yeah, nah. 

 

" titanium-skinned lootless bears that would home in onto you from across the opposite corner of the map, stealth or not. " 

Yes, so thats sort of what I am referring to around ostensible flaws on the combat mechanics. But I want to give myself more time, maybe 20 hours or so, and then I comment more objectively and in more detail 

[Wormerine]

6 hours ago, Gorth said:

You’re a much more tolerant person than I am

Nah, I am afraid I just can’t help myself from not finishing games I am starting if they have story. I have been slowly slogging through DA:I for probably over a year. I attempted to give up on it once, but it found it’s way back to my disk in the name of completion. 

[Humanoid]

I played the one session of DA3, got through the tutorial, got my HQ, and sent off the timed mission from the mission table. Reckon if I launch the game again that mission would be done? It's only been about 8 years.

[kanisatha]

I got through one run of DA:I and I enjoyed it. The repetitious meaningless combat was definitely a pain, and why I doubt I'll ever replay it, but the parts of the game outside of combat including the story I liked quite a bit.

[kanisatha]

9 hours ago, BruceVC said:

I havent been able to post for a month due to my Chrome posts being eaten

Welcome back, @BruceVC

[MrBrown]

I found the most stress-free way to play DA:I was to control a sword&shield warrior tanking everything, and have everyone else be ranged with the AI handling them.

Other party compositions are viable, but require more micro management, or specific kind of items to be effective.

[Tale]

I ended up playing a little indie game you've probably never heard of called Elden Ring.

Anyway, it's fantastic and I found myself wondering why I waited so dang long to check it out. I've been a big Soulsborne fan, though maybe I didn't find Sekiro worth finishing. But I enjoyed it so much this has turned into a Dark Souls marathon. Dark Souls 1 down and now I'm in the midst of Dark Souls 2. This is my first experience with Scholar of the First Sin edition and will be my first time with the DLCs.

I recall plodding through the original Dark Souls 2 carefully and doing a pretty decent job. This time I feel like I'm getting drowned in fights every couple feet. As a conquence I'm massively overleveling this game. So that's a mixed bag. It's easier because of my levels, but it's tense because I'll go somewhere and fight like 6 tough enemies in a row followed by an NPC invader....

[Hurlshort]

40 minutes ago, Tale said:

I ended up playing a little indie game you've probably never heard of called Elden Ring.

Sounds like and Elder Scrolls ripoff.

I started a new character in Outward. The male faces are terrible. They look like they have spent the last few decades polishing off all the alcohol in the village. So I made a female character. I also went with a halberd instead of my sword and board build from before. The halberd is much easier to use against the early enemies. It lets me keep my distance much easier. I haven't decided if I'm going to even bother with magic this time around. My first character had a couple spells, but managing mana is tricky and you lose health and stamina to attain it. But it is early and I'm still deciding on my path. 

[majestic]

On 1/26/2023 at 6:08 PM, Hurlshort said:

Did anyone even play Anthem?

I did, because at the time I could play through Origin Access - EA Play nowadays. Anthem, at release, was l ike a tech demo that promised a fun game once completed, which is a truly sorry state for a multiplayer experience to launch in. When it worked and you got a decent group to play with, it was pretty good. The flying worked well and the combat was much better than in Mass Effect: Andromeda and Dragon Age: Inquisition.

It was everything else that was the problem, from the disjointed story to the technical aspects that led to the game's loading screens being longer than some of the missions, to a grindy and repetitive endgame with way too little variety in everything. Loot was boring, it was always the same handful of missions, and the loot was boring. Did I mention that everything that is supposed to keep one playing through an end-game grind in a co-op multiplayer experience with RPG elements was boring? Particularily the loot and the mission variety.

Forcing Bioware to adopt Frostbite for everything turned out to be a wonderful decision, and when they were close to actually making it work EA pulled the plug. Not that the decision was not understandable, Anthem hat preciously little to show for its enormous development time.

Edited January 28, 2023 by majestic