What are you Playing Now? - What doesn't kill you, gives you XP

[LadyCrimson]

I remember in MW, before they did some patches, when you could abuse potions of speed or flying or levitation or something (I don't recall) by stacking them to silly levels. I tried it once and made my chr. take a "step" - he flew up to the sky in a flash and the game crashed. I think you can still stack stat potions like that, but my memory says they patched out high stacking non-stat ones. Maybe I'm wrong tho. Anyway, it was funny.

Edit: *google* ... dang that was 21 years ago.  

Edited September 10, 2023 by LadyCrimson

[marelooke]

My opinion of Starfield is going downhill the more I play it. I've gone from "Eh, a 7/10, maybe?", to "No more than a 6/10", so far.

The UX is just atrocious, and clearly built around a very limited set of buttons ("press and hold" to exit the map, really?) to make it controller friendly, but they couldn't even be consistent in which button does what across UI elements (Tab? Hahaha, no, this time it is Escape).

Needing a mod to disable the obnoxious "toggle to sprint" is mind boggling and, in my mind anyway, a clear indication the UX really was built around controllers. In summary Bethesda clearly learned nothing from the terrible UX of Skyrim and/or Fallout 4, and even managed to make it worse, somehow...

Which brings us to lock picking which is now also much more annoying. Thankfully someone already modded it out. But can we, please, stop these obnoxious mini-games and just go back to skill checks, like in New Vegas? Especially for things you have to do every five steps?

In a similar vein, outposts seem worse than the Fallout 4 implementation (outside buildings, like solar panels, don't snap to a grid, so things look like they are just haphazardly thrown around. But even inside decoration is an exercise in futility as the "rotate" granularity is abysmal, so aligning anything to a wall is borderline impossible).

Additionally finding a good, resource rich, landing zone on a planet is just a dice roll since the granularity of the map isn't good enough to actually land where you intended, so you think you're landing on the intersection of 3, or 4, desirable resources but after touchdown one of them is nowhere to be found. I mean that spot may exist somewhere on that "the size of Fallout 4's map"-map that you can only traverse on foot.

Which they clearly did to try to hide the inability of their engine to stream in entire planets by making it unreasonable to traverse the entire thing (well, until modders mod in vehicles or other faster ways of getting around, anyway). Especially since they're mostly empty and things are 700/1400m apart, so trudging on foot through vast tracts of nothingness to get to randomly generated events (to be fair, some of them are pretty good).

Maybe if reviewers would start picking on the lazy choices Bethesda made instead of praising them to the moon for doing nothing new they'd actually try to make a better game next time. But for some reason Bethesda consistently releasing mediocrity is praiseworthy. Or am I simply unreasonable in expecting that if they make the same game every 10 years or so, it would at least have improved over its predecessor in some tangible way? Especially when they somehow think it's worth charging substantially more for it?

As usual, underneath the technical/UX disaster is a decent enough game, but well, we are, once again, going to need the modders to do what Bethesda couldn't be bothered to, which is to actually make it enjoyable to play.

At least by then the price should've come down, hopefully...

[HoonDing]

I hated the lockpicking and space combat in the beginning, but enjoying it now.

[melkathi]

Can't be as bad as disenchanting in Kingdom of Amalur

[BruceVC]

I completed King Arthur Wargame Druids DLC after about 35 hours, it was worth it and has the best mechanics of the original game and some new features

I have really enjoyed my  sojourn in the world of RTS and I am seriously considering another one, maybe one of the Kings Bounty?

But that will be later, Im playing Fallout 1 next. I have never played this classic and Im looking forward  to my return to the Wasteland 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 11, 2023 by BruceVC

[LadyCrimson]

On 9/10/2023 at 5:09 AM, marelooke said:

Additionally finding a good, resource rich, landing zone on a planet is just a dice roll since the granularity of the map isn't good enough to actually land where you intended, so you think you're landing on the intersection of 3, or 4,

I think not directly the same, but related to your point, I saw a video where the reason planet exploration didn't feel contiguous was because the map markers actually covers the adjacent pixels of the planet view (where those pixels = a map tile). So if you're trying to go to the very next tile in the pixel sequence, the "you are here" map marker covers it or something. So you'd have to use a console command to disable/remove all map markers and pixel hunt. eg, Beth. didn't design for people to be allowed to do it, but it does prove design-wise they are contiguous and it's technically possible.  Edit: using console commands disables Achievements, just to say - unless one installs a bypass mod maybe.

Starts around 3:00, if interested.

 

Edited September 11, 2023 by LadyCrimson

[melkathi]

I finally went around to beat the "mini campaign" after the end of the main story of King Arthur: Knight's Tale.

In the end the boss fights were very anti-climatic, as my max level team of Mordred, Sir Balan, Queen Morgawse, and Queen Guinevere needed three turns to kill any boss at that point. I could have probably swapped Morgawse for Boudica and cut one turn with some well placed backstabs.

 

Then again, it isn't the worst thing in a game to see the characters you spend many hours building to be efficient killing machines actually perform exactly that way.

[Malcador]

New races in WoW so doing those, some of these challenge races are pretty hard, one has a super unrealistic gold time.  Is also fun to get a good run, and then be 0.01 seconds over the gold time.

[InsaneCommander]

5 hours ago, LadyCrimson said:

I think not directly the same, but related to your point, I saw a video where the reason planet exploration didn't feel contiguous was because the map markers actually covers the adjacent pixels of the planet view (where those pixels = a map tile). So if you're trying to go to the very next tile in the pixel sequence, the "you are here" map marker covers it or something. So you'd have to use a console command to disable/remove all map markers and pixel hunt. eg, Beth. didn't design for people to be allowed to do it, but it does prove design-wise they are contiguous and it's technically possible.  Edit: using console commands disables Achievements, just to say - unless one installs a bypass mod maybe.

Starts around 3:00, if interested.

His "Skeptical Review" is pretty good. "Starfield is not about exploring space freely ... it's about fast traveling to locations and having conversions with people". As he says, it's better to have realistic expectations.

[Hurlshort]

1 hour ago, InsaneCommander said:

His "Skeptical Review" is pretty good. "Starfield is not about exploring space freely ... it's about fast traveling to locations and having conversions with people". As he says, it's better to have realistic expectations.

Here's the thing, No Man's Sky lets you explore a vast amount of space freely. You can fly around, plunge through the atmosphere, and even plunge into the oceans of water planets. It's alien and colorful and diverse. But it's also completely lacking in people to talk to. The story is weird. It feels empty a lot of the time, despite the fact huge fleets follow you around to each star system. It feels random. It's a good game, but I prefer the story, the characters, and the fast travelling around to different quests that I get in Starfield.

[InsaneCommander]

2 hours ago, Hurlshort said:

Here's the thing, No Man's Sky lets you explore a vast amount of space freely. You can fly around, plunge through the atmosphere, and even plunge into the oceans of water planets. It's alien and colorful and diverse. But it's also completely lacking in people to talk to. The story is weird. It feels empty a lot of the time, despite the fact huge fleets follow you around to each star system. It feels random. It's a good game, but I prefer the story, the characters, and the fast travelling around to different quests that I get in Starfield.

I prefer the same. I wouldn't even mind the loading screens. But unfortunately the game is very expensive and I also need to upgrade my pc. Btw, No Man's Sky is almost a fifth of the price on GOG right now and I'm not sure I wanna buy and play it.

[Hurlshort]

4 hours ago, InsaneCommander said:

I prefer the same. I wouldn't even mind the loading screens. But unfortunately the game is very expensive and I also need to upgrade my pc. Btw, No Man's Sky is almost a fifth of the price on GOG right now and I'm not sure I wanna buy and play it.

NMS is worth the price. They released a ton of huge extra content for free. I've had some good fun with the game.

[LadyCrimson]

For the past few years, the main reason I buy any game now is "I'm bored, I'm willing to give (insert title/genre here) a chance."

I really wish I could feel a sense of magic with more games like in the old days. Game has to have some aspect to it that's in some way very different from what I've already seen/heard/done 1000 times. It's almost to the point where only the artistic aspect appeals to me occasionally (art/world/atmosphere design, sound design) vs. any actual gameplay loops.  Like I keep checking to see if Ghostwire Tokyo is on major sale because I'd like to wander around in it, even if I don't' care about the quality of mechanics/gameplay, per se.   Although, it does have the 1st person sorta-magic caster feeling I think.
 

[bugarup]

I like NMS. It allows me to play a solitary, introverted owner of mobile repair shop where I fix salvaged spaceships and later sell them.   Sometimes I'm just in the mood to chill somewhere pretty and sci-fi, with space synths of eighties soundtrack and NMS is perfect for that. 

[Chilloutman]

4 hours ago, bugarup said:

I like NMS. It allows me to play a solitary, introverted owner of mobile repair shop where I fix salvaged spaceships and later sell them.   Sometimes I'm just in the mood to chill somewhere pretty and sci-fi, with space synths of eighties soundtrack and NMS is perfect for that. 

it have synth soundtrack from 80ties? not gonna lie, I am not impressed by those colorful visuals but I love me some synthwave!

[Hawke64]

TESIII: Morrowind. Spent about an hour wandering Dwemer ruins, because I missed a "staircase" (a fallen column). Also got to level 2 and found some decent weapons.

There was a scanned (the pages were visibly folded) guide in the game's root folder, which introduction spoiled one of the major plot twists.

Spoiler

That the PC is Nerevarine.

 

Edited September 12, 2023 by Hawke64

[Wormerine]

Let me rage for a bit:

Before Christmas break I played a bt of Gears5 - got about midway through and fought and defeated a pretty bad boss - lengthy bullest spunge, with weak point at his back, designed I think in coop in mind. AI partner is absolutely useless in this fight so it's up to you. The boss can easy one shot kill you if you make mistake, and it's a multistage fight. I managed to get past him months ago, watched cutscenes, entered a new region, and I quit and didn't touch the game until today.

It didn't save. I got booted back to the beginning of the bull**** fight.

[melkathi]

1 hour ago, Hawke64 said:

 

There was a scanned (the pages were visibly folded) guide in the game's root folder, which introduction spoiled one of the major plot twists.

  Reveal hidden contents

That the PC is Nerevarine.

 

Well, you should have figured that out, when right off the boat that random monk went on about Living Ones, Wings Of Fire, and being Reborn.

Still, being the Living One and actually being Nasrudin are two different things.

[InsaneCommander]

You guys convinced me to buy NMS. I'll probably not play Starfield anytime soon, so I'll definitely have time to play NMS.

[uuuhhii]

14 hours ago, LadyCrimson said:

For the past few years, the main reason I buy any game now is "I'm bored, I'm willing to give (insert title/genre here) a chance."

I really wish I could feel a sense of magic with more games like in the old days. Game has to have some aspect to it that's in some way very different from what I've already seen/heard/done 1000 times. It's almost to the point where only the artistic aspect appeals to me occasionally (art/world/atmosphere design, sound design) vs. any actual gameplay loops.  Like I keep checking to see if Ghostwire Tokyo is on major sale because I'd like to wander around in it, even if I don't' care about the quality of mechanics/gameplay, per se.   Although, it does have the 1st person sorta-magic caster feeling I think.
 

try choice of game

they can be really weird some time

[Keyrock]

It took me a while but I got one of the secret archetypes in Remnant 2, the Engineer. I'm currently running through an adventure mode version of N'Erud to level it up before I make my final push in the main campaign. The Engineer gets a turret, three of them, in fact, though you can only use one at a time. The turret will fire at enemies, prioritizing your target, until it runs out of ammo. You can pick it up and use it yourself but you move slowly when you carry it. You can put it down at any time and it will go back to shooting autonomously, though. The starter turret is basically a machine gun, I haven't unlocked the other 2 yet. Each archetype comes with its own trait that you can unlock to use with any build once you fully level up the archetype (read: level 10). In the case of the Engineer the trait increases your armor (by a whopping 50% at max level) which will be useful in pretty much any build in the future. I also want to finish this version of N'Erud since it turns out I did something I probably wasn't expected to do on a first run in the campaign version of N'Erud and I wound up fighting and defeating an alternate version of that world's final boss. I'm not going to reroll the main campaign but I do want to get whatever the normal version of N'Erud's final boss drops.

[Hawke64]

22 hours ago, melkathi said:

Well, you should have figured that out, when right off the boat that random monk went on about Living Ones, Wings Of Fire, and being Reborn.

Still, being the Living One and actually being Nasrudin are two different things.

Probably, but he was a monk.

Accidentally solved a murder case, joined the Great House of Hlaalu, and got the full Dark Brotherhood armour set when an assassin got stuck in the bed I was using. The set was 3 times better than the one I had.

[melkathi]

You joined house Hlaalu?

Welcome to the hashtag me too.

[Keyrock]

6 minutes ago, melkathi said:

You joined house Hlaalu?

Welcome to the hashtag me too.

Not necessarily. Let's not make any assumptions. @Hawke64might be into it.

[LadyCrimson]

Hadn't played Stranded Deep since early early-access days, years ago. Why not. Plane crash intro, sitting in the raft. "paddle to the island." Ok, I start paddling. The boat paddles in the opposite direction of the shore. I press all kinds of keys trying to steer the raft in another direction - I recall I used to be able do that (edit - I also googled, no help). Nope. I could seemingly only paddle in one direction. The wrong direction. I finally leapt out of the raft into the water to "grab" it and swim-drag it to shore, which did slowly work. But since I'd paddled so far from shore, the shark that was apparently tailing the raft decided to eat me for lunch.  

10/10, best money I ever spent on an (ea) game.

Edited September 13, 2023 by LadyCrimson