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

[MrBrown]

9 hours ago, Theonlygarby said:

I feel like you are kind of forced into having shadowheart around unless your MC can heal.  She's my second least favorite companion so far... behind only Gale, who might be the most annoying video game character since claptrap from borderlands.  Might just start over and leave him in that portal.

She's not absolutely necessary, you can get a lot of heals with just short rests and the cart loads of potions you find. But she is quite useful. Also Guidance and some later Cleric spells are good.

Edited October 15, 2023 by MrBrown

[Humanoid]

Yeah, healing (or more specifically, healing spells) is a trap. Both in BG3, and as I understand it, more broadly in 5E as well. Plenty of alternate sources of healing anyway, consider the following factors:

- The plentiful amount of healing potions, the plentiful amount of gold you get to buy more, and the ability to make more with alchemy
- Drinking them being a bonus action in BG3, unlike in PnP
- The ability to throw them to (AoE) heal others as an action
- The ability for any class to use any and all scrolls to cover any missing cleric utility
- The lack of any limit to the number of magic items you can equip to grant extra healing or utility spells, plus raw power to increase your survivability in general
- Functionally unlimited long rests, and consequentially, short rests
- The ability to resurrect at camp in exchange for some loose change you found between the sofa cushions
- The ability to respec literally anyone into a more support-oriented class if you insist on having one anyway
- Up to two canonical druids or one canonical paladin as party members if you refuse to respec anyone
- The (admittedly tedious) ability to temporarily switch in companions not currently in your active party to use their spells, including the hirelings. You don't lose buffs if you dismiss them from the party.

So yeah, with all that in mind, it's easily better for the action economy to set up your party to just kill faster, be that with the cleric (many domains are pretty good at killing, just not Shadowheart's default Trickery) or with whichever class you take instead.

EDIT: I mean, I initially started writing these items as just one sentence, but ended up having to reformat it as a list, that's how many ways there are to cover for the lack of a cleric.

Edited October 15, 2023 by Humanoid

[uuuhhii]

9 minutes ago, Humanoid said:

Yeah, healing (or more specifically, healing spells) is a trap. Both in BG3, and as I understand it, more broadly in 5E as well. Plenty of alternate sources of healing anyway, consider the following factors:

- The plentiful amount of healing potions, the plentiful amount of gold you get to buy more, and the ability to make more with alchemy
- Drinking them being a bonus action in BG3, unlike in PnP
- The ability to throw them to (AoE) heal others as an action
- The ability for any class to use any and all scrolls to cover any missing cleric utility
- The lack of any limit to the number of magic items you can equip to grant extra healing or utility spells, plus raw power to increase your survivability in general
- Functionally unlimited long rests, and consequentially, short rests
- The ability to resurrect at camp in exchange for some loose change you found between the sofa cushions
- The ability to respec literally anyone into a more support-oriented class if you insist on having one anyway
- Up to two canonical druids or one canonical paladin as party members if you refuse to respec anyone
- The (admittedly tedious) ability to temporarily switch in companions not currently in your active party to use their spells, including the hirelings. You don't lose buffs if you dismiss them from the party.

So yeah, with all that in mind, it's easily better for the action economy to set up your party to just kill faster, be that with the cleric (many domains are pretty good at killing, just not Shadowheart's default Trickery) or with whichever class you take instead.

EDIT: I mean, I initially started writing these items as just one sentence, but ended up having to reformat it as a list, that's how many ways there are to cover for the lack of a cleric.

seems like another chance to say pathfinder 2e does healing better

heal is the strongest spell in the entire game

[uuuhhii]

trading in wartale are too simple

any recommendation for management game let player control caravan

[kanisatha]

Continuing on with my Solasta playthrough with the Unfinished Business mod. The 6-person party is just so awesome! Exactly how the game should be played. I'm not using too many other features from the mod, mainly the option of removing attunement and including multi-classing. Difficulty has not been affected in any meaningful way. I've made a few tweaks here and there to keep the challenge balanced, and that's it. Only wish the game had more story and characters heft.

[Hawke64]

15 hours ago, Wormerine said:

There are some class unique instances, but for the most part at best it makes a generic skill check a bit easier than ususal. I didn't find the game made me "feel" like my character is of certain class in the way, lets say, Deadfire did.

I think the story would feel the most fitting with a young CG tiefling* bard. Or at least random sneaking animations during cut-scenes would be less irritating. Also the general body language and facial expressions.

*in general, if the plot was about getting your grandma, who was exiled from Elturel, to Baldur's Gate, it would have been better. The Elturel refugees' quests seemed somehow more connected to the PC than the main story.

Spoiler

And those tieflings had quite a few opportunities to die on the way or in the city, taking all their quests and loot with them.

[Theonlygarby]

Well I'm done with BG3.  I'm sure it's a good game, there is just too much that bugs me.

 

normal writing would be "i walked home"  larian writing "my promenading jaunt cultuvated in my advent betwixt dwellings implanted upon the thoroughfare"

 

Think I'll just stick to EU4 until broken roads comes out

Edited October 16, 2023 by Theonlygarby

[Hawke64]

Forgotten Anne. An adventure game with platforming elements. Reached the mid-game plot twist that was visible from the prologue. The controls are horrible and hard-coded, which together with timed platforming sequences leads to a rather frustrating experience. One of the puzzles didn't seem to work with V-Sync on (the MC didn't pull the lever fast enough), which was somehow odd and more frustrating (stopped at this point for now). Otherwise, the story is nice and the sound/visual design are lovely. The cut-scenes are not skippable, though, which somehow discourages replaying and checking how much different choices affect anything.

[LadyCrimson]

My main save in No Man's Sky, I think is close to the end of the story questline. Which became maybe 5% more interesting as the end nears, but it's still very "arrgh."  But some oddball graphic glitches are starting to occur once in a while, like falling through map/wall cracks, UI white washing away. The game has only CTD once, no other performance issues so far, no clue why it's happening. Maybe I need to clear a game cache, too much info after so many hours.

Anyway I started a new chr again (3rd one). I skipped the tutorial this time, and at least the settings I used = that Anomaly station was freely available regardless. Thus, I am free of the tutorial shackle re: restarts. This save is going to ignore all the story, base, settlement etc. quests like the plague and only focus on galaxy and planet exploration. I find what I find when I find it, upgrade whatever when I feel like it, avoid all npc's. I enjoy NMS much much more that way. I still see, on planets, stuff I've never seen before. Not to mention learning game stuff I didn't know before, still. That's the best thing.

Edited October 16, 2023 by LadyCrimson

[majestic]

An hour ago I turned on D4's patching to get into the new season, as Blizzard made many quality of life changes and I wanted to check it out. However, well, it seems that Blizzard transported me back in time almost thirty years.

Good grief.

[Malcador]

Going from lvl 1 to 5 just walking to the first quest objective was amusing.  Mount is nice and fast now.

[Hawke64]

Finished Forgotten Anne. Had another soft-lock with a physics puzzle, when the "NPC" to use somehow clipped through the floor and I had to reload*. I am unsure how much difference the choices make, but from the Steam forums I gathered that the main narrative path remains unchanged, while only one ending is "true".

Spoiler

The other is a time-loop.

It is somehow funny to compare it to Anno: Mutationem, which I've played recently, - Forgotten Anne has an adequately-written story, some minor choices, and the light and pipe puzzles are nice (slightly too easy, but not bugged), but also uncomfortable, unrebindable, and unresponsive controls with timed platforming sequences, while Anno: Mutationem has quite good rebindable controls, combat system, and encounters, but the story and characters are ridiculous. So, I am not reviewing either of them on Steam, with its "Recommended/Not Recommended" system.

*a link to the video guide I used, which partially shows the bug.

Spoiler

 

---

Started Grime, a Souls-like in a rather unique fantasy setting - something happened and life forms came from rocks. Another original concept is absorbing the foes by parrying their attacks with the head, which is also a black hole, in order to unlock talents (passive abilities). The controls are partially rebindable (mouse buttons and the I key are hard-coded), but the game can be played with keyboard only. The environments are slightly too grey, but very nice otherwise.

[MrBrown]

Playing Against the Storm. It's a city-builder, vs environment type of game, kinda like a fantasy version of Frostpunk. It's a bit more about resource transformation than Frostpunk, and centers around a campaign mode rather than just a few scenarios. Still in Early Access, thumbs up so far.

[melkathi]

Played a lot of against the storm, starting before they added harpies, when there were only humans, beavers, and lizards.

Now there are even foxes!

The game has added a lot over the early access. I am surprised they haven't labelled it released yet.

[LadyCrimson]

Things I do in NMS: (not all in one day...)
----spend a couple hours mining out all the stalagmites in dark caves for a few stacks of copper because I find it peaceful. There are automated base-ways to get resources dribbled to you to reduce such "grind," but to me, that's no fun.
---spend a few hours cleaning up/deleting etc. all my small planet bases, descriptive naming ones I want to keep, etc. With bajillions of planets/systems, gotta be mindful of the base and object limitations.
---spend two hours standing in/reloading a space station hoping that cute Shuttle ship it spawned, would finally fly in, as an S class version. It didn't. I finally had to upgrade an A to S manually.
---spend an hour agonizing over what ships to keep/delete in collection. Chicken Nugget is still my #1/main ship tho. Only one I've maxed out.
---spend three hours wandering planet surfaces farming base deco-glitch formations and just admiring views
---spend a few hours max warp-distance jumping from solar system to solar system trying to get closer to the center of the Galaxy. Only 610k light years to go. It would go faster if I wasn't so easily distracted by exploring a planet now and then.

[Mamoulian War]

I ended up in final dungeon of Chapter 12 in Star Ocean 5. I have almost finished the storyline, and I need to get down three more bosses including final one. But this walkthrough is my trophy hunting one, so I am slowly getting more and more of materials for various crafts and getting some Battle Trophies as well. These trophies are much easier to stomach than the trophies in SO4, and there are much less of them, but there is on ridiculous one... 1 million hits on enemies... And I have after 100 hours or so, around 180k we'll see how this one will fare...

[melkathi]

Solasta

 

Inkeeper: What's your poison?

Fighter: We need a room for the night.

Thief: Separate beds.

Inkeeper: Eh, as long as you pay, you do you. Enjoy your four beds.

[Malcador]

New D4 season is fun, the Bloodtides always give you something to do, also nice that World Bosses appear more frequently.  Trying a ranged rogue, but the call of Flurry is too strong. 

[BruceVC]

I completed Dying Light 2 after about 110 hours and I made sure I completed most of the side quests and activities like freeing up water plants and climbing all windmills

It was fun, I give it 62/100 on the globally respected "BruceVC game rating system ". That's not a terrible score , its effectively a C which is fine but end of the day its a Zombie killing game with the same repeated mechanics and quests that I found started getting tiresome

I can't really explain exactly what made me get bored but I think its to do with the repetition of the quests and just how the resource mechanics work?

I did appreciate the narrative choices like who do you support the PK or the Survivors

Anyway its fine as a Zombie killing game but I did enjoy DY1 more and I preferred games like Days Gone and definitely the Dead Rising games

[melkathi]

I had a discussion with two NPCs in Solasta, about soraks, ancient ruins, fireballs, the usual.

A few times during the discussion, with my sorcerer taking the lead, the NPCs referred to someone named Annie, who had told them about my party's exploits and about soraks etc.

 

I hadn't played in a while... So I said "I need to check who Annie is" said I.

Sorted my inventory, who would carry which magic item - the usual.

Hadn't played in a while, as I said.

Suddenly realise that Annie is the name of my rogue (the one who insists on separate beds at the inn).

 

Turns out my rogue talks to the npcs on her own before the party goes to talk to them as a group.

No wonder she keeps quiet during discussions and skulks in the background 

[Mamoulian War]

2 hours ago, melkathi said:

I had a discussion with two NPCs in Solasta, about soraks, ancient ruins, fireballs, the usual.

A few times during the discussion, with my sorcerer taking the lead, the NPCs referred to someone named Annie, who had told them about my party's exploits and about soraks etc.

 

I hadn't played in a while... So I said "I need to check who Annie is" said I.

Sorted my inventory, who would carry which magic item - the usual.

Hadn't played in a while, as I said.

Suddenly realise that Annie is the name of my rogue (the one who insists on separate beds at the inn).

 

Turns out my rogue talks to the npcs on her own before the party goes to talk to them as a group.

No wonder she keeps quiet during discussions and skulks in the background 

That’s pretty nice gimmick… I do not remember such feature in any other game… ever

[melkathi]

And it's silly easy to do. All you need to do is have the conversation grab a random character name from the party, similar to how NPCs use player names in other interactions.

 

Mind, I'll be very disappointed if there is an NPC I forgot and they were referring to her.

[Humanoid]

My default character name just happens to be the name of one of the saints in Elder Scrolls lore which has caught me out more than once. And the corresponding last name caught me out in Fire Emblem leading to more confusion.

[Hawke64]

Grime. Spent an hour on a boss only to discover that it had phase 2. The boss seems to be from a DLC.

[LadyCrimson]

...let's see. My "starting" solar system was around 650k LY. I've made it this far.
...at approx. 1900LY a jump, I still have around 290 jumps left. I do 10-15 jumps per day before I get bored staring at those long warp load screens and explore a single planet for a while instead. So I might reach the center in 24 more real-life days. Altho, I've been assuming that number is for "center of". I suppose it might be a total diameter instead, which would halve the time. No clue. I don't even want to stay at the Center, I hear it's "already discovered by," MP-ppl crowded.  I just want to get there once, then I'll teleport back to my totally empty/undiscovered middle-areas.
...there are apparently 250ish different Galaxies. I think I shall confine myself/remain in this "starter" Euclid one. I can't imagine I would ever land on all planets in just this single galaxy. What in the world would I do with 250 (pretty much all the same)?   >.>  Maybe I can discover all the rest of Euclid and annoy new players with 75% of planets (not in Center) being discovered by "me."
...Yesterday I hit two planets in one system that had robotic animals I'd never seen before. Kinda like exotic, funny-hyper, robotic dogs. I of course adopted one of each type.

Edited October 26, 2023 by LadyCrimson