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

[kanisatha]

Having finished my P:WotR run I went back to Solasta. And I finally, after all these years, broke down and registered for a Nexus Mods account so that I could apply the Community Unfinished Business mod to Solasta. I mainly activated three things in the mod, exactly the three biggest gripes I've had with the game: a party of six, multiclassing, and removing attunement. Then I started playing the official user module, Caer Falcarn, that comes with the modding tools DLC. Now Solasta is sooooooo incredibly awesome! I'm so loving the game, and looking forward to playing Palace of Ice and also some of the more popular user modules out there.

[BruceVC]

22 hours ago, kanisatha said:

Having finished my P:WotR run I went back to Solasta. And I finally, after all these years, broke down and registered for a Nexus Mods account so that I could apply the Community Unfinished Business mod to Solasta. I mainly activated three things in the mod, exactly the three biggest gripes I've had with the game: a party of six, multiclassing, and removing attunement. Then I started playing the official user module, Caer Falcarn, that comes with the modding tools DLC. Now Solasta is sooooooo incredibly awesome! I'm so loving the game, and looking forward to playing Palace of Ice and also some of the more popular user modules out there.

Remind me again why you are opposed to using mods? I know you have mentioned it before and I think it was about how you feel the vanilla game should deliver and be perfectly functional without adding 3rd party components?

Edited August 29, 2023 by BruceVC

[Wormerine]

Finished main story of Shadow Gambit. 

It is another solid real time stealth tactics from Mimimi games. This time around more fantastical setting allowed them to shake up and expand their character roster. Some new enemy types as well, but nothing revolutionary really. As is the studio’s tradition the story, while pretty cliche, is better than one would expect. I didn’t always gel with humour of the sidestories, but it’s been overall a charming adventure. 

What I am less convinced by, is the new structure to the game. Rather than linear set of mission with pre-determined characters - we get multiple larger island, with couple missions in each, and for most missions we can pick our crew (up to 3) and landing/extraction points. It’s fun, and having different crew members does keep things fresh, but between powerful character kits and multiple ways of engagement, the game felt by far like the easiest (and therefore the least interesting to me) from their 3 games.

More disappointingly, the maps didn’t feel particularly distinct - not being able to design level around specific mechanic (footsteps, water, darkness, specific character kit) means even with some unique features all levels played more or less the same. Even, now after just finishing the game I struggle to recall any but two setpiece missions, while I have clear recollection of multiple missions from Shadow Tactics & Deaperados3.

I am also not a fan of locking replaying levels and badges until after one beats the main campaign. I just preferred the pace of previous titles - being able to take one mission at a time and 100% before moving forward. There is a reason for it (some progression will require to access to all of the characters), but I don’t really like it. 

[kanisatha]

4 hours ago, BruceVC said:

Remind me again why you are opposed to using mods? I know you have mentioned it before and I think it was about how you feel the vanilla game should deliver and be perfectly functional without adding 3rd party components?

Yes this is one of my main issues, although I wouldn't use the word 'perfect' to describe my expectations for any game. But also, my past experiences with mods were less than satisfactory, where adding the mod to my game was extremely cumbersome and aggravating, and then keeping the mod (and mod manager) updated was additionally aggravating. But here, adding the Unity Mod Manager was quite easy and problem-free, as was adding the UB mod itself. So, fingers crossed.

[BruceVC]

21 minutes ago, kanisatha said:

Yes this is one of my main issues, although I wouldn't use the word 'perfect' to describe my expectations for any game. But also, my past experiences with mods were less than satisfactory, where adding the mod to my game was extremely cumbersome and aggravating, and then keeping the mod (and mod manager) updated was additionally aggravating. But here, adding the Unity Mod Manager was quite easy and problem-free, as was adding the UB mod itself. So, fingers crossed.

There is no going back friend once you see the advantages of meaningful mods , the vicarious thrill of Loverslab awaits  you 

[Hurlshort]

Vampire Survivors is the greatest game since JA3.

My son and I are pretty hooked on it right now. Right now the old man holds a slight edge on longest run, with me at 30:05 and him at 29:58.

[ShadySands]

A little bit of STO and not much else.

I abandoned my BG3 game in the first act and haven't felt the desire to get back to it. I want to wait for DLC before doing another Wrath run. I'm also taking a break from JA3 just because I've already beaten it 3 times and am a little burned out.

[Mamoulian War]

Goal number 8 has been finished

One more game gone from backlog. GOG copy of Deep Sky Derelicts: Definitive Edition has been beaten after a little bit more than 40 hours. I had a decent amount of fun during the whole playthrough, but the last three Derelicts and Mothership have been more or less pain in the ass. The random nature of combat due to deckbuilding base of the game has shown some flaws and caused few Game Overs. Including the final bossfight, where I was completely obliterated during the first attempt, and had almost no issues fighting him on second one. I am just glad, that I was not playing on Hardcore, as I would be pretty pissed-off right now .

[BruceVC]

13 hours ago, ShadySands said:

A little bit of STO and not much else.

I abandoned my BG3 game in the first act and haven't felt the desire to get back to it. I want to wait for DLC before doing another Wrath run. I'm also taking a break from JA3 just because I've already beaten it 3 times and am a little burned out.

It sounds like you need to play a reliable and consistent game that wont disappoint, what about Skyrim AE? It has 500 mods included in the game so you dont need to install any mods 

[melkathi]

Or Mordheim

It has 500 screenshots on this forum already posted by me, so you won't have to take any

Edited August 30, 2023 by melkathi

[Theonlygarby]

Played an hour or so of starfield.  It's fine so far.  It feels a lot like fallout 4 in space, which should not be surprising I guess.

 

I get the feeling ill give up on the game about 20 hours in. 

[Gorth]

On 8/30/2023 at 3:01 AM, ShadySands said:

A little bit of STO and not much else.

I abandoned my BG3 game in the first act and haven't felt the desire to get back to it. I want to wait for DLC before doing another Wrath run. I'm also taking a break from JA3 just because I've already beaten it 3 times and am a little burned out.

Thirty years on (despite the Matrix page saying released 2000, the original was released by SSI in 1984), I still play this regularly. Very topical these days too

https://www.matrixgames.com/game/war-in-russia-matrix-edition

 

[Theonlygarby]

I haven't played more starfield, but in retrospect, the intro to the story is really bad.  I imagine "start me up" mod will be popular.

 

It's basically "you are in a mine, something happens.  Here's a ship because you're important now"

[LadyCrimson]

16 hours ago, Theonlygarby said:

Played an hour or so of starfield.  It's fine so far.  It feels a lot like fallout 4 in space, which should not be surprising I guess.

 

I get the feeling ill give up on the game about 20 hours in. 

This is pretty much what has happened to me with the 3 Beth. games I bought after Morrowind (Oblivion, Skyrim, FO4). Often not even 20 hours. Which is not to say Morrowind was the beesknees. It was just the first one (and I was a lot younger/less jaded) so I was more open to it, and the Creation Kit was fun.

...I'd still be mildly curious re: how well (or not) I could get it to run on my aging (2080ti/9900k) system tho. I'm guessing 1080p medium with FSR might get me, oh, 50fps!
The game defaulting to FSR on just makes me LOL. Also, at least early on before possible game and driver patches, AMD gpu's definitely seem to have a pretty distinct advantage for this game, perhaps not surprisingly.
...someone has already modded a DLSS function for the game, although it doesn't have built-in sharpening. Some say it's helped tho.
https://www.nexusmods.com/starfield/mods/196

Edited September 1, 2023 by LadyCrimson

[Keyrock]

8 minutes ago, LadyCrimson said:

Which is not to say Morrowind was the beesknees.

Word 'round the campfire is that it was instead the cat's meow.

[LadyCrimson]

11 minutes ago, Keyrock said:

Word 'round the campfire is that it was instead the cat's meow.

...I do have fond memories of Morrowind. But I think it's mostly nostalgia of a lot of silly hi-jink moments (vs. any story/gameplay, I never came close to finishing the story). I'm pretty confident if I tried to replay it now, I would turn it off after two hours. I'd rather keep the nostalgic memories intact.

[melkathi]

You missed nothing story wise. As with any Bethesda game really.

[Theonlygarby]

5 minutes ago, melkathi said:

You missed nothing story wise. As with any Bethesda game really.

Even for Bethesda the intro to starfield is very bad.  It's cringe dialog and then fast tracking you to get a ship.  It happens in such an insulting way.

Very early spoiler

you are working for a mining company, for some reason you are told to go alone into this stretch of tunnel.  You grab an artifact.  You pass out and have a mass effect flash back. 

 

When you wake up, they tell you constilation is coming to buy the artifact.  Guy from Constilation gets there.  He had pirates following him.  You help fight the pirates. 

 

Then constilation guy says "you did a good job, also cuz you touched the artifact you are part of constilation now." 

 

Then the mining supervisor is like "you can't leave us alone with pirates trying to kill us" 

 

then constilation guy is like "lol I guess I did cause some of your workers to get murdered, I'll stay back and help.  Hey guy I met a minute ago, you can have my ship."

[/spoilers]

 

Anyway, hopefully it gets better

 

[LadyCrimson]

^ I feel like so far early thoughts have been that the large cities and sidequests are nice, even if there are oodles of 1 second loading screens, but anyone hoping for grand planet hopping fun is going to be sorely disappointed.

Edit: also, I can only imagine the performance nightmares of people attempting to use 600 mods on this, in any near future. Maybe 8 years from now..

Edited September 1, 2023 by LadyCrimson

[uuuhhii]

42 minutes ago, LadyCrimson said:

^ I feel like so far early thoughts have been that the large cities and sidequests are nice, even if there are oodles of 1 second loading screens, but anyone hoping for grand planet hopping fun is going to be sorely disappointed.

Edit: also, I can only imagine the performance nightmares of people attempting to use 600 mods on this, in any near future. Maybe 8 years from now..

if the game doesn't launch as performance nightmare it already score by today standard

[HoonDing]

They should at least let you fly from planet to planet inside a solar system. Like Darkstar One.

[Theonlygarby]

5 minutes ago, HoonDing said:

They should at least let you fly from planet to planet inside a solar system. Like Darkstar One.

I'm pretty sure you don't even move. In the sense that you don't get closer or further from planets.  It's basically a static background and then endless room to move. At least, that's how it feels.

 

People are mad at the IGN 7/10 but honestly that feels fair, so far.

Edited September 1, 2023 by Theonlygarby

[the_dog_days]

Playing Starfield. Slow start, which is increasingly a Bethesda thing, but really good.

[HoonDing]

This outpost stuff is just as meh as Fallout 4.

[the_dog_days]

1 hour ago, HoonDing said:

This outpost stuff is just as meh as Fallout 4.

All the outpost stuff is tucked to the side. (I was going to use a metaphor, but all the ones I could think of were lewd.)