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

[BruceVC]

I am  considering playing   POE as my next game, I helped  fund it but never played it.  I dont know the ruleset and I was wondering the following 

 

• is the DE worth getting
• Whats a good class to  start with? I dont know the  game mechanics at all and I want to avoid playing for 10 hours only to find I  "chose " the wrong  party  which puts you at  disadvantage in combat

In party based RPG like IE games I normally select 2 x tanks. 1x healer\fighter like a  cleric. 2 x magic  users  and one hybrid thief

Do  you need a thief in POE  and  what would be a good overall party recommendation based on how the game defines classes which I  see is not like D&D games?

Edited November 26, 2023 by BruceVC

[Hawke64]

@Mamoulian War@Wormerine Thank you.

[HoonDing]

It took me two years to get a new job after a previous 15 year stint ended. But then, I'm old and half disabled.

[kanisatha]

21 hours ago, BruceVC said:

No kids and not married so I have lots of time in the evening and weekends

I'm the same, and yet I never have much free time.   It's why I'm so looking forward to retirement.

[kanisatha]

6 hours ago, Hawke64 said:

  Reveal hidden contents

About 2 months of looking for employment. At 385 applications in total and 85 explicit rejections at the moment. Considering that on average it takes about 4 months to find a job, everything is as expected, but the lack of any other kind of feedback whether or not I am close to the objective is not inspiring.

Sorry to hear. Yeah, as others have said, hang in there and don't lose hope. Something will come up soon.

Maybe you should consider coming out here to "new" England. Lots of tech jobs here.

[Keyrock]

I finished Jusant. It's a short game, about 6 hours, but appropriately priced. It's a super chill climbing game that's very easy on the eyes. It's not going to set the world on fire, but it was a pleasant and relaxing gaming experience.

[Malcador]

Got gold in RT3 Orient Express finally. Lucked out getting 30 mph express average honestly, but found out the secret was to put my corporation 7.5 MM in debt to inflate my networth via buy backs and then buying more of my stock on margin.  Completely gaming the system but I suppose that is finance.

The Rhodes scenario is soon too, FFS, that one is also hard.

[LadyCrimson]

No Man's Sky, "hours played"

Started playing this game late September.
---Steam's client UI says: 600 hrs.
---In-game menu (adding up time given for all save slots) says: about 330ish hours.

Now, I assume Steam simply counts how long the .exe is on/running, doesn't care if you paused the game, fell asleep at the keyboard, etc. But I am very sure I haven't had the game exe running for avg. 10 hours every single day for two months. The 330ish seems more accurate. There were days I played 6-8hrs, especially the first few weeks, sometimes just a couple hours, days I didn't turn it on at all. >.>

I usually play offline only games so Steam will say something like "you played for 1 minute or 1 hour" on 90% of my games no matter how much I played them. Does Steam do this a lot? Do all the folks talking about their 3000 hours in some Steam client game really only have half that?

[melkathi]

Hours played can be quite unreliable. Sometimes it is way higher, sometimes it is way lower. Sometimes Steam has problem with the cloud sync and seems to think the game is still running.

[Hawke64]

@kanisatha@HoonDing Thank you.

 

To stay on the topic of gaming, installed The Outer Worlds. The DLC files seem to be included in the base download on GOG (14 pieces of 4GB and the DLCs are 6MB each; I would say that the storage space required is high, but it is 2 times lower than Larian's D&D game). The EGS saves seem compatible, so I probably will continue to the DLC from them. The game conveniently created a hard point of no-return save file.

[LadyCrimson]

On 11/27/2023 at 12:34 AM, melkathi said:

Hours played can be quite unreliable. Sometimes it is way higher, sometimes it is way lower. Sometimes Steam has problem with the cloud sync and seems to think the game is still running.

I have steam cloud disabled. I also fully/hard exit the client when done playing.
Played last night, paid attention. Started at 10pm, stopped a little before 2am. Steam counter was at that 600hr mark when I started. When I quit it was at 609.9hrs. Exited client. When I started it again just now, now it says 610.6 hrs. Dunno if it's just this game, could be. I find it funny.

Edited November 28, 2023 by LadyCrimson

[ShadySands]

On 11/24/2023 at 8:05 AM, Hawke64 said:

the absence of depression.

[Hurlshort]

I've started in on Conan Exiles. Apparently the next updatw gives us the ability to build pubs, and then people will show up, and you can even recruit them. I guess that is a good option over the wheel of friendship.

[Agiel]

With my newly arrived WinWing F-15EX throttle handles I've been getting deep into DCS: F-15E. While the work done is quite impressive, helped by real-life former F-15E aircrew Jeff "Notso" Bright, it makes me think back to one of my favourite flight sims Jane's F-15 which modeled the same aircraft and just how close the EA Baltimore team managed to get to the real thing. Pulling up the NAVFLIR HUD and A/G RDR and A/G PACS on the MFDs, compare and contrast:

Edited November 29, 2023 by Agiel

[BruceVC]

Its early days for  my  first POE experience, I am  about 3 hours into the game  and its fun so far 

Its  taking time  because the  ruleset  is  different to  what Im use to with D&D but Im learning it and  enjoying the lore and how the narrative is presented. But of course I dont know anything  about the lore  so that  will take time  to understand the history of the game universe 

Its unusual but expected  to play a game outside of the Forgotten  Realms  with all this new IP but I want to understand it so I'm reading and absorbing  everything because it also  makes sense for future games 

 

[melkathi]

I think the beginning of PoE is the best part. I found the tedium built up with time.

[LadyCrimson]

^ It's been a long time but I'd agree. Although for me it was perhaps more like ... 3/4 of the way through the map back and forth and the combat became such a slog I was completely mentally exhausted trying to finish it. I don't even remember exactly what was annoying me so much,  party control/mechanics, design, the length, dunno. Before that point however, I had a ton of fun with the game.

============
NMS - still haven't finished the MQ. I looked it up in a vague way and I think I'm just a few steps from the end. Outside of the ability to go to new galaxies and start an Echoes expansion quest, with the rewards of the latter being nothing I'd care about, there's no motivation.    May be getting a tad "bored"/need a longish break from it. Maybe I'll finally run through Ghostwire Tokyo for kicks, soon.

[Wormerine]

4 hours ago, BruceVC said:

But of course I dont know anything  about the lore  so that  will take time  to understand the history of the game universe 

Its unusual but expected  to play a game outside of the Forgotten  Realms  with all this new IP but I want to understand it so I'm reading and absorbing  everything because it also  makes sense for future games

Good! Read the books you find. Personally, I didn't fully enjoy PoE1 until my 2nd playthrough. I felt lore here isn't just a background, but it creates a basis for the world state of PoE1, and I found a lot of interactions more compelling with a better understanding of the world, and future events. Don't worry about gold-plated NPCs - those are backer reward related and aren't really worth your time.

3 hours ago, melkathi said:

I think the beginning of PoE is the best part. I found the tedium built up with time.

I like beginning and I like the end. I just think act2 is a bit of a bore. PoE1 is stretched thin (like butter scraped over too much bread), and it is most noticable in city hubs which should be brimming with content. That's where I got stuck during my last playthrough. Fortunately, White March is IMO the best PoE content, and it can be more or less played through while slogging through act2.

That's where PoE2 is simply superior to me. While I wished for ending to have a bit more punched, in all my playthroughs I had a great time from the beginning to the end.

[bugarup]

On 11/26/2023 at 1:13 PM, Mamoulian War said:

Well, it's adult as well. In a way

Precisely. There's ****-and-ass adult, but there's also death-and-taxes adult which is no less adult.  

Playing "Sunless Sea". I think last time I tried it, it still was "One game, one save" thing. Now it allows to save in ports, and what do you know, turns out that diligent savescumming really helps enjoying a story-heavy Lovecraftesque adventure. 

[BruceVC]

1 hour ago, bugarup said:

Precisely. There's ****-and-ass adult, but there's also death-and-taxes adult which is no less adult.  

Playing "Sunless Sea". I think last time I tried it, it still was "One game, one save" thing. Now it allows to save in ports, and what do you know, turns out that diligent savescumming really helps enjoying a story-heavy Lovecraftesque adventure. 

I loved that game,  I thought the way the RNG  was designed was great fun

I remember going on these  long voyages and desperate to get back  to a port with cargo and Im  on my last health and food and having to resort to cannibalism to survive  

And  the absolute adulation of sailing into a port ..and surviving 

 

[bugarup]

1 hour ago, BruceVC said:

having to resort to cannibalism to survive  

Funny you mention that, for my Captain picked up certain...habits...and now, lets say, he does not exactly resort. If you get my meaning

[Hawke64]

19 hours ago, ShadySands said:

Will share if discover how. Jogging helps, though.

16 hours ago, Hurlshort said:

I've started in on Conan Exiles. Apparently the next updatw gives us the ability to build pubs, and then people will show up, and you can even recruit them. I guess that is a good option over the wheel of friendship.

Sounds good. Thank you for the information. The last I played, in the Siptah DLC, it was possible to rescue the NPCs for them to become followers.

[Malcador]

Beat the Rhodes scenario in RT3 on second try, rather surprised at that.  Really hate the book value objective.  Almost done this game with full golds.  Better 20 years late than never, I guess.

[Hurlshort]

3 hours ago, Hawke64 said:

Will share if discover how. Jogging helps, though.

Sounds good. Thank you for the information. The last I played, in the Siptah DLC, it was possible to rescue the NPCs for them to become followers.

I'll second jogging. I started running in my 30's and it helped a ton. I assume people that don't like running just don't have enough problems to run away from.

I really enjoyed rescuing thralls on Siptah and I didn't understand why they didn't add that to the main map. It would crack me up when I rescued a thrall and was like, "If you can get back to my camp safely, you can join my team."

[ShadySands]

My legs and accompanying joints are bad. Not worn out*, just bad. They smoke with cigarettes and wear dark pleather jackets and pantaloons, and are generally ill-tempered. I do work out but my cardio is limited to walking so I can't run away from my problems, I either close my eyes and pretend they don't exist or walk away at a glacial pace.

I beat the new DLC for WOTR the other day and am now playing through the main campaign again. I also just hit level 150 with my High Elf Mariner in LOTRO.

*this is a lie, this guy lies.

Edited November 29, 2023 by ShadySands