What are you Playing Now? - Back to the Grind

[melkathi]

Last night I dreamt I was playing what basically could be described as a Lego version of the X games (those complicated space games I think Keyrock plays).

My spaceship looked like a Jawa crawler, but was the size of a generation/colony ship, and because it was made of Legos, completely customisable.

I think I switched dreams because I was overwhelmed by the options.

Edited December 15, 2023 by melkathi

[Hurlshort]

It sound like you dreamed of Empyrion.

[melkathi]

Possibly. But with minifigs

[Malcador]

Tried beating that RT3 mission without cheesing it, failed. So if anyone asks, I'll just lie.

Going through the latest WoW raid in LFR, sure is boring to heal, I guess we have competent people slumming in LFR for some reason.

[melkathi]

I tried out Hogwarts Legacy, but it runs badly on my ancient PC, so I refunded.

[Mamoulian War]

More Dark Souls Remastered. Capra Demon and Gaping Dragon have been defeated. Both on first attempt, so when I look back at the Boss Fights, I had 8 attempts on 5 bosses so far. Now bad for my clumsiness Unfortunately, that cannot be said about Bonewheel Shield Skeletons, which kicked my ass 20 times in 40 minutes, due to me always doing something completely stupid, clumsy or pulling more than two of them at once

[Sarex]

Thinking about doing good of war dlc. There is a story to it, but I don't think I would enjoy the rogue like aspect of it.

[melkathi]

Federal Network:

The cowardly bugs are threatening to overrun Federatsiyagrad, the Federation Headquarters on Kwalasha.

But the brave men and women of the Mobile Infantry are rushing to stop them.

Do You Want To Know More?

Spoiler

Federatsiyagrad got overrun.

The MI HQ is cut off.

But fear not!

The Federation has dispatched the pinacle of Earth technology,Marauders, to turn the tide!

 

Edited December 17, 2023 by melkathi

[Hurlshort]

I'm bludgeoning my way through Conan Exiles trying to get to the place I can open a bar. I'm up to level 36. I've skirted around the Stygian stronghold a few times and I'm contemplating relocating my base nearby. Currently I'm still set up new the newbie river, so it's time, but I hate packing up all my stuff and moving. 

It's amazing how much I've played this game, and yet I still stumble on stuff I've never seen while exploring.

[Mamoulian War]

I hit the brick wall in Dark Souls Remastered for the first time this playthrough. And it was Sif. Before that, I finished off Hydra on first attempt, and got to confident. I got schooled in few tries. The biggest reason is, that I have prepared special route for getting all of the PS trophies, so I have ended up against Sif pretty underleveled. Had to find a right balance of Armour and mobility, for mid-rolls and fast enough reactions. Unfortunatelly Sif’s arena has FPS issues on PS4 Pro, which affected my already slow reaction time But I have slowly and painfully learned how to defeat him using melee attacks in such circumstances, until I have defeated him. Took me 24 tries

[marelooke]

21 hours ago, Hurlshort said:

I'm bludgeoning my way through Conan Exiles trying to get to the place I can open a bar. I'm up to level 36. I've skirted around the Stygian stronghold a few times and I'm contemplating relocating my base nearby. Currently I'm still set up new the newbie river, so it's time, but I hate packing up all my stuff and moving. 

It's amazing how much I've played this game, and yet I still stumble on stuff I've never seen while exploring.

You confused me, and I have lots of hours into this game. Hmm, I wonder how ma... *checks Steam* ... errr, let's talk about something else...

Anyway, marking these as spoilers in case you want to discover things for yourself, since they concern specific locations/mechanics (that you may not even be aware exist at this point, depending on how much the marketing material spoiled)

With regards to the Stygian stronghold:

Spoiler

There is no hostile Stygian stronghold in the Exiled Lands as far as I'm aware, unless the new battle pass added one. The Treasure Hunter stronghold in the West, Sepermeru, is mostly friendly, or at least neutral, minus the robbers that are dotted about.

Just make sure to set your thrall to not attack everything on sight, because they will try to murder neutrals...

With regards to packing up and moving:

Spoiler

The final tier of Sorcery allows making portal rooms, it's one of the reasons I generally rush Sorcery, so I can make multiple bases and connect them.

Some of my characters that I "completed" the game with still have their main base at Newbie River.

That said, after playing...this many hours...I generally run with a mod that removes the level cap so weight limits aren't that much of a concern, and when I build a new base there's generally little reason to drag all that many things along.

[Hurlshort]

The stronghold (maybe it isn't Stygian?) is a new thing that you can attack. It is a fully destructible fortress. As is the ability to open a bar and hire people at your bar.

[marelooke]

23 hours ago, Hurlshort said:

The stronghold (maybe it isn't Stygian?) is a new thing that you can attack. It is a fully destructible fortress. As is the ability to open a bar and hire people at your bar.

Checked it out and they do look Stygian (don't always sound it ), also seem to respawn infinitely on a very short timer, combined with the broken combat system(*) I think I'll give it a pass for the time being.

Ironically enough one of my characters has a base right across from the new fortress, so that is convenient...

(*) modders will fix it: "Chapter 3 Combat HotFix (by Xevyr)", so we can attack in the direction we're looking again. Of all the obnoxious changes they've done over the years this one truly does take the cake, at least it was apparently easily modded out.

Edited December 19, 2023 by marelooke

[Hurlshort]

 

1 minute ago, marelooke said:

Checked it out and they do look Stygian (don't always sound it ), also seem to respawn infinitely on a very short timer, combined with the broken combat system(*) I think I'll give it a pass for the time being.

Ironically enough one of my characters has a base right across from the new fortress, so that is convenient...

(*) modders will fix it: "Chapter 3 Combat HotFix (by Xevyr)", so we can attack in the direction we're looking again. Of all the obnoxious changes they've done over the years this one truly does take the cake, at least it was apparently easily modded out.

I thought my attacks were wonky!

I'm not close to actually assaulting the fortresses. I just hit level 39 and have a pretty haphazard base setup. I think I'll need to tighten it up. I've never actually triggered a purge, but the new treasure horde dynamic makes it interesting, so I figure I'll work towards that as well.

[marelooke]

1 minute ago, Hurlshort said:

 

I thought my attacks were wonky!

I'm not close to actually assaulting the fortresses. I just hit level 39 and have a pretty haphazard base setup. I think I'll need to tighten it up. I've never actually triggered a purge, but the new treasure horde dynamic makes it interesting, so I figure I'll work towards that as well.

Well, I have multiple characters on this server, many over lvl100, so yeah, just having a go at the place was a bit easier for me

I'll probably have to build a base purely for triggering purge attacks, my usual, extremely large, bases are way too prone to them spawning inside, an issue I've been told isn't solved with the new system

[Hurlshort]

3 hours ago, marelooke said:

Well, I have multiple characters on this server, many over lvl100, so yeah, just having a go at the place was a bit easier for me

I'll probably have to build a base purely for triggering purge attacks, my usual, extremely large, bases are way too prone to them spawning inside, an issue I've been told isn't solved with the new system

I've restarted about a dozen times over the years, and I've ditched most of the mods I used to use. I always have a tough time going back to old high level characters, so I've found I prefer to just start everything fresh. Granted hat means I grind through the early stuff a lot, but funcom has tightened up the early game, so it's not bad.

[marelooke]

17 minutes ago, Hurlshort said:

I've restarted about a dozen times over the years, and I've ditched most of the mods I used to use. I always have a tough time going back to old high level characters, so I've found I prefer to just start everything fresh. Granted hat means I grind through the early stuff a lot, but funcom has tightened up the early game, so it's not bad.

Starting from scratch is how I end up with relatively many characters (7 on my "main" Exiled Lands save, 3 in Siptah, and 2 in a very "throw all the mods at it and see when it breaks"-game). I just keep the same save and swap between them occasionally to fix up damage done by patches, or to continue/expand some build when new things release or new ideas come up.

Doing it this way also means I kinda force myself to be a bit more creative than I'd otherwise be when choosing base locations as some spots are now already occupied by previous characters.

Modwise I've mostly been running the same ones for years now as I try to keep my save as stable as possible given I don't tend start over from scratch.

[LadyCrimson]

Above Snakes put out a pretty decent looking content update, months after release. I'm sure it's nothing hugely extensive, some new quest/bounty hunter tasks/items, biome tiles etc, but it's still nice/surprising for such a small game. I'll have to check it out later tonight. Liked the game a lot as a casual/some sandbox elements adventure at the time, but its replay value was a bit low. Gives me a new reason to replay it again.

Edited December 19, 2023 by LadyCrimson

[Mamoulian War]

More Dark Souls Remastered in the last two days. I have finally reached Anor Londo, after defeating Quelaag and Iron Golem. I have cheesed him with summoning Tarkus  , but Quelaag has surprised me few times, as I was using the Mildred summon, and when I had not seen Quelaag face to face, I was missing her explosion channel, which resulted in me being toasted

Today, I have decided to go back to Asylum to visit Stray Demon, and I almost given up the fight after five attempts, where I ended up toasted in less than 10 seconds I have actually never fought him with melee character, so I had not much clue how to perform against him. Luckily, I told myself one more try, where I got asskicked in little bit more than 20 seconds, but I have noticed some interesting patters of his behaviour, when I have reached his back after outrunning his explosions So I went for “one more try before going to bed” The next try was a winning try, but I feel like it took me eternity. I had to outrun each of his attacks, and immediately running back using running attack for 69-88 damage, using lightning spear, which I found in Sen’s Fortress mimic chest. Sometimes I was able to land 2 attacks, sometimes I have missed him to to strange hitbox of his small tail and he had 5250 HPs  

The bonus of the day was, that immediately after the fight, I have found out, that I had enough titanite to upgrade my spear to +3, which would increase my damage by more than 20%

Next goal is getting through the Silver Knight Archers guarding the entrance to the Anor Londo castle, which I was never able to get through without cheesing them with poison arrows, which I currently do not have Will be “fun”

[Hawke64]

The Pathless. 4 bosses defeated. The game is very beautiful and the movement system has a good balance of fluid and responsive with the ability to move faster with some physical feedback (shooting talismans for speed boosts and stamina recovery). Which reminded me of training Acrobatics in Morrowind during travels by tapping the Space bar.

Edit. Steam crashes every second time when I try to view and upload my screenshots. Can't quite recall after which update it started to happen.

Edited December 20, 2023 by Hawke64

[Mamoulian War]

A miracle has heppened yesterday, and it’s not even a Christmas Eve

I was able to get past two Silver Knight Archers guarding the roofs of Anor Londo on third try, and I got inside the Castle

Now my two worst nightmares awaits. First Knight Lautrec with his entourage, and then Smough and Ornstein. And I need Ornstein’s Soul and his ring, which will make the fight even harder

[Majek]

Warzone ... i don't know what's wrong with me. ;_; 

[Mamoulian War]

Phantom of Knight Lautrec has been defeated in Anor Londo. On second try, which I still cannot graso hehe. Although the Titanite Demon few rooms away pit the Universe back in balance and wiped the floor with me 4 or 5 times

Still I had no balls to go against Smough and Ornstein yet  

[Hawke64]

Vampyr. A functional action-adventure in the fantasy/historical setting, London 1918. The protagonist is a medical researcher and practitioner, who recently returned from war, was turned into a vampire, accidentally killed his sister, and trying to find the vampire who bit him.

The controls are rebindable, though the consoles-first approach can be felt and the Tab key cannot be rebound (so I've been randomly opening the map while trying to lock on targets; additionally, the mouse movement is used to switch between them, thus, I do not use lock-on if there is more than one foe). Overall, the combat is functional - a bit float-y Souls-like with Blood instead of mana (can be drunk from humans and zombies; haven't seen anything too undead or mechanical to bite yet) and no free jumping (possible to get on some predetermined balconies). The developers seem to find implementing an adequate saving system to be too challenging, so manual saving is done through Windows Explorer after touching the crafting stations or travelling (on foot) between areas. I still cannot figure out if combat brings XP (there is a small delay between the kill and XP gain), the bosses so far have been the regular opponents with larger health bars. The District Stability system justifies that the MC is a doctor, so he can craft meds and distribute them, thus keeping non-combat areas standing. As I understand, the NPCs are possible to kill (somehow - can't draw weapons in the non-combat areas) and it affects the ending. The graphics, sound, and writing seem to be fine.

I am somehow fond of the developer, got the game on EGS, and it required only 14.2GB of storage space, thus, I am satisfied with the experience.

Edited December 24, 2023 by Hawke64

[BruceVC]

6 hours ago, Hawke64 said:

Vampyr. A functional action-adventure in the fantasy/historical setting, London 1918. The protagonist is a medical researcher and practitioner, who recently returned from war, was turned into a vampire, accidentally killed his sister, and trying to find the vampire who bit him.

The controls are rebindable, though the consoles-first approach can be felt and the Tab key cannot be rebound (so I've been randomly opening the map while trying to lock on targets; additionally, the mouse movement is used to switch between them, thus, I do not use lock-on if there is more than one foe). Overall, the combat is functional - a bit float-y Souls-like with Blood instead of mana (can be drunk from humans and zombies; haven't seen anything too undead or mechanical to bite yet) and no free jumping (possible to get on some predetermined balconies). The developers seem to find implementing an adequate saving system to be too challenging, so manual saving is done through Windows Explorer after touching the crafting stations or travelling (on foot) between areas. I still cannot figure out if combat brings XP (there is a small delay between the kill and XP gain), the bosses so far have been the regular opponents with larger health bars. The District Stability system justifies that the MC is a doctor, so he can craft meds and distribute them, thus keeping non-combat areas standing. As I understand, the NPCs are possible to kill (somehow - can't draw weapons in the non-combat areas) and it affects the ending. The graphics, sound, and writing seem to be fine.

I am somehow fond of the developer, got the game on EGS, and it required only 14.2GB of storage space, thus, I am satisfied with the experience.

I enjoyed Vampyr and it was always a conundrum about who I fed on...I didnt  really like killing any  good people but I had to survive  

Edited December 24, 2023 by BruceVC