What are you Playing Now? - Back to the Grind

[LadyCrimson]

Patron - the game rather defeats my attempts mega-expansion, even the smaller/less land maps, because of the way workers have to actually walk/travel from their designated house to workplace. And you can't control where anyone lives. So at the start, when all jobs are close to houses, it's very efficient re: production ratios. Only need a few farms for a long time.

But as you try to spread/grow, with new housing areas way over yonder/over a bridge/river, where resources are, the AI will give a lot of new jobs to people who may already live in houses eons away. Occasionally a family moves houses, but not very often.  Inefficiency rises, so now you need twice, thrice as much production workers to keep up the same production ratio, simply because of walking distance, making it frustrating. Or eventually a downward spiral.  Complain about building/work access/radius etc methods in Caesar all you want, but it's actually much more efficient/flexible for huge cities.   >.>

 

Edited April 2 by LadyCrimson

[Keyrock]

I'm really liking the mystic spearhand vocation in DD2. It's my favorite vocation so far, though I'm eager to try out the trickster.

[Hurlshort]

I had an interesting quest in Wartales. I was chasing after a tracker who in turn was chasing after a grave robbing scholar. I found them in an undead village. The mechanic with undead villages is you need to minimize your noise rating and maximize your willpower. So typically I'd take a team of lightly armored but decently willfull warriors with me into the town, plus a locksmith (who unfortunately is a lumbering oaf with a big sword. We find the two arguing in the ruins, and sure enough, they trigger an undead attack. Undead attacks put you in a large room with a bunch of potential doors and windows. Your goal is to block them with your people but also look for an exit. You can't kill all the undead, they will keep coming.

My first attempt was tough. My lightly armored folks were bitten and clawed at, and when I finally escaped, both of the NPC's were dead. But I survived and I was like, 'that was a cool fight.'

Then I thought about it a bit more, and realized that noise doesn't really matter if they NPC's trigger the undead attack no matter what. I went back in with a full noisy team and got them out safely. But it was still more rewarding to do it the other way.

 

[the_dog_days]

I fought my first drake the other day. I Brined it. 'cause the drake has fire breath and a lunge attack, it likes to back off if the person who's pulled it's agro is melee. I'm a fighter and I have a core skill that pulls agro so despite being up against a river, it takes flight and backs off. I stood on the bank for a few minutes while the drake's AI tried to puzzle out this situation, and it ultimately decided to land in the river. I've killed a surprising number of enemies by getting them to back off into the Brine.

[Wormerine]

So far my fondest encounter in DD1 was a free roaming cyclops. Hired pawn mounted the monster and rode him off the cliff. Too bad I couldn’t sent the pawn back with a generous gift for his service. 

[BruceVC]

Im 60 hours into Hogwarts so I can share an informed and more detailed review

I am enjoying it and its overall been a good experience

Firstly as I mentioned previously I am not a committed fan of the HP universe but if I was I would be truly enthralled because the game incorporates so many elements of the books. The developers did an excellent job at recreating the HP world and all its components

I like the activities like Merlin Trials, the astronomy puzzles, the animal code doors and then exploring Hogwarts to find the moons. And broom races are lots of fun, I loaded a mod which lets you use the mouse to control the broom and that made things much easier

Crafting is well done, they have created a good balance with how its better to create potions than buy them so I find myself looking for ingredients

Combat is fun and spells make a difference, the game lets you adopt different spell strategies and I decided I can use Dark Magic because I can control it and its effective

The companion side quests are interesting and I support Sebastian and his passion to save his sister...not sure how thats going to end but I can guess

And then I found myself enjoying saving and breeding beasts, its not something I would typically participate in but you can get ingredients which help with item upgrades and the critters are cute

The main negative is enemies are repeated ...a lot. I am not sure I can kill any more poachers or Ashwinders but I will persevere 

So Im at the point now where I will be focusing on the main quest and I should be finishing the game soon

[Malcador]

Still working my way through Caesar 4.  This isn't very challenging. Combat in this game sucks, wish they'd kept it simple like C3.  But at least my cities are pretty, still not sure of best layout, at least for equities.  Patricians needs insane space for entertainment and such. 

D4 PTR is pretty fun I hear, so am going to try that.

[melkathi]

I would like to play Hogwarts Legacy, but my PC can't really run it

[BruceVC]

25 minutes ago, melkathi said:

I would like to play Hogwarts Legacy, but my PC can't really run it

I think you would really enjoy  it and  especially if you   a HP  fan 

As I  mentioned the developers  did an amazing job at  recreating the HP  world and there  is lots  of easter  egg  type  things to see at Hogwarts

For  example you will go into a corridor and see  2 ghosts chasing each other or go past  numerous paintings and they  start acting out or talking

It  is  light hearted  fantasy,  no chainmail  bikini armor for example so its  definitely  not for someone like @HoonDing

 

 

[melkathi]

I'm not a big HP fan. But I like the idea of an immersive magical world. It looks like great escapism.

[LadyCrimson]

Got to over 1000 total population in Patron. including all the farms and such, that might be about 1/6 of the map. Although one could do much better space management if not trying to cater to citizen needs with churches and multiple schools and universities everywhere as I was attempting. >.>  But I'm reaching the point where game performance is dropping (at 4k, from 60+ fps to 40-50ish). Which is better than at release, where I think I noticed performance drop at only 400-ish population.  Guessing my CPU would start to uber tank at maybe 2000 population. 

Typical cpu-bound performance limits aside, the way the game works isn't really conducive to playing the same map "forever" re: any challenges or designs etc. I don't get the same sensation of wanting to continue ala Caesar/Impressions series. You reach the may as well start a new city/map much more quickly. That said, it's still a pretty fun/decent city builder, fairly typical of the current genre workings. I mostly don't like the nonsensical/time sink research tree workings.

[Hawke64]

On 4/3/2024 at 7:31 PM, melkathi said:

I would like to play Hogwarts Legacy, but my PC can't really run it

I would suggest to avoid the game - the IP owner is a piece of ****.

On 4/3/2024 at 9:46 PM, melkathi said:

But I like the idea of an immersive magical world. It looks like great escapism.

If you haven't played them, the Fable games are quite decent - might be a bit too light on dialogues, but they are immersive and the last one has a dog companion.

---

Thought of starting another playthrough in Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen as Frodo and Sam (someone already had the same idea). My old saves from the Steam version are compatible with the GOG one, so while I could just start a new NG+ cycle, I went with a completely new character, because the challenge does not scale with levels.

@WormerineThe thing with pawns is that their AI should handle encounters on their own (I could not find the video, but the pawns absolutely can solo drakes) or assist you (e.g. a Fighter can launch you to reach hydra's heads). The intended way is for your pawn to learn from your application of the available commands (e.g. "Attack", "To me", etc.) and witnessing monsters' weaknesses. Though, the former goes better when the pawn's AI is occasionally reset with the Inclination elixirs.

---

There is no Light. The game looks quite good visually and the controls are rebindable. The story is a bit weird - the MC's wife gets kidnapped by 2 soldiers while he's just standing and watching, then he picks up a sword and kills a few squads of them.

Crystal Tales Tactics demo. Looks very similar to Fire Emblem but with much lower production costs. The controls are rebindable, I could not get the combat yet (2 battles in) - there is some synergy, but I am unsure how to apply it.

Stray Blade. I had thought it to be an RPG, but it feels like an action-adventure. I like the design decision to have full armour, so the MC's face is never shown (so no facial animations; the armour is customisable). The controls are rebindable, though the combat is not exactly comfortable - there is no attack cancellation and it seems like the system is build around parries, but the enemy attacks are delayed, thus, it is hard to time the parries correctly. The exploration feels good enough - there are some paths that I should be able to take after unlocking the required abilities, the environment is readable, the loot is fine. The system requirements and the visuals do not align - 4GB VRAM and 30GB storage should not look like TESIV.

Spoiler

https://imgur.com/f5VUnQlhttps://imgur.com/f5VUnQl

 

[Wormerine]

7 hours ago, Hawke64 said:

 

@WormerineThe thing with pawns is that their AI should handle encounters on their own (I could not find the video, but the pawns absolutely can solo drakes) or assist you (e.g. a Fighter can launch you to reach hydra's heads). The intended way is for your pawn to learn from your application of the available commands (e.g. "Attack", "To me", etc.) and witnessing monsters' weaknesses.

  Reveal hidden contents

https://imgur.com/f5VUnQlhttps://imgur.com/f5VUnQl

Ah! If I knew at some point that you can give orders to your pawns at some point, than I completely forgot about it after the tutorial. Might give it a go, next time. 

I must admit, I am liking DD more and more. Started encountering more large monsters, and while rather gimmicky they are fun. The game has issues, but it sells the idea of party adventuring like few other games. In a way it feels like playing classic RPG, and I like it. 

I even grew to like UI. It was a nightmare to start with, but once I got used to it, it became fairly efficient to use. Unlike, let’s say Baldur’s Gate3, in which the more time I spent the more issues an inefficiencies I found in the UI. 

speaking of BG3, I wonder if Dragon’s Dogma was one of Larian’s inspiration. Grabbing&throwing enemies, exploding barrels, mayhem and fire everywhere, pawns hurting themselves while autofollwing you, gimmicky boss fights. It seems curiously similar. 

[melkathi]

@Hawke64

Agreed on the IP owner. Definitely a good reason to avoid anything related to the IP.

 

Fable... I played one of those games. It may have been 2. I finished it, but I played it the same way I played Skyrim - set up homes and adopt as many orphans as I could. 

Like Skyrim, I found the game had nothing else to offer.

[kanisatha]

16 hours ago, LadyCrimson said:

Got to over 1000 total population in Patron. including all the farms and such, that might be about 1/6 of the map. Although one could do much better space management if not trying to cater to citizen needs with churches and multiple schools and universities everywhere as I was attempting. >.>  But I'm reaching the point where game performance is dropping (at 4k, from 60+ fps to 40-50ish). Which is better than at release, where I think I noticed performance drop at only 400-ish population.  Guessing my CPU would start to uber tank at maybe 2000 population. 

Typical cpu-bound performance limits aside, the way the game works isn't really conducive to playing the same map "forever" re: any challenges or designs etc. I don't get the same sensation of wanting to continue ala Caesar/Impressions series. You reach the may as well start a new city/map much more quickly. That said, it's still a pretty fun/decent city builder, fairly typical of the current genre workings. I mostly don't like the nonsensical/time sink research tree workings.

Interesting. I got bored with the game after I crossed 100 population, and quit soon after. I then went into my Steam wishlist and deleted a couple of builders I had there (Foundations, Last Frontier), because from the looks of Youtube demos I am very likely to get bored with them also for the same reasons I got bored with Patron.

I think what I need, and am looking for, are games where I get to build cities (and even an empire), but without having to micromanage individual citizens and their needs. That's the part that gets tiresome and tedious for me after a while, and especially as the population gets beyond a certain threshold.

[Hurlshort]

1 hour ago, melkathi said:

@Hawke64

Agreed on the IP owner. Definitely a good reason to avoid anything related to the IP.

I don't know that we need to sacrifice IP's because the creators become garbage people. Sure, they birthed the thing, but it's taken on a life of its own at this point. There is a whole team at Avalanche Software that worked hard on bringing Hogwarts Legacy to life. They aren't connected to the IP owner in anything other than a licensing fee. 

Sometimes dumb people create good stuff. Actually it seems to come with the territory. Edgar Allan Poe was certainly a disturbed guy, but he could write a hell of a poem. I think we also put people on pedestals to easily and then we are surprised when they don't really deserve to be there. Said IP owner is a good children's fiction writer. That's it. That's the one thing they are an expert in.

So yeah, you can support Avalanche Software because they created a gem of a game and not feel guilty. 

[melkathi]

Yeah, that is the argument for buying it. The Avalanche team is not at fault and definitely poured a lot of love into it.

[uuuhhii]

pity those who actually like hp

the whole thing always seem pretty dull

at least those fan are not as unfortunate as paradox fan

[Keyrock]

4 hours ago, Wormerine said:

The game has issues, but it sells the idea of party adventuring like few other games. In a way it feels like playing classic RPG, and I like it. 

That's exactly how I also feel about DD2 and, to a lesser degree, DD. DD2 is the party-based adventure/RPG I have been waiting for my entire life, I dreamed of stuff like this when I was younger. Climbing onto a dragon and hanging on for dear life as it takes off into the air is thrilling as ****. Having my warrior pawn hurl me high into the air above a cyclops and then I hit my downward thrust skill, come down with great force stabbing into the cyclops' neck/upper back, and then, hitting the grab button at just the right time to grab a hold of the cyclops' hide to stay on top of them and then continue to stab the cyclops with my spear is so awesome, especially since none of that was a setpiece or a scripted event, I did that dynamically. Or tackling a smaller (man-sized) enemy and pinning them to the ground and watching my thief pawn come over and stab the enemy in the face while I hold them down, that's ****ing teamwork right there. And then, as icing on the cake, after the battle we high five or fist bump. It's the greatest feeling. DD is a more janky version of that; the fantastic ideas are all there but the implementation is rough. Still, if you can get past the rough edges, DD is a good game.

Edited April 6 by Keyrock

[melkathi]

28 minutes ago, uuuhhii said:

at least those fan are not as unfortunate as paradox fan

 

Let Paradox go into book publishing and you'll see the paragraphs added to pages as characters and locations in the story become DLC.

[InsaneCommander]

It took me a while to finish Rebel Transmute. The game is good, but at some point it started to be really annoying, with bosses far from save points and some game mechanics that were a little too hard to reproduce. Eventually, I simply decided to enable infinite healing on the accessibility options and rush to the end to see how the story ended. It was nothing that interesting, just a waste of time.

Transiruby. A simple and straightforward game, but compared to Rebel Transmute this was great. Too easy, but at least it kept my interest all along and never bothered me. The graphics are quite simple but I liked it a lot.

[LadyCrimson]

13 hours ago, kanisatha said:

Interesting. I got bored with the game after I crossed 100 population, and quit soon after. I then went into my Steam wishlist and deleted a couple of builders I had there (Foundations, Last Frontier), because from the looks of Youtube demos I am very likely to get bored with them also for the same reasons I got bored with Patron.

I think what I need, and am looking for, are games where I get to build cities (and even an empire), but without having to micromanage individual citizens and their needs. That's the part that gets tiresome and tedious for me after a while, and especially as the population gets beyond a certain threshold.

Farthest Frontier is still on my list because I like Crate Ent. I trust them to make a good/decent game. That said, from the getgo I wasn't sure if they were making a city management game I'd personally be into. I think you can essentially get a sandbox  mode out of it turning dangers and combat off, but still. Not sure at all, even when it comes out of early access.

I can't remember if you've played the old Impressions city builders or not? There's at least less of the population happiness management - I mean it's there but it's more of a generalist thing and not difficult to pacify or almost largely ignore (at least in freeplay). Or at least, I didn't find it so. But then I do find some aspects of the "management" part of efficiency "fun" as long as it's not overboard.

I liked Banished and I'm glad it rather revived the genre, but I'm tired of the whole "city building survival" concept. I don't care about earthquakes or floods or invading armies or skill trees or research paths. Just give me the buildings and a map and let me figure out what I think is best/most fun. To me that was the whole point of such games - sandbox, not to provide a gamey gameplay RTS challenge with the city building.

I also like city builders to be smaller scale myself. Stuff like City Skylines I have no interest in.
EDIT: the few building simulators I've seen that are much simulator vs. management are either too mechanics geek tech-y/complicated or too simple (almost to mobile game simple).

So yeah...maybe for different reasons but I find if difficult to find modern ones that I like beyond an initial run too. Although some of that may be because I find them all largely too easy to "master" by now. They've spent more time trying to insert more gamey gameplay or difficulty/time roadblocks and zero time on how to make the process of designing a city/layout more fun/interesting. eg, more terrain or resource challenges perhaps. Everything that conceptually worked in the ones from 20+ years ago still basically work in the new ones.

Edited April 7 by LadyCrimson

[Hawke64]

15 hours ago, melkathi said:

Fable... I played one of those games. It may have been 2. I finished it, but I played it the same way I played Skyrim - set up homes and adopt as many orphans as I could. 

Like Skyrim, I found the game had nothing else to offer.

Fable: Lost Chapters, III, Anniversary (haven't played Fable II ) are stylistically consistent heroic (villainous) adventures in the more or less classic magical folklore setting. While they might lack complexity in combat and story, they are generally nice. Also, setting up homes (and optionally adopting orphans) was the best way to play Fable III - the story was built around fulfilling your promises after becoming the kingdom's ruler, while also trying to have enough resources to mitigate an upcoming calamity. Having a steady stream of income from the property helped greatly.

Another relatively immersive action-RPG I can think of is Outward, but I have not played it much - going to do a full co-op playthrough at some point. There is also Hardland, but it was a rather unusual action-adventure game and it could be annoying at times.

---

Stray Blade. The character upgrades are locked behind the weapons, which blueprints first must be obtained (seems like random drops so far), then the crafted weapons must be used, and only then the level up points can be spent on the upgrades. On one hand, it is probably good that there is a reason to try various weapons, on the other, I want those dual daggers from the store page and nothing else.

[Hurlshort]

I can second Outward being an amazing immersive game. I was hooked on that world for months.

[kanisatha]

10 hours ago, LadyCrimson said:

Farthest Frontier is still on my list because I like Crate Ent. I trust them to make a good/decent game. That said, from the getgo I wasn't sure if they were making a city management game I'd personally be into. I think you can essentially get a sandbox  mode out of it turning dangers and combat off, but still. Not sure at all, even when it comes out of early access.

I can't remember if you've played the old Impressions city builders or not? There's at least less of the population happiness management - I mean it's there but it's more of a generalist thing and not difficult to pacify or almost largely ignore (at least in freeplay). Or at least, I didn't find it so. But then I do find some aspects of the "management" part of efficiency "fun" as long as it's not overboard.

I liked Banished and I'm glad it rather revived the genre, but I'm tired of the whole "city building survival" concept. I don't care about earthquakes or floods or invading armies or skill trees or research paths. Just give me the buildings and a map and let me figure out what I think is best/most fun. To me that was the whole point of such games - sandbox, not to provide a gamey gameplay RTS challenge with the city building.

I also like city builders to be smaller scale myself. Stuff like City Skylines I have no interest in.
EDIT: the few building simulators I've seen that are much simulator vs. management are either too mechanics geek tech-y/complicated or too simple (almost to mobile game simple).

So yeah...maybe for different reasons but I find if difficult to find modern ones that I like beyond an initial run too. Although some of that may be because I find them all largely too easy to "master" by now. They've spent more time trying to insert more gamey gameplay or difficulty/time roadblocks and zero time on how to make the process of designing a city/layout more fun/interesting. eg, more terrain or resource challenges perhaps. Everything that conceptually worked in the ones from 20+ years ago still basically work in the new ones.

* yes I meant Farthest Frontier

I largely agree with you. I think it is the adding of the "survival" piece into the builder games that make them a turn-off for me. But even with strict builders, or where you can use a sandbox mode (which Patron also now has) option, caring for the needs of the people and making sure everything is optimally available for them starts getting tiresome for me once the population gets big. Even when I play Surviving Mars, I always use the robots mod so that eventually I can replace most of my workers with bots and limit my human population to under 100.

Btw, I've kept Kingdoms Reborn on my wishlist. Because of its card game component, I'm curious to see how it eventually turns out (once it leaves EA).

Edited April 7 by kanisatha