What are you Playing Now? - Back to the Grind

[melkathi]

@Hawke64 did you play Coteries of new York first?

Shadows is the sequel. It has two endings because coteries had only one, regardless of what you did, and people complained.

Coteries was better and the terrible ending made sense lore wise even if it was very unsatisfying.

But in general you get more fun out of werewolf heart of darkness.

Again it is a short VN and at some point during the second play through you realise again that your choice matter very little. But it is just well done. The first play through is great. If you can stand a VN.

[Bartimaeus]

9 hours ago, bugarup said:

Oh! I too played Slay the Princess. It was way too short, less than 10 minutes I think, and my reward for slaying her sucked.

I'm assuming you mean you ran through exactly one iteration and then quit: the game seems to have a kind of branching structure that reacts to your choices to shove you off a certain direction for future iterations before you can reach a proper ending. I don't think it's possible to beat the game in ten minutes unless maybe you literally don't read a single piece of text and just spam through everything. My playthrough took about two hours, but the average time listed on howlongtobeat.com is 3 hours, and that probably makes sense given that I had voice audio disabled so I could read and click through prompts at my own speed. My first iteration started with both of us murdering each other, and that seemed to lead to future iterations getting a bit more...scary and paranoid.

Edited January 21 by Bartimaeus

[BruceVC]

On 1/12/2024 at 3:38 PM, Wormerine said:

Zehir felt really oldschool to me - like playing a game from amiga era. I seems people aren't fond of it (which is understandable as it had to follow MotB), but I found it very charming.

I completed SoZ after about 60 hours and it was a fantastic experience, it  easily scores  73/100 on the influential  "   BruceVC  game rating system " 

I thought the new  mechanics were really well done and fun and they include 

• the map,  good idea  to explore and for random  encounters  
• the merchant trade system, once I understood  it and built up my merchant company it was  very rewarding seeing things progress.  Great feature

It was interesting but I completed    most  side quests, except  for West Harbor which I somehow didnt discover, but when I got to the final battle with the Zehir  priests I was  only level 12-13 and I got slaughtered about 4-5  times. So I went back  to exploring the map and raised my overall levels to 14 and then I was able to defeat the final end bosses 

 

 But great game overall and the entire NWN2 trilogy is highly recommended for anyone  who loves  D&D  rules with a compelling and worthwhile narrative 

Now Im playing PoE White March1&2,  I have just started and its  interesting the obvious differences  between that   ruleset  and any D&D  game 

 

 

 

Edited January 21 by BruceVC

[Mamoulian War]

After some break from Dark Souls Remastered caused by Low Fuel Motorsport introducing custom Balance of Power to GT4 racing, I went back to optional Bosses, and defeated both Priscilla and Gwyndolin. They were not much trouble, although I have made a misstep at Gwyndolin, and had to repeat the fight. Then another break filled with GT4 racing and yesterday I had finally some mood to start the DLC. As expected, the first boss did not pose much trouble, although I had to repeat the fight, due to me wanting to have his Tail cut, but all went well, and IIRC, on third try, I had both his Tail Weapon and his Soul Then, of course the first area came to play... aaaand as always, I was not much impressed. The Stone Guardians just kicked my ass repeatedly, and it took me another hour and half to pick up all the items and unlock the shortcut to Artorias Arena. I hope that I will be able to fight and defeat him today. It will definitely be test of my will as I have never fought DLC bosses with melee weapons only, and I know how big PitA can Artorias be, even for easy mode casters. Wish me luck

[Hawke64]

18 hours ago, melkathi said:

@Hawke64 did you play Coteries of new York first?

Shadows is the sequel. It has two endings because coteries had only one, regardless of what you did, and people complained.

Coteries was better and the terrible ending made sense lore wise even if it was very unsatisfying.

But in general you get more fun out of werewolf heart of darkness.

Again it is a short VN and at some point during the second play through you realise again that your choice matter very little. But it is just well done. The first play through is great. If you can stand a VN.

Yes, I've played Coteries and it was somehow more enjoyable - there was a choice in terms of missions and some of them were unique for the chosen clan. I was also able to choose a clan (with the background and appearance attached, but the MC still was nameable) and there were some resources to manage (I think, the blood level?). Additionally, it was possible to fail building the coterie, though I don't remember if I reloaded or the members still showed up during the pre-final confrontation.

I have several other WoD games from the recent Steam Sale, VtM - Swansong, Werewolf: The Apocalypse - Earthblood, and Werewolf: The Apocalypse - The Forest. Will try them after Control.

Speaking of, the optional bosses seem more unique and interesting than the main ones (fought the Fridge, died at the same time as the boss to gravity, but the game counted it as a win). The regular foes appearing out of the air are somehow irritating. It seems that the game would have been better as a more mission-based experience, with the hub in the Executive sector where the MC returns after each mission anyway.

[melkathi]

I started Swansong the other day, but I was tired so I immediately quit again.

The werewolf games are very different from one another. Heart of the Forest is a VN. A good VN and a great introduction to the setting. Earthblood is an action game, in which you rip people's spines out. I was very positively surprised by Earthblood though. It has one choice that matters at the end, to lead to one of two endings I guess, but generally it tells a dark WOD story and explores the setting far better than the trailers would make you believe.

[Keyrock]

I liked Swansong but I might be the only person on Earth who did. Also, I watch Neil Breen movies, so... What I'm trying to say is that you shouldn't take advice from a guy that may well be rocking back and forth in a chair shaking his head for hours on end one day.

[melkathi]

Cade has 7.3 on imdb.

Seems he is an acquired taste people now are starting to acquire

[Keyrock]

19 minutes ago, melkathi said:

Cade has 7.3 on imdb.

Seems he is an acquired taste people now are starting to acquire

There's plenty of room on the bus, I'll open the door for ya. It may be a short bus but we can fit more people. It's like one of those cars at the circus that 17 clowns come out of, or like when they show the exterior of a townhouse in a show or movie then they cut to a 30' x 30' living room that couldn't possibly fit inside it. 

Edited January 21 by Keyrock

[HoonDing]

If you have CD version of Neverwinter Nights 2, can you still patch the game through Obsidian server?

Same for Dragon Age and Mass Effect

I don't want to re-purchase a digital version

[Bartimaeus]

1 hour ago, HoonDing said:

If you have CD version of Neverwinter Nights 2, can you still patch the game through Obsidian server?

According to this blogpost, you'll have to do...incremental patches, if you can find them. The old NWN Vault website that used to host that sort of thing is looking pretty busted these days.

[Mamoulian War]

4 hours ago, HoonDing said:

If you have CD version of Neverwinter Nights 2, can you still patch the game through Obsidian server?

Same for Dragon Age and Mass Effect

I don't want to re-purchase a digital version

I might still have back-up of my own DIY “critical rebuild” patch, if I did not delete it by mistake. I can check my backups and upload it somewhere, if I really find it.

[Mamoulian War]

After 18 attempts, if I counted correctly, I have defeated Artorias .

I had to relearn the fight from beginning, as It is one of two fight so far, which I was only nuking the boss from far away. Now I had to get much much closer I had to stop after 10 unsuccessful attempts to get some farming, and upgrade my Advanced Pyromancy Flame up to +5 (not sure if it was really needed, but I did i just in case). The reason was, that I was struggling to break his poise with melee, when he was buffing himself, and soon after that, he finished me off. And as always, the game lags a little on PS4 in greater boss arenas. Which caused me being to slow as soon as I got him under 60%.

After the upgrade and getting few more level ups into the Dex and Vit, I attuned Chaos Fireball and equiped Guardian Armour set, which I have found In Royal Woods, and went to fight him again. Chaos Fireball has only 4 casts, but two hits were powerful enough to break Artorias poise during buffing, which made the fight much easier. As soon, as I broke his poise, I got him down to 15% or so, but I have fumbled his second buff attempt, so he kicked my ass again. After few more tries, I have learned a little bit more how to correctly predict exact moment, when to start hurling the fireballs at him, to always break his poise. The first attempt, when I broke his poise twice, was also a final attempt. Now I own his soul

After that, another small miracle happened, and I moved through Oolacil Township area pickup up all items and defeating all enemies, without a single wipe. Which was for me a world first

Now, Kalameet awaits me, and I am not really happy about that, as I want his tail, and I remember that, as the hardest thing to do, when I’ve played the game for the first time years ago, on PS3

[LadyCrimson]

I finally forced myself to finish the main quest of NMS with that secondary character and can now confirm that yep, another galaxy in this game is basically ... the same galaxy. There is indeed slightly more "lush" planets but I appear to have been initially deposited into a random pocket system cluster where 80% of all planets have no water/oceans/lakes. Boo. Jumping galaxies also seems to create a lot of "weirdness" regarding the discovered systems lists and other things which I don't like. So, definitely not doing it on that first/main chr. of mine.

On the bright side, w/this save I lucked out on an ok Interceptor ship - natural  S class - on the very first try. No need to upgrade it or interceptor hunt forever. Now to get out of this freakish rng no-water zone. >.>

Edited January 22 by LadyCrimson

[bugarup]

On 1/21/2024 at 2:49 AM, Bartimaeus said:

I'm assuming you mean you ran through exactly one iteration and then quit: the game seems to have a kind of branching structure that reacts to your choices to shove you off a certain direction for future iterations before you can reach a proper ending. I don't think it's possible to beat the game in ten minutes unless maybe you literally don't read a single piece of text and just spam through everything. My playthrough took about two hours, but the average time listed on howlongtobeat.com is 3 hours, and that probably makes sense given that I had voice audio disabled so I could read and click through prompts at my own speed. My first iteration started with both of us murdering each other, and that seemed to lead to future iterations getting a bit more...scary and paranoid.

Well, I went and slayed her fine, climbed up to discover I got a whole lot of literally nothing for a reward, took the "stay here for a while" option and wham, the end achieved, credits roll. I did restart later and did a full murderhobo loop though, took me about 3 hours of nice, mild horror. I'll probably try again to see if being nice to the Princess yields different results.  

[Mamoulian War]

@HoonDing I have found the DIY Critical Rebuild v1.23 (I have no clue, if that is the latest NWN2 build), but it only works if you have installed NWN2 with both of the expansions (which should be out of the box at v1.13). It does not work on any of the lower game versions.

[Malcador]

Finished the painful CIA mission Death Dealers in DK2.  No plan for the most part, cheesed it by having a Black Ops soldier just camping with an SVD and the idiot insurgents stroll into a hallway stepping over their buddies' corpses.

The Nowheraki (the devs' humour is real great) SWAT missions are pain, suicide bombers aplenty and their equipment is total crap

[melkathi]

Uninstalled Starship Troopers - Terran Command. The story is fun enough and they tried to keep the gameplay fresh for as long as they could. Towards the end of the campaign they just go with endlessly spawning waves of enemies though, which does make sense for the bugs, but gets tedious and unfun. Especially as it spawns waves on top of whatever the bugs spawn through their nests anyway. When the enemy respawns all their best units every 60 seconds in larger numbers than you have troop capacity, eh, whatever, my mistake for buying your game, but nobody is forcing me to play it.

Reduced it to lowest difficulty, but it doesn't change that the mission is just terribly designed. And with a handful of missions to go, I have no interested what crap they have in store for those.

It doesn't help that the controls are pretty bad.

Game went from "Hey this is fun, you should play it!" to "Don't waste your money and time..." in the period of a couple of missions.

Edited January 22 by melkathi

[Hurlshort]

Midnight Suns is eating up my time pretty well. It's pretty easy on normal. I've reached the 2nd act and the fights are a bit more diverse, but it is still pretty easy to win. The only loss I had was one of the personal missions where you and your dog take on the world, but I was able to reconfigure my deck a bit and win it easily the next time. It was also recommended for level 16 and I was 12, so I'm going to say normal mode is a bit easy. 

I'm enjoying trying to hook Captain Marvel up with Blade. Those are some socially awkward lovebirds.

[melkathi]

Book club is so awkward.

Only way it could have become more awkward would have been Magic joining.  She'd probably stop the meeting half way through with a comment about the awkwardness being pathetic, go ask her out.

[Keyrock]

I raided a Dwemer ruin in the far western reaches of the Morrowind mainland. This one was larger and more intact than previous ruins I'd entered. At first I had the usual assortment of spider centurions and relatively easy to handle sword or polearm centurions to deal with and found some gems and baubles for my trouble, but as I got deeper I started running into some beefier boys that I had to be far more careful with. I made my way through a really neat maze of dropping down into cisterns, swimming through underwater tunnels, and levitating up shafts to get to a really deep area.

Eventually I found a well furnished room occupied by a Dunmer, so I walked toward him to find out if he's hos... Oh! He's definitely hostile, he's blasting me with spells left and right... And I'm dead. Good thing I saved not far back. I was determined to get whatever was in that room so next I attempted the age old strategy of letting him see me then ducking around a corner to lure him into melee, which did allow me to smash him with my mace, but it also left him far too much room to employ the age old strategy of casting spells while backpedalling. And I'm dead again. I decided to give the Amulet of Shadows a shot, but that didn't work either. He could see through the strong chameleon effect, the room was too well lit and he was staring right at the archway to get into the room. I had to figure out a way to get the jump on him if I was to outDPS him. Luckily, I had a potion of invisibility for just such an occasion and it allowed me to get right up to him unseen and position myself in such a way that he didn't have much room to back up. Even then, it took me 2 tries to beat him, and just barely the second time. I had to use everything at my disposal. I used a fortify attack potion in addition to the invisibility. I managed to disrupt some of his spell casting, turns out it's hard to concentrate when a big angry Nord woman is going to town on you with a mace. He was chugging healing and magicka recovery potions, I was chugging healing potions, it was looking really dicey there as I just couldn't go through his HP quick enough. The turning point came when he ran out of magicka and had to resort to physical combat. Still, he put up one hell of a fight, but he couldn't match my DPS in melee, smashing people with a mace is my specialty.

I burned through a good chunk of my resources that battle but it was well worth it. The reason he was so hard for me to kill was that he was wearing a full set of dreugh armor, minus the helmet. Which is to say, I am now wearing a full set of dreugh armor, helmet included, since I already had one and was, in fact, wearing it during the fight. Well, except the boots. I already had ebony boots which are even better than the already great dreugh boots. He had some other nice valuables on him or in the room, but I couldn't carry everything even with my 70+ strength, so I had to pick and choose what to take with me. I don't remember coming across more than one piece of ebony armor in the vanilla game, so those boots might be it, but it's also possible that the Tamriel_Rebuilt mod added more pieces of ebony armor. The dream would be a full set. Needless to say, any time I encounter ebony armor of a type I don't already have, I'm going to acquire it one way or another. Even if I don't, I'm in really good shape in terms of armor with what I currently have, especially once I enchant some of it. /looks at Enchant skill... 24. Okay, I gotta work on that.

[the_dog_days]

I started a new character on ESO a month and a half ago. Argonian warden. I'm almost through the Daggerfall Covenant quest line and haven't started the main quest yet. I want to finish the DC regions, then the others, and then do the main quest.

[melkathi]

On 1/23/2024 at 1:02 AM, Hurlshort said:

 

I'm enjoying trying to hook Captain Marvel up with Blade. Those are some socially awkward lovebirds.

"Here. Is portal. Take her to place romantic without grandfather interrupting."  (Last comment while pointedly ignoring Captain America)

Edited January 24 by melkathi

[uuuhhii]

On 1/19/2024 at 8:40 PM, Hawke64 said:

Vampire the Masquerade - Shadows of New York. Finished the game mostly by holding Ctrl - I have much lower tolerance for visual novels, pretty or not. While the art is outstanding, the saving system, GUI in general, the choices and the story make it hard to recommend. The writing and music are fine, the VA is not present. The protagonist is predetermined, from the name to the background to the clan. There are some choices that do determine the ending, but I was unable to follow the logic. There is no gallery to view the backgrounds and CG, but there is a dictionary with 1-paragraph descriptions.

To elaborate on the saving system, there are 3 auto-saving slots, one per playthrough, and the game just deletes the save after the playthrough is finished. It was the same in the previous game and seeing it not fixed is disappointing. While it is possible to use Windows Explorer, the developers should have implemented manual saving at will as in any technically-decent visual novel.

 

 

turn to visual novel decade ago because their writing are often at least better than web novel

these vtm visual novel at least have some style point over regular visual novel

[Hawke64]

Finished Control. It was fine. As was mentioned, the optional larger bosses were more interesting than the main story ones, who consisted of the regular foes with names and larger health bars. The enemies spawning out of thin air were annoying and Saints Row was a jollier superhero simulator, but it was fine overall. There was one mission with a song by The Poets of the Fall playing in the background. Not sure if it fit, but the area certainly was memorable and, fortunately, linear - if the labyrinth was both changing and more labyrinthine, it would be worse. I also unlocked some new outfits, and the janitor one was unironically the best looking so far. 

Will finish some side quests and try to write a review.