What are you Playing Now? - Right Now at the moment edition

[melkathi]

Nearly done with Rogue Trader. Both as in nearly completed it, but also nearly at the point where it is more annoyance than fun.

My party is so powerful, most fights are finished before the opponents get to act.

Level ups are boring. I have run out of things to pick at level up, meaning most times I pick the options I chose not to pick earlier in the game, not because now they have become interesting, but because I already have everything else. I have gotten to the point where I don't necessarily do the level up right away and simply continue playing.

There are way too many skill checks. And since you are at silly high skill levels, the game throws silly high penalties at you to make the checks *interesting* - Check for Lore-Xenos with a -100 penalty, since you have at least one character with 150 in any given skill. *yawn* Throwing arbitrary, ridiculous penalties around does not make the game interesting, it just shows your advancement system wasn't balanced.

Companion quests are WTF. Suddenly at the end of chapter 4 you discover that all interactions fed into a hidden counter and suddenly your companion decides that she wants to be a masochistic nudist because at the end of the prologue you were nice to the orphans.

It doesn't help that there are still bugs in the later chapters. The guy I executed early in Act 4 showing up at the start of Act 5 to help me.

 

But god, that overabundance of skill checks.

Those and the environmental hazards.

 

At least I know I will not be getting the DLCs. No way I'll endure this game a second time.

[majestic]

52 minutes ago, melkathi said:

Companion quests are WTF. Suddenly at the end of chapter 4 you discover that all interactions fed into a hidden counter and suddenly your companion decides that she wants to be a masochistic nudist because at the end of the prologue you were nice to the orphans.

[melkathi]

If you are not fanatical enough in your conversations with Argenta, she has a crisis of faith, simply fails her companion quest and becomes a Repentia fan service nun for teenage boy Warhammer fans. She then gets an insignificant buff when not wearing armour. Incidentally, the only item in the game that also buffs characters when not wearing armour is for psykers and not for her.

[Azdeus]

2 hours ago, melkathi said:

 

There are way too many skill checks. And since you are at silly high skill levels, the game throws silly high penalties at you to make the checks *interesting* - Check for Lore-Xenos with a -100 penalty, since you have at least one character with 150 in any given skill. *yawn* Throwing arbitrary, ridiculous penalties around does not make the game interesting, it just shows your advancement system wasn't balanced.

I couldnt stand how badly they ****ed up the skill system, they couldve just used the Raw rules and it'd have been fine. It could've been an actually good game

[Humanoid]

I was going to ask about buying the bundle when I've gotten barely one hour into WoTR, guess I have my answer now.

[melkathi]

It remains possibly the best 40K game when it comes to exploring the setting. But they don't know what makes a game tedious and un-fun.

 

[Humanoid]

I know next to nothing about Warhammer, be it 1K or 40K, and from the sounds of it I'd probably be best off if that remained the case.

More a case of very mild FOMO with the bundle running for one more week. I have base WoTR only, it didn't grab me so far but I only just left tutorial village. As it's on a back-backburner for now, the door was open for it to be replaced by Rogue Trader if it was a clearly better game, but given the complaints listed above it appears not.

[Malcador]

New WoW expansion today, so guess it's that. 

Got bored in Warband and cheating to make the Swadian pretender Queen, except Harlaus is MIA and his vassals are my prisoners, so seems I broke the game.

[Hawke64]

18 hours ago, Humanoid said:

I know next to nothing about Warhammer, be it 1K or 40K, and from the sounds of it I'd probably be best off if that remained the case.

More a case of very mild FOMO with the bundle running for one more week. I have base WoTR only, it didn't grab me so far but I only just left tutorial village. As it's on a back-backburner for now, the door was open for it to be replaced by Rogue Trader if it was a clearly better game, but given the complaints listed above it appears not.

WotR did not have a tutorial village, the tutorial took place in a city overrun with demons. Kingmaker had a castle, then some wilderness with small inns and sort of a village (I think, it required at least a few hours to get there).

I have played RT for a bit, but the setting and the combat are somehow unappealing, so the playthrough is progressing rather slowly. I do like Owlcat, but the combination of their usual combat density (possibly a bit lighter) and the combat being turn-based is not exactly the best one.

---

The Outer Worlds. I have recovered my save files and reached Monarch the normal way (tried running from Cascadia successfully, then reloaded). Seen the first 100+ (142) Persuasion check, so considering reinstalling the game. Then again, some 100+ skills are interesting.

---

Spellchecking does not seem to be working in the browser (despite the setting being turned on), so I am trying to pay more attention to what I am typing.

Edited August 27 by Hawke64

[Humanoid]

27 minutes ago, Hawke64 said:

WotR did not have a tutorial village, the tutorial took place in a city overrun with demons.

Ah, I meant the little underground community at the end of it, which Google tells me is called Neathholm. I think it's still classified as being part of the prologue, but I guess the tutorial was over.

[melkathi]

Rogue Trader completed 

Post Mortem:

They tried. 

They tried to do something with the setting that was more than a space marine spouting fascist one liners while shooting anyone not a space marine.

They tried to show a setting that actually works, and how it doesn't.

They care about the setting - more so than Games Workshop and most fanboys do. People queuing in the bureaucracy being sleeping bags, not knowing how many days they'll be there.

 

The story both works and does not work. 

In general, if your villain needs to monologue at the end and explain their plan, because Mr Bond the laser will kill you anyway, then your plot was contrived.

The game is split into a tutorial prologue and five chapters.

The prologue works. It sets up how you become the Rogue Trader, gives you the first three party members, and lets you explore the setting and system. The first alignment choice is good - the scene with the choice is crap - if a person materializes out if nothing in a fire, in a world where daemons are real, you don't chat with it. *Rolleyes*

Chapter 1 shows, as so often in rpgs, that it got a lot of attention. It is compact, has choices that make sense, with outcomes that are understandable. The outcome is over the top and slightly confusing, as two things happen at the same time - luckily the villain at the end of the game will monologue and explain The choices at the end all make sense (except possibly the heretical. I wouldn't know, I didn't make choices that would unlock it).

Chapter 2 starts OK and theoretically gives you freedom to explore. The Devs expect you though to play in a specific way. You go to Janus first. If you head off in the wrong direction as I had done in my first attempt, you do things out of order and break stuff. Is it important stuff? It depends. Do you want Yrliet and to do her personal quest? If you want to do her personal quest you do Janus first. Not because by delaying the visit time passes and you are too late, but because while exploring you will likely run into the personal quest encounters before having the quest, so once you do get it, the encounters are gone and it can't be progressed. In general chapter 2 works, but lacks a cohesive feeling. It has the BioWare Game middle problem: you need to do three things, in the order you choose, where each thing let's us tell a different story and use a different colour palette. This is always detrimental to cohesion.

Chapter 3 was created out of fan enthusiasm that Games Workshop gave the okay to use a specific location and explore it in a way it hadn't yet. I get it. You are allowed to do something cool. But why do the players need to suffer for it? And I actually like Harlequins! I understand what they tried to do. Part of it works. Part of it is terribly made. I replayed the complete chapter because I didn't manage to talk to an NPC - they were behind bars, I should have clicked between the bars, yet I always clicked the bars so always got the boring description and eventually decided "I probably can't talk to them yet".

Chapter 3 is where you find the most people online getting annoyed, looking for walkthroughs.

Chapter 4 throws you back into freedom. The difference to 2 is that theoretically you care a bit more. And if you are cynical like me, you may be positively surprised that there is more stuff to do than you expected after the experience of Chapter 3. They are working on the bugs. I only had one. The problem of this chapter is that it shows, Owlcat expects players to play in specific ways: full dedication to one alignment and always picking those choices when they come up. You are supposed to do three playthroughs and each with 100% dedication. If not, you suddenly realise you are locked out of gaining any alignment points halfway through the game, as you don't meet the requirements to make more alignment choices... On top of that, a number of companion quests complete in this chapter and I have ranted about that already. The conclusion of the chapter held some annoyance on a mechanical level for me (what do you mean you are saddened I never collaborated with you faction, when in every choice I have sided with you, simply did not trade enough to reach the final tier?)

 

Chapter 5 goes back to being linear. It is expectedly short and throws new stuff at you because plot twist. I understand the plot twist, saw it coming. But still, "and now for something completely different" should be left to Monty Python sketches, not for plot resolutions.

I feel the finale and certain possibilities are too over the top.

 

 

I mean it, spoiler ahead.

seriously? Converting a C'tan shard to the imperial creed???

 

Verdict, the best look at the setting in a video game.

A lot of love and excitement by the Devs.

Direction completely pushed aside by said excitement.

No understanding what makes mechanics fun/unfun. An attempt to learn from their Pathfinder games, but not truly having learned the lesson.

Edited August 27 by melkathi

[majestic]

On 8/26/2024 at 12:32 AM, melkathi said:

If you are not fanatical enough in your conversations with Argenta, she has a crisis of faith, simply fails her companion quest and becomes a Repentia fan service nun for teenage boy Warhammer fans. She then gets an insignificant buff when not wearing armour. Incidentally, the only item in the game that also buffs characters when not wearing armour is for psykers and not for her.

She, uh, becomes a Repentia even if you are as fanatical as you can get with her. Or perhaps that was a bug I ran into. I thought she was supposed to "fail" in her quest by design and that she can never acquire what she's after because of her hubris.

If that is not the case I guess I gave Owlcat too much credit.

[melkathi]

No, each companion except for Adelard has three stats. For Argenta it is Humility, Fire, Fury. Each time you talk to her boosts one of them. It is extremely easy to boost humility if you don't play an idiot. For example telling her she should have informed the Ecclesiarchy of the suspected location of the relic before heading off. In other words she should have lead a proper exhibition to reclaim the artifact not run off without a plan, is a humility choice which causes her to lose faith.

The biggest problem is, at the end of each quest there is a dialogue which gives double points, so that if you got the odd discussion wrong, you can still nudge the character in the right direction. For Argenta, humility choices lock you out of that dialogue, giving you an alternate dialogue without choices for fire and fury.

 

Fire has her found a minor order and is the good option 

Fury has her go full fanatical crusader and run around burning people alive.

 

It is the worst companion quest because it just ends in failure and railroads you into it if you are on the path to failure.

 

I got Ulfar to lone wolf. Better than Wulfen, but still a dumb illogical resolution (then again, that fits space wolves). But at least with his quest the quest competes regardless of what he'll do afterwards.

 

Yrliet's quest works. Either you are iconoclast enough and do it, or you probably do not have her in your party anyway.

Similar with Idira and Jae.

 

The advise you give Carissa is pretty clear, so the result makes sense.

 

Pascal is probably the best quest. It actually has substance and ties in with the main quest. It isn't just an NPC saying "hey Playa, can we talk, I want you to do my personal quest".

 

[melkathi]

To go into numbers, 

At the last dialogue for her personal quest I was at 0 Fire, 2 Humility, 1 Fury (let's be honest, in chapter 3 "we'll f em up!" is the only reasonable dialogue choice in any dialogue).

So in theory I should have been able to nudge her towards fury with a double fury choice. But because the Argenta quest blocks that dialogue, she failed the quest.

Both Fire and Fury complete the quest, just change the stats of the power armour and the ending slides.

[Hawke64]

5 hours ago, Humanoid said:

Ah, I meant the little underground community at the end of it, which Google tells me is called Neathholm. I think it's still classified as being part of the prologue, but I guess the tutorial was over.

Thank you for the clarification. It is quite early in the game, so I agree that getting the next Owlcat game before progressing with WotR at least to Dresen (Chapter 3, I think) might be inadvisable.

---

The Outer Worlds. Monarch. Trying to find an in-character reason for doing the side quests before finding the information broker and saving the Hope. Sanjar is persuasive and MSI is the only likeable corporation, thus, one must help them? On another note, the area is rather large - there are 3 settlements and quite a few combat encounters. I guess, the red rocks are supposed to serve as walls, considering that even when jumping from above, the PC slides from them.

Edit. I suppose, for the in-character motivation - there is no point in saving the Hope colonists if the colony itself is on the brink of collapse. They would just die a bit warmer.

Edited August 27 by Hawke64

[Mamoulian War]

I have finished the last DS2 DLC yesterday. And I think I have enjoyed it most of the three packs. With the exception of some frozen mobs, which were impossible to backstab

Anyway. The level design of Frozen Eleum Loyce was as gorgeous as the Brume Tower. First I have went to the right not knowing, that the boss is on the left, so I have managed to avoid myself a big surprise, which I have found later on internet I was slowly clearing the area of the mobs, picked up the Eye of the Priestess, and then I have found one invader phantom, which has been transformed into barrel. To bad, that I have found him only after he made a backstab on me as soon as I have touched the nearby chest. At that time, I have thought, that he somehow hidden on the staircase above, and I did not noticed him. So as soon, as I have run again to this place, I went for the staircase, and I have found out his camouflage, and I literally burst into laughter, as I've seen that some barrel is running after me. I have almost died due to that for the second time It turned into pretty lengthy fight afterwards, which I was lucky enough to survive   After that, I was ready to explore the left side of the fortress behind the entrance, where the first boss was hiding. I summoned two phantoms, and started the fight. Compared to the fights in Old Iron King DLC, this was pretty easy, so I have lost my focus again, and closer to the end of the fight, I was asskicked while trying to put lance up his rear end The second try was much better executed, and prepared for his attacks, do I celebrated my first victory in this area.

Next was small talk with lady on a balcony, which has unfrozen for me the rest of the level, so I could go and try to find three missing Loyce Knights. This unlocked pretty big areas, which have been inaccessible before that. Of course, that meant few silly wipes again. The most precious one was, when I have decided to slide down the slope after big rolling snowball, which I have kicked down few seconds before Anyway, after few hours of slowly searching the rest of the fortress, I have found out all three knights, and unlocked all of the shortcuts. It was time to fight against Burnt Ivory King. I have again summoned two phantoms for help and went through the fog gate. The fight was interesting, and the charred mobs has been dropping few items during the fight, which I was promptly picking up. With all that help of 4 Loyce Knights and two summons, the fight was not difficult at all, but again, my impatience ruined nice attempt, as the King made a large swing which ended up my misery once again Again, being smarter after seeing most of his moves against me and the summons, I entered for the second attempt. This time, I was much more cautious, which rewarded me with another victory, so I have picked up last crown, and went for another talk with the lady. Unfortunately this time no drops from adds. Later I have found out, that I would need 50 Loyce Souls. I got 1 from the first attempt. So silly me, wet to Old Chaos all by himself. Somehow, I have managed to defeat two of the knights, but then another three spawned, and I started to run around like a headless chicken trying to use the exit light to not lose a hefty sum of souls again I've survived, but I had a laugh again, with what stupidity I have come up this time Before going to the next area, I have tried to grind for the Frozen Armour set from Rampart Golems, which were close to the last bonfire. Unfortunately, I am still missing bracers

Next in line was the frozen blizzardy area, which name I have forgotten already (Frozen Outskirts maybe?), which I have tried to avoid for as long as possible, as everyone I have ever listen to, has been bitching about, as the worst area ever created for any Soulslike game. To my surprise, it was a far far away from the torture, which I have expected. It was not the best design again, but from my experience, out of all "gauntlets" in the DS2 DLCs, this was the least ****ty one. All I needed to do, was stop for few seconds whenever the blizzard was active, and move only during the short calm period. Thanks to this, I have found without ease almost all items on my first try, which I have messed up at the end, when I have pulled by mistake two stallions On the next try, I got the last item as well, and got to fog gate with no issues. As always, I have used phantoms again. This time it was possible to summon three of them. So I have used them all The fight was similar to the first bossfight in this DLC. Difference being second cat. As Hawke mentioned before (I have not read it up until now, to not spoil the first experience ), the second cat joined the fight very very soon. Even with the raised resistances to bosses with three phantoms around, the fight was not that hard for me, mostly due to me already knowing all the cat moves. My DPS was pretty decent to overcome the buff on the second cat as well. Unfortunately, close to the end of the fight, I messed up again and facerolled into the snow. Second attempt was again victorious. I was little bit afraid of messing up again during the buffed phase, so I have approached that phase of the fight with maximum caution. Despite that, I was still able to do more damage to it, as she was able to heal up, although by a small margin. So it took a while. Then, to my surprise the buff was gone, me and all of the summons still standing, so I run fast, but cautiously towards her, and finished the fight. Two more souls in the inventory, and time to get back to the base game.

I will probably take one day of break, and then will decide, if I finish the main boss or go for the Darklurker first. I will be going to visit Ancient Dragon and Vendrick definitely in the post-game, before moving to NG+. All I have to do now, is to decide, if I will try to get some missing drops in the meanwhile, or leave it for NG+, when the droprate is a little bit higher than in NG.

Deathcounter: 268

[Wormerine]

CYBERPUNK 2077. And Phantom Libery DLC

Finished my 2nd (and probably last) playthough of Cyberpunk.

In short I had a good time, much better when I first played it, and would recommend it now. The 2.0 didn't fix fundamental issues that I had with the game, but gameplay is much better, driving is passable, and the technical state is way better than it was year ago. While the game still has problems it became more "immersive" and as such I found it much easier to engage with the story.

So couple notes: No has to accept what Cyberpunk is: it is mostly an act of passively watching cinematics with some combat inbetween. It not that disimmilar to Witchers. What makes me like Cyberpunk less is V. Lack of player agency means I am relying on V to fill in the voice, and he/she just isn't a compelling character. I am also not a fan of first person cinematics - and especially the ones that don't restrict your movement. Rather than more immersive they fell less immersive - characters I am talking to don't make eye contact as devs can't predict where I will be sitting. They do this weird acting pantomime with me watching them, which just fails to feel authentic for me. I also prefered Witchers more intertwined quest - Cyberpunks multiple linear narratives make it a bit more apparent how little agency the player has. It is not that much different than Witchers, who often gave you multiple tasks before moving the story forward, but it feels different.

I also feel Johnny's relation ship with V lacks progression. Because his content is tied to quests rather V-Johnny relationship, their interactions feel erratic. When we end up best of chooms at the end, it doesn't feel like a natural progression of the game - maybe there is a set path which makes it feel ok, but in my experience V and Johnny kept switching between being comfortable with each other and hostile stragers throughout.

DLC is good. Characters are strong, choices are interesting. Still, same issues with above. I never felt V was interacting with the characters you meet. More like I am an understudy watching other actors act on stage. And while I say good, it is also just more Cyberpunk. I might have hoped for an evolution - perhaps bigger complexity, and more intricate design, but especially main missions were mostly "on rails", making the whole affair rather passive. What I enjoyed the most was side content, as narratively new missions are much stronger than hustles in the base game, and they offer more freedom (or explore specific gameplay systems) more than story missions, which are leaning hard toward scripted events and cutscenes. I also appreciated repeatable car stealing events - reinforcing my feeling that Cyberpunk has more future as a GTA-like, and less so as an RPG. With DLC increasing V's personality I suspect Cyberpunk2 will lean more toward being an open world action game, with light RPG elements - even more so than it does now.

CDPR did quite a job fixing Cyberpunk up. I still don't love it, but it is alright for what it is.

[Mamoulian War]

Goal 6/2024 achieved.

August 29, 19:00 – I have finished my first Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin playthrough on my PS4. This time, including all DLCs. In contrast to vanilla version of the game, you need also to clear the DLCs, to fulfill all criteria for Platinum Trophy. Unfortunately I have messed up the ending, as I have forgotten, that I need to defeat Vendrick before defeating Nashandra, and I have forgotten to backup my save . It took me almost 100 hours and 294 deaths. Almost the same as Dark Souls Remastered . The DLCs have been as much challenging, as I have anticipated, with few terrible areas like Iron Passage, which won my personal Worst Area Design Contest in all of the games, I have ever finished .

The day before, I have also defeated the Darklurker. So far, the most challenging fight for my melee build. I died probably around 20 times or so while fighting him, with at least 5-6 attempts leaving him less than 5% HP. I have noticed to late, how much damage I can make to him, with my Great Lightning Bolt, so until then I have been asskicked pretty badly few times, as I tried to go all out melee on the Boss, but as soon, as he split, I was to slow to land enough damage on him, before they obliterated me with spells. Then as soon as I have started to use Miracles, almost every attempt was under 10% HP, but before landing the last hit, I have always made some silly move, like jumping into his spells or started to cast my spells almost at his melee range. Which of course meant a very quick demise of my character

Anyway, I am angry at myself, about that mess up with Aldia, so I will not have perfect walkthrough on my videos with all quests completed. I will have to wait for NG+. Where I will probably skip most of the quests, as I have all of the rewards from them anyway, and I will probably try to get through the game without phantoms. We'll see how many bosses this will last But before that, I still need to defeat the Ancient Dragon and Vendrick. And one cheating "cleric" NPC as well.

[BruceVC]

13 hours ago, Wormerine said:

CYBERPUNK 2077. And Phantom Libery DLC

Finished my 2nd (and probably last) playthough of Cyberpunk.

In short I had a good time, much better when I first played it, and would recommend it now. The 2.0 didn't fix fundamental issues that I had with the game, but gameplay is much better, driving is passable, and the technical state is way better than it was year ago. While the game still has problems it became more "immersive" and as such I found it much easier to engage with the story.

So couple notes: No has to accept what Cyberpunk is: it is mostly an act of passively watching cinematics with some combat inbetween. It not that disimmilar to Witchers. What makes me like Cyberpunk less is V. Lack of player agency means I am relying on V to fill in the voice, and he/she just isn't a compelling character. I am also not a fan of first person cinematics - and especially the ones that don't restrict your movement. Rather than more immersive they fell less immersive - characters I am talking to don't make eye contact as devs can't predict where I will be sitting. They do this weird acting pantomime with me watching them, which just fails to feel authentic for me. I also prefered Witchers more intertwined quest - Cyberpunks multiple linear narratives make it a bit more apparent how little agency the player has. It is not that much different than Witchers, who often gave you multiple tasks before moving the story forward, but it feels different.

I also feel Johnny's relation ship with V lacks progression. Because his content is tied to quests rather V-Johnny relationship, their interactions feel erratic. When we end up best of chooms at the end, it doesn't feel like a natural progression of the game - maybe there is a set path which makes it feel ok, but in my experience V and Johnny kept switching between being comfortable with each other and hostile stragers throughout.

DLC is good. Characters are strong, choices are interesting. Still, same issues with above. I never felt V was interacting with the characters you meet. More like I am an understudy watching other actors act on stage. And while I say good, it is also just more Cyberpunk. I might have hoped for an evolution - perhaps bigger complexity, and more intricate design, but especially main missions were mostly "on rails", making the whole affair rather passive. What I enjoyed the most was side content, as narratively new missions are much stronger than hustles in the base game, and they offer more freedom (or explore specific gameplay systems) more than story missions, which are leaning hard toward scripted events and cutscenes. I also appreciated repeatable car stealing events - reinforcing my feeling that Cyberpunk has more future as a GTA-like, and less so as an RPG. With DLC increasing V's personality I suspect Cyberpunk2 will lean more toward being an open world action game, with light RPG elements - even more so than it does now.

CDPR did quite a job fixing Cyberpunk up. I still don't love it, but it is alright for what it is.

Great to hear, I always knew that CDPR would fix most of the main  problems from the terrible launch of Cyb2077

I think its time I played this game 

[Hawke64]

10 hours ago, Mamoulian War said:

I will have to wait for NG+. Where I will probably skip most of the quests, as I have all of the rewards from them anyway, and I will probably try to get through the game without phantoms. We'll see how many bosses this will last But before that, I still need to defeat the Ancient Dragon and Vendrick. And one cheating "cleric" NPC as well.

You can just throw a Bonfire Ascetic into the bonfire next to the boss room after killing Vendrick. It will respawn also the Watcher and the Defender, but you should be able to dismiss the summons and feather out at the start of Nashandra's battle (same for Aldia, the summons tend to burn during the second phase either way).
This method also works for NPC quest lines (with some restrictions, but I do not remember at what point it becomes impossible to do so) and allows to get NG+ boss souls in NG. If I am not mistaken, some of the merchants have their inventory updated (I got the Butterfly set from the armourer in Majula), but not all. The partial difficulty increase is limited to the respective area and it was slightly different from the actual NG+ in the vanilla DS2 (e.g. no Freja appearing earlier, no additional red phantoms with the Lost Sinner). However, it carries over to the next NG cycle, so one must be careful.

---

The Outer Worlds. Finished Monarch. Some thoughts on the area's main quest.

Spoiler

Reasons to oppose the peaceful resolution between MSI and the Iconoclasts. Zora already murdered one leader she disagreed with, and she was willing to assault the city with the knowledge that her people would kill and die for her and their ideals. So, having the Iconoclasts stationed within the walls of Stellar Bay seemed at best unwise, considering that Sanjar aimed to have MSI restored to the Board, which could have angered the Iconoclasts as well.

Reasons to support the peaceful resolution. Sanjar did cut off the supplies for Amber Heights and the Board was leading the colony to death. So, the hostility from both sides was understandable. And the PC is the all-knowing and all-powerful being (unless one actually roleplays with limited information and abilities and specific motivations), so making a worse choice is a choice.

I can't say that I have any issues with Graham using pirates to murder the MSI senior leadership or that it was anyhow different from using a grenade launcher, especially considering the party's kill count at that point (includes the flamethrower user from the Groundbreaker Back Bays and some SubLight personnel - the combat could have been avoided, but them being dead was more beneficial for the party).

Reached Byzantium. The streets are covered in trash, a lot of buildings are locked down, and the service bots are dusting holes in the walls.

I've been thinking about Encased while playing. In particular, the non-combat skill checks and the writing for the low-int PC (I cannot tell if it was ableistic or not, so not commenting on that aspect). It feels like Encased had more options and supported more playstyles (a certain companion quest in TOW had an unavoidable battle against a mantiqueen, while my PC had the highest combat-only skill at 20), including a fully implemented non-lethal path, with the PC being reasonably motivated to avoid killing most people in-character. Also a low-int PC had most dialogues adapted, with several exclusive to them options available. As far as I know (haven't tried yet, will update if incorrect), TOW has fewer.

On the other hand, TOW is more coherent in terms of narrative (the quality of writing is undoubtedly higher in TOW) and gameplay systems, even if, as mentioned, the systems are less developed. Though, I do like that I have only 4 slots (2 weapons and 2 armour pieces) to equip for each companion.

[Mamoulian War]

1 hour ago, Hawke64 said:

You can just throw a Bonfire Ascetic into the bonfire next to the boss room after killing Vendrick. It will respawn also the Watcher and the Defender, but you should be able to dismiss the summons and feather out at the start of Nashandra's battle (same for Aldia, the summons tend to burn during the second phase either way).
This method also works for NPC quest lines (with some restrictions, but I do not remember at what point it becomes impossible to do so) and allows to get NG+ boss souls in NG. If I am not mistaken, some of the merchants have their inventory updated (I got the Butterfly set from the armourer in Majula), but not all. The partial difficulty increase is limited to the respective area and it was slightly different from the actual NG+ in the vanilla DS2 (e.g. no Freja appearing earlier, no additional red phantoms with the Lost Sinner). However, it carries over to the next NG cycle, so one must be careful.

Yeah, I know about the Bonfire Ascetic solution to the problem. I still have to go through NG+ and NG+2 to get all the spells required for trophies, so there is no Issue with Aldia not spawning for now. I am just angry, that my memory failed

[Humanoid]

18 hours ago, Wormerine said:

DLC is good. Characters are strong, choices are interesting. Still, same issues with above. I never felt V was interacting with the characters you meet. More like I am an understudy watching other actors act on stage.

Yeah, after completing the overlong and overly scripted Phantom Liberty opening set piece, I decided to just faff around doing open world content for another 5 hours or so and am done with Cyberpunk for the foreseeable future.

Mostly just playing Euro Truck Sim 2 again for the last few weeks. Annoyingly the West Balkans DLC has yet to go on a proper sale (I guess it will once the next DLC is released), but the revamped Switzerland is lovely. The hidden route through the old section of Bern is a particular highlight.

Edited August 30 by Humanoid

[Zoraptor]

4 hours ago, Hawke64 said:

I've been thinking about Encased while playing. In particular, the non-combat skill checks and the writing for the low-int PC (I cannot tell if it was ableistic or not, so not commenting on that aspect). It feels like Encased had more options and supported more playstyles (a certain companion quest in TOW had an unavoidable battle against a mantiqueen, while my PC had the highest combat-only skill at 20), including a fully implemented non-lethal path, with the PC being reasonably motivated to avoid killing most people in-character.

Encased had an absolute plethora of options, indeed it was perhaps the highest effort RPG in that respect I've played. Far better than any recent big name RPG, at least those without a preset protagonist.

Shame a lot of effort also went into reinventing the wheel mechanics wise and it felt at times that they were changing the usual way of doing things even if the usual was better.

[Wormerine]

8 hours ago, Humanoid said:

Yeah, after completing the overlong and overly scripted Phantom Liberty opening set piece, I decided to just faff around doing open world content for another 5 hours or so and am done with Cyberpunk for the foreseeable future.

I would recommend finishing Phantom Liberty. The opening mission is indeed awfully long and artificially scripted but rest of the campaign is better. There is also a pretty good story branching, IMO much better than it was in Witchers, as divergent events are actually a natural consequence of V decision, rather than alternative universe where unrelated things change. I also like Phanto Liberty’s new ending the most. I found it most thematically interesting. 

and as you progress you will unlock more Mr Hands quests and I just found those to be most entertaining content in Cyberpunk.

oh, one extra note - boss fights still suck hard. While combat got better, it is not good enough to provide “fun challenge”.

[Hawke64]

Finished The Outer Worlds, while aiming for the more peaceful outcomes (still shot Rockwell without talking). I suppose, everything about the game has been said already, so in the context of Avowed releasing soon (2025?), I am unsure if I should hope for more gameplay depth. The shallow systems work with the satirical narrative, but more complexity for a high-/dark-fantasy epic would be welcome. As well as the less focus on the combat, which is not particularly satisfying* - something smaller, but with more immersive sim elements or stronger story branching. Regarding the environmental storytelling, on one hand, there are party members' cabins with items placed very thoughtfully, then there are level-scaled modern guns or Adreno on the Hope in the areas unused by UDL. So, as mentioned, smaller and with higher attention to details would be preferred to RNG. I guess, I have seen worse itemisation in Divinity: Original Sin 2, but that one was the worst - level-scaled colour-coded RNG'ed faceless trash with no story significance appearing in random crates (it got somewhat better in the D&D game - the unique equipment could be kept throughout the game, but there still was a lot of literal trash).

*I can't tell if repeatedly failing to notice being hit in the back is an UI issue or just my low perception. I don't think that there are clear indicators of the direction where the damage is coming from and the first-person view does not exactly help. So, I am very happy that Avowed offers the third-person camera option.

Still, TOW was good, because of the quality of writing and world building, not the combat or itemisation. The character creation and development systems were serviceable.