What are you Playing Now? - Video games are bad for you? That's what they said about rock-n-roll

[marelooke]

18 hours ago, Lexx said:

looks like some things just don't change.

Eh, it worked fine in Shadow of Chernobyl on release, maybe didn't do everything they promised but it didn't spawn enemies around you out of thin air (only places I recall NPCs just "popping in"  was on zone transition points, specifically Garbage -> Cordon, which I attributed to enemies moving across zone boundaries).

To confirm I dug up my Shadow of Chernobyl discs and played through the intro missions in unpatched 1.000 SoC, including some side missions (until you get sent to retrieve the papers for Sidorovitch) and what I found kinda confirmed my memories. Enemies do interact with each-other, they don't spawn out of thin air, and places you just cleared stay cleared until NPCs eventually wander in, not until you either turn around, or pass an arbitrary spawn trigger.

Hell, human enemies spawning in like that would've been extremely noticeable in SoC as the PDA tells you how many NPCs are present in your immediate surroundings (guess there's a reason that functionality is gone...).

Didn't try the higher difficulties (played on "normal" aka "S.T.A.L.K.E.R." difficulty, and playing on middle difficulty option in Stalker 2) but mutants felt far less bullet spongy as well, three, or so, pistol rounds to the head, or two shotgun blasts, take down a Boar . I'm actually curious about Bloodsuckers now, as in Stalker2 those are extreme bullet sponges.

Hmm, maybe I should do another SoC playthrough until they sort out the new game...

[Lexx]

And I am stuck at Lady Maria of the Astral Clocktower now Not sure why, but she is a serious issue for me now. Back in my old playthrough, I mopped the floor with her. Not sure what I am doing different this time... I should be higher level now than back then. Maybe skill issue, because somehow I have a hard time dodging her. Back then this boss fight was awesome, because it felt just like a dance. Now it's just Maria punching me in the face without mercy.

Edited November 23 by Lexx

[Bartimaeus]

I never played the DLC in Bloodborne, didn't have a PS4 by the time the DLC came out. Looking forward to that...uh, kind of - playing those bosses for the first time on a no-level-up run should prove...interesting.

5 hours ago, marelooke said:

Didn't try the higher difficulties (played on "normal" aka "S.T.A.L.K.E.R." difficulty, and playing on middle difficulty option in Stalker 2) but mutants felt far less bullet spongy as well, three, or so, pistol rounds to the head, or two shotgun blasts, take down a Boar . I'm actually curious about Bloodsuckers now, as in Stalker2 those are extreme bullet sponges.

Hmm, maybe I should do another SoC playthrough until they sort out the new game...

On release, Shadow of Chernobyl had bizarre difficulty settings where choosing the lower difficulty settings made everything much harder because the majority of attacks by both the player and enemies would be "nulled" (i.e. not actually do any damage), while playing on the hardest difficulty would make them count. This sounds fair in theory (albeit making for arguably bad gameplay where people are just blasting each other in the face from point blank range and yet nothing would happen), but I think most who experienced it would say that it ended up favoring the AI because the player only has one gun that they can fire at any time while you can be fighting many AI characters/creatures, which means that if you're in a big fight with multiple enemies that you're trying to take down before you get outflanked and riddled with bullets from multiple angles, shooting one guy in the head ten times and having none of them count while everyone else continues to close in on and shoot you is disproportionately disadvantageous to the player. Hopefully they didn't do that again.

[Lexx]

Managed to beat Lady Maria. As usual, the trick is to... not get hit. So I've trained the moveset and how to avoid getting hit. Was still a very close shot, though. All out of blood vials, no quicksilver bullets left, and Maria being angry like a bee in a jar. By miracle I've managed to dodge all of her last 4 attack combos while my health bar was a thin line already. Was able to take her down with literally empty inventory. Satisfying for sure, but sure as hell I don't want to repeat that anytime soon.

After that went to the fishing hamlet and... oh boy do I hate this place. Especially those stupid sharks. Some hours of cheesing and I've managed to obtain the Rakuyo. For all I could care, I'm done with the DLC now. F- the Orphan and F- the rest of the fishmen. Not sure if I would be able to defeat the orphan anyways... if Maria already troubled me, that means my hand-eye coordination sucks ass. No way in hell will I be able to finish off the last boss.

At least I look super cool now.

Spoiler

 

Edited November 24 by Lexx

[Azdeus]

4 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

I never played the DLC in Bloodborne, didn't have a PS4 by the time the DLC came out. Looking forward to that...uh, kind of - playing those bosses for the first time on a no-level-up run should prove...interesting.

On release, Shadow of Chernobyl had bizarre difficulty settings where choosing the lower difficulty settings made everything much harder because the majority of attacks by both the player and enemies would be "nulled" (i.e. not actually do any damage), while playing on the hardest difficulty would make them count. This sounds fair in theory (albeit making for arguably bad gameplay where people are just blasting each other in the face from point blank range and yet nothing would happen), but I think most who experienced it would say that it ended up favoring the AI because the player only has one gun that they can fire at any time while you can be fighting many AI characters/creatures, which means that if you're in a big fight with multiple enemies that you're trying to take down before you get outflanked and riddled with bullets from multiple angles, shooting one guy in the head ten times and having none of them count while everyone else continues to close in on and shoot you is disproportionately disadvantageous to the player. Hopefully they didn't do that again.

They sort of did, atleast from what I remember reading on the gamma server, i.e. easy everyone including you does 75% damage, and then scales up with difficulty to 100%.

[Also gorgon]

Found the first girl in stalker 2. it's the armorer in Rostoc. 

[marelooke]

15 hours ago, Azdeus said:

They sort of did, atleast from what I remember reading on the gamma server, i.e. easy everyone including you does 75% damage, and then scales up with difficulty to 100%.

There was also the issue where (human) enemies wouldn't take damage while in an animation (like stagger from getting hit). Not sure if the newer games also had that, but after the first one I just went for one-bullet-one-kill headshot-only sniper-type builds with a side of shotgun for dealing with mutants.

Anyway, played some more and made it to Cordon (not where I was supposed to go, but nostalgia!). Once again ran into an issue where I almost got murdered by enemies spawning where I just came from.

On the graphics side, and this became really obvious after playing some SoC for comparison's sake, shadows are not working properly, which is one of those things that blows my mind given that dynamic shadows and tessellation were the two things that set SoC apart from its contemporaries, graphics-wise.

Not sure where to put this, but I also changed the voice acting to, what I assume is, Ukrainian, because the English voice acting is just terrible to the point I couldn't stand it anymore (especially the player character).

At this point I have no idea why this game gets such high praise/scores when none of the things that made the originals stand out are there, and that is on top of all the technical issues people appear to be having. Cyberpunk 2077 got panned hard for, arguably, less.

Hell, the gaslighting on Reddit is through the roof, so many people claiming things weren't in the originals, when they were, or were added by mods, when they were in the base game (like hunting mutants for body parts), that it's not even funny any more, just sad. Not sure if they're just idiots that never played the originals, or hardcore fanboys with a severe case of toxic denial.

As a sequel to S.T.A.L.K.E.R. I'd be giving it a 4/10 with what I've seen so far, with an option to decrease that even further (eg. I've heard night vision isn't even in, which would probably result in me docking more points if it turns out to be true). Disappointed doesn't even come close to summing up my thoughts on Heart of Chornobyl. More of the same was all I wanted, ffs.

 

Anyway, since the Intergalactic Aerospace Expo is on in Star Citizen, and Stalker 2 is a bust, I've gone back to that mess of an alpha (which at least doesn't pretend to be anything more) to check out some of the new ships and participate in the "Save Stanton" event. Shame they decided to ruin flight, combat with a capital ship should've been epic, now it just felt very "meh". Oh well, maybe I'll end up finishing Baldur's Gate 3 after all...

Edited November 24 by marelooke

[HoonDing]

Why isn't Chornoblol review-bombed into oblivion?

[Malcador]

3 hours ago, HoonDing said:

Why isn't Chornoblol review-bombed into oblivion?

Because then Putin wins.

[Azdeus]

12 hours ago, marelooke said:

There was also the issue where (human) enemies wouldn't take damage while in an animation (like stagger from getting hit). Not sure if the newer games also had that, but after the first one I just went for one-bullet-one-kill headshot-only sniper-type builds with a side of shotgun for dealing with mutants.

Anyway, played some more and made it to Cordon (not where I was supposed to go, but nostalgia!). Once again ran into an issue where I almost got murdered by enemies spawning where I just came from.

On the graphics side, and this became really obvious after playing some SoC for comparison's sake, shadows are not working properly, which is one of those things that blows my mind given that dynamic shadows and tessellation were the two things that set SoC apart from its contemporaries, graphics-wise.

Not sure where to put this, but I also changed the voice acting to, what I assume is, Ukrainian, because the English voice acting is just terrible to the point I couldn't stand it anymore (especially the player character).

At this point I have no idea why this game gets such high praise/scores when none of the things that made the originals stand out are there, and that is on top of all the technical issues people appear to be having. Cyberpunk 2077 got panned hard for, arguably, less.

Hell, the gaslighting on Reddit is through the roof, so many people claiming things weren't in the originals, when they were, or were added by mods, when they were in the base game (like hunting mutants for body parts), that it's not even funny any more, just sad. Not sure if they're just idiots that never played the originals, or hardcore fanboys with a severe case of toxic denial.

As a sequel to S.T.A.L.K.E.R. I'd be giving it a 4/10 with what I've seen so far, with an option to decrease that even further (eg. I've heard night vision isn't even in, which would probably result in me docking more points if it turns out to be true). Disappointed doesn't even come close to summing up my thoughts on Heart of Chornobyl. More of the same was all I wanted, ffs.

 

Anyway, since the Intergalactic Aerospace Expo is on in Star Citizen, and Stalker 2 is a bust, I've gone back to that mess of an alpha (which at least doesn't pretend to be anything more) to check out some of the new ships and participate in the "Save Stanton" event. Shame they decided to ruin flight, combat with a capital ship should've been epic, now it just felt very "meh". Oh well, maybe I'll end up finishing Baldur's Gate 3 after all...

I recall something similar, so you can't be far off there.

I've been fairly lucky so far, and have only experienced the same thing a couple of times yet, but atleast they throw alot of resources out there for you to recover with. I've got about 40 deaths so far, and 90% of those have been from environmental deaths trying to wiggle into or onto places I shouldn't be. Gunfights usually lead to me being overloaded with meds, vodka and sausages, what I struggle with are those goddamn packs of mutants. Not anymore granted since I've modded the game already, but those shotguns with buckshot felt very anemic.

I don't know how much I can fault them there in that they use UE5, but I noticed that too. What really irks me is that their recommendations for hardware apparently was calculated with upscaling, and the upscaling artifacts definetly aren't helping me one bit. The latency feels really off at some times, and with framegen it gets worse, plus you get ghosting. And then there's the eye adaptation bull****. But the HDR looks amazing!

Yeah, using the Ukrainian VO's was quickly apparent to be the better option for me aswell, but that is the true STALKER experience

I had a much better experience with CP2077 at launch than I am with stalker 2, but I am having fun with it still, but I definetly wish it was better. That said, it didn't take me many hours to start using mods to fix some of the more annoying stuff like Skyrim day/night cycles and damage scaling.

I've got so many hours into all the different stalker games at this point, with and without mods and standalones, that it has all blurred into one big mess, so I can easilly believe reddit being the toxic ****hole that it normally is whatwith how humans really don't like having their memories questioned.

There is a nightvision mod out, sort of, but yeah there is no night vision in the game, which is monumentally dissapointing. I'm in the same boat as you generally, but I don't have the same attachment to the Stalker series as I had towards Fallout, so I can call it the Fallout 3 of the series.

[Lexx]

Bloodborne update: I'm now level 130 or whatever, 50 hours in. Orphan of Kos (or some say, Kosm...) still beats my sorry ass to a pulp. Wish there would be an easier way to learn the attacks. The constant backtracking and especially having to farm blood echos to buy new vials and bolt paper is really draining me. Was already thinking of just skipping it, but I really, really, really want to finish the DLC.

At least I look cool in my Yarnham hunters cap and Lady Maria outfit.

[kanisatha]

So I finally completed my run through the old Baldur's Gate games: BG1, SoD, BG2:SoA and ToB. I did a very thorough completionist run through them, doing all side quests and all companion quests, and even all the Unfinished Business mod restored quests. And on account of a mod, I even got to do all of the stronghold questlines, some of which I had never done before.

As I'd mentioned previously, although I'd replayed these games many times in the distant past, this was my first playthrough since the EEs were released. As such I'm glad I did this, because I feel very certain this was my final time playing those games, the simple reason being that I just cannot stand playing 2e ADnD rules and mechanics anymore. The story and the characters still stand the test of time, and I don't mind the dated graphics but I cannot abide the gawd-awful 2e system, and so with a certain amount of sadness I've uninstalled all the Infinity Engine games from my Steam library.

[Gorth]

I had actually considered getting STALKER 2, but... my favourite game reviewer gave some damning feedback. Maybe in a year or two, after a dozen patches?

 

 

[Sven_]

On 11/23/2024 at 5:23 PM, marelooke said:

 

Hmm, maybe I should do another SoC playthrough until they sort out the new game...

 

 

My PC needs an upgrade (waiting for benchmarks of Kingdom Come II). So I started another, last time was on a GeForce 8600GT maybe a year or two after launch. So basically, first time maxed out details.  Surprised what kind of images this old engine on occasion still produces... the foliage, textures, dynamic lighting, sky boxes and shadows on occasion still hold up. This is vanilla, without mods. The original release didn't have anti-aliasing though. (Also bought Call Of Pripyat on GOG, which I'd never played).



Best thing, this remains far from a brain dead run and gun experience. In particularly in the beginning, where you've just got a weak pistol and no armor / gear, that's bloody tense. I shudder to think what where to happen if this IP would ever get into the hands of the usual suspects. "Boss you around" markers and "yellow paint" everywhere. Even with technical issues, I'd rather see twenty Stalker 2s being in production than but a single.. youknowwhatImean. Really sick and tired of M-rated games pushing you around more than anything ever done by Nintendo. (Or the biggest control freak of a boss in existence, for that matter). I'm here to ESCAPE life at its most mundane, not be reminded of it, thanks. 

 

 

Edited November 27 by Sven_

[marelooke]

12 hours ago, Gorth said:

I had actually considered getting STALKER 2, but... my favourite game reviewer gave some damning feedback. Maybe in a year or two, after a dozen patches?

 

 

Yeah, not sure it can easily be fixed, if at all. The review touches on one of the core problems: the game immerses you and then brutally shatters that immersion in quite a lot of ways.

I've been going off the beaten path now that I'm out of the starting area, just sightseeing, finding, and revisiting areas from the previous games (mostly SoC, which I have easily the most hours in) and this Reddit thread kinda sums up the experience.

Just to add a few stories of my own:

Ended up in the Chemical Plant, walked right in without issues, no word from the guards, no hostility either, until I got to the other side, where the gate guard told me Stalkers weren't allowed in. Of course I already was "in" and wanted "out"... The game just didn't anticipate players coming from that direction (and both sides have roads, not like I jumped a wall or did anything else "weird", like jumping over a fence)

Another one happened today. I found the Military Warehouses and started exploring. Got ambushed by what I believe is a Pseudodog (the one that create clones) and a few Snorks (at least they fought each-other as well). Deal with them and start exploring the otherwise entirely empty place. After checking for hostiles outside I start going inside buildings to start looting. I come across stuff that's clearly intended for later use (doors requiring keycards), so I loot what I can and go back outside.

Only to find three bandits waiting for me that came out of nowhere. So I shoot them, only to get blasted by a bunch of other NPCs from some military faction that also suddenly appeared (presumably alongside the bandits, which they entirely ignored...). So after I deal with those, barely, and I start looting I get a bullet through the head. Turns out snipers had also magically spawned on top of the guard towers...

So I re-load, take out the snipers, and get back to looting, only to get jumped by four Snorks... Kite them into an anomaly, and I finally get to loot without interruption, only to discover that one of the towers that had a sniper doesn't have a way to get up at all, just to shatter any illusion of them getting there organically somehow. (also: bye bye to that loot)

5 hours ago, Sven_ said:

 

 

My PC needs an upgrade (waiting for benchmarks of Kingdom Come II). So I started another, last time was on a GeForce 8600GT maybe a year or two after launch. So basically, first time maxed out details.  Surprised what kind of images this old engine on occasion still produces... the foliage, textures, dynamic lighting, sky boxes and shadows on occasion still hold up. This is vanilla, without mods. The original release didn't have anti-aliasing though. (Also bought Call Of Pripyat on GOG, which I'd never played).



Best thing, this remains far from a brain dead run and gun experience. In particularly in the beginning, where you've just got a weak pistol and no armor / gear, that's bloody tense. I shudder to think what where to happen if this IP would ever get into the hands of the usual suspects. "Boss you around" markers and "yellow paint" everywhere. Even with technical issues, I'd rather see twenty Stalker 2s being in production than but a single.. youknowwhatImean. Really sick and tired of M-rated games pushing you around more than anything ever done by Nintendo. (Or the biggest control freak of a boss in existence, for that matter). I'm here to ESCAPE life at its most mundane, not be reminded of it, thanks. 

 

 

When I did my 1.000 experiment and installed from DVD I couldn't turn everything all the way up without things stuttering (there's some additional sliders under "Advanced" that aren't maxed out even on the highest quality profile). Curious to know whether you managed to max those out without issues (always possible later patches fixed performance)

[Lexx]

Oh my god, guys. I finally did it.

 

I can't believe it. So many attempts. And in the end even though it was tough as nails, beating he crap out of Kos (or some say, Kosm...) felt so rewarding. Really glad I didn't break down entirely and started to cheat. It wouldn't have been the same.

My weapon started to break down near the end, so I had to do the last couple attacks with barely dealing any damage. It was really damn close and I expected having to restart any second now. But for some reason Kos (or some say, Kosm...) kept missing me. Maybe my frantically dodging to the left broke the ai before it broke me.

PS: Even after all those years, the spoiler function is still dog poop. Why can't I edit text inside a spoiler? Why is there no markup editor here? Terrible forum software.

Edited November 27 by Lexx

[Bartimaeus]

46 minutes ago, Lexx said:

PS: Even after all those years, the spoiler function is still dog poop. Why can't I edit text inside a spoiler? Why is there no markup editor here? Terrible forum software.

As someone not particularly familiar or up-to-date with ongoing modern web development, I actually did some searching a while back about it, and it turns out that posts are now natively written and rendered via HTML, i.e. it's not that we've been denied access to the old BBCode source mode, it's that it just doesn't exist at all anymore. The backend can try to parse and convert old bbcode tags and the like into HTML, of course, but it's basically just a one-way cheat and not particularly practical to reverse to and from on the fly.

That being said, I've at least made basic HTML websites and pages before and have some passing familiarity with it, so I'd still like to have an HTML source mode so that I can fix crap when I really need to. Or at least try, because the only current option for when something really goes wrong with a post is that you just delete all of the broken parts and start over.

[Gfted1]

..., edit, put cursor in spoiler box?

[Bartimaeus]

13 minutes ago, Gfted1 said:

..., edit, put cursor in spoiler box?

I can quote Lexx's post and that doesn't work for me: it just will not let me. I've had it happen on my own posts, the whole box becomes non-responsive no matter how many times I refresh the page or re-open editing the post, it's like it's become one whole element unto itself. The only thing it will let me do is delete the entire thing.

Edited November 28 by Bartimaeus

[Zoraptor]

The contents of unresponsive spoiler boxes are still there, they just don't display, so you can select the unresponsive box then copy and paste into a new spoiler tag to edit them.

Which is still annoying of course.

[BruceVC]

On 11/27/2024 at 3:05 AM, Gorth said:

I had actually considered getting STALKER 2, but... my favourite game reviewer gave some damning feedback. Maybe in a year or two, after a dozen patches?

 

 

Definitely dont buy it yet, wait 3-4 months until all the official patches are released

Gorthfuscious, whats  the "BruceVC number one rule about buying a new game " ?

Never put yourself through a subpar gaming experience when a game is released too early. Wait for the official patches, thats the best way to ensure less anxiety and frustration and a better overall gaming experience 

 

 

 

[BruceVC]

Im about 6 hours into Underrail and Im really enjoying it

I love the whole strategic nature of combat and  the myriad of character customization options the game provides

And I particularly enjoy the whole exploration aspect of the game, its very open world around where you can  go outside of the initial "fallen rock " barriers but this is the beginning of the game and there are  lots of map regions to visit

I decided to be a Psi with crossbow and throwing skills and I am spending points on Stealth

This game is another example where you dont need expensive AAA features or the best visuals to have a thorough and excellent gaming experience 

 

[Gorth]

1 hour ago, BruceVC said:

Definitely dont buy it yet, wait 3-4 months until all the official patches are released

Gorthfuscious, whats  the "BruceVC number one rule about buying a new game " ?

Never put yourself through a subpar gaming experience when a game is released too early. Wait for the official patches, thats the best way to ensure less anxiety and frustration and a better overall gaming experience 

 

 

 

Blame it on my age... I grew up with games having exactly one release! It either worked or it didn't. If it didn't you would not buy more from that developer

(you probably also developed some thick skin and high tolerance threshold, anything short of a game breaking bug that would corrupt your save was not considered a real bug)

[melkathi]

7 hours ago, BruceVC said:

Definitely dont buy it yet, wait 3-4 months until all the official patches are released

Gorthfuscious, whats  the "BruceVC number one rule about buying a new game " ?

Never put yourself through a subpar gaming experience when a game is released too early. Wait for the official patches, thats the best way to ensure less anxiety and frustration and a better overall gaming experience 

 

 

 

So that was rule number 1.

I always mix this one up with your rule number 2: if there are mods that improve your gaming experience, use them.

[BruceVC]

9 minutes ago, melkathi said:

So that was rule number 1.

I always mix this one up with your rule number 2: if there are mods that improve your gaming experience, use them.

Melkie dont get confused by BruceVC rules, thats number 1 rule around any game once bought but that doesnt apply to every game. For example I have loaded no mods for Underrail

 

But when you deciding to buy a game always remember " "BruceVC number one rule about buying a new game "