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

[melkathi]

So many rules.

 

I am trying to implement a new one:

If you want to buy a new game, play one you own but haven't played yet first.

[Sven_]

On 11/27/2024 at 2:26 PM, marelooke said:

 

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)

Yeah I did that (advanced settings as well, disc release). There are some micro freezes in busy areas that seem more to do with A-Life though, that is AI entering the fold and spawning. Plus there is one underground sequence so far where the fps drop (very briefly). So the game isn't completely without drops even on a 2019/2020ish computer (that's what my PC is roughly spec'd at, not a high end one though). Overall, the game plays fine.

Also gave Call Of Pripyat a shot for the first ever time. Seems they went into the Stalker 2ish direction years ago already, with more open maps and all. There's also surprisingly few battles so far in that one, unless you actively engage every mutant roaming the zones. Considering that the introduction states there'd be just like 100-200 stalkers roaming the entire area, that seems more believable. Internet rumor has it that THQ pushed them to have more gunfights for Shadow Of Chernobyl back in 2007. Considering that was also the year Bioshock's devs were scared chicken of boring the FPS crowd if they didn't introduce more stuff to shoot in the face (sorry, German), I'm almost inclined to believe that rumour.  


Watching a couple Chernobyl docs these days too. Still remember when we had to wash our hands after playing outside in kindergarten (I was in my last kindergarten year in Germany, April 1986 was a couple months before I went to elementary school that summer).


#allindazone

Edited November 29 by Sven_

[melkathi]

And we were not allowed to play in the sandbox.

[majestic]

And we were supposed to avoid eating mushrooms. Not much of a problem for me, having never really liked them anyway.

Good old times.

[melkathi]

Yeah, never eat mushrooms. 

Eating mushrooms is smurf domicide.

[BruceVC]

Im 20 hours into Underrail and its fantastic, I have just completed the Armadillo Drill quest and SGS has been attacked

A couple of points

I like the economy, money is always scarce and traders have limited money and dont buy everything. I enjoy that aspect of economic realism because it makes you strategic around what you buy and keep

Combat is the best part of the game, there are such a myriad of options and items to use. I have adopted Molotov ****tails as my best method of dealing with groups and I use grenades and my Psi abilities to inflict maximum damage and chaos amongst enemies. I like how the game forces you to be selective around skills advancement, you cant be good at everything and there are always multiple solutions to problems around  quest advancements. As I mentioned previously I am training psi, stealth, grenades, melee and crossbow. No guns which is a first for me in these types of games  

I have learnt a lot about the advantages of EMP grenades and electrical attacks on robotic enemies because they created a huge problem for me initially especially in the GMS compound

The Depot A compound was very tough and I literally got to Wyatt with no healing items or Psi potions left , I would have been killed if there were any final enemies on his map

I decided to select Classic as my XP gain because I prefer the traditional way of gaining XP but I always explore most things anyway so I gain XP from finding oddity items. Its the best of both worlds

 

[bugarup]

On 11/29/2024 at 8:43 PM, majestic said:

And we were supposed to avoid eating mushrooms. Not much of a problem for me, having never really liked them anyway.

Good old times.

We were told not to eat mushrooms too (through the grapevine, because officially In USSR Bad Things NEVER Happen!), but there were levels, like "It's your liver" and "Definitely not these".

It also birthed a joke - "Q: Can you eat mushrooms from Chernobyl? A: Sure, if you can catch them".

[Chilloutman]

We have saying: 'All mushrooms are edible, some only once tho'

side fact - I love mushrooms, they taste great

[Malcador]

Forgot to finish off the Darkside Detective sequel, down to the 2 Bonus (not really sure how they're bonus though). I enjoyed the one where you fix the waiting room counter for the afterlife and a character points out how the plot was wholly unnecessary.

 

[Mamoulian War]

Goal nr. 11/2024 achieved

December 3, 11:45 – And again more of Mortal Kombat 11 Ultimate on PS4. Today, I have finished all of the Klassic Towers for canon and non-canon endings of every playable character.

[Sven_]

Still in Pripyat. Despite being on the 2nd big map already, I've only killed like 10 stalkers. All the kills else were mutants, mostly small dogs.

The maps seem less detailed than in Shadow Of Chernobyl, but this makes the zone more believable as well as more creepy, of kinds. In particular if you're out at night. (I usually go to bed at night). In SoC, you walk to the left from the beginning area and aready run into a camp of banditd. To the right is the military. And generally, there seem humans out to get you everywhere.
 

Edited December 3 by Sven_

[marelooke]

2 hours ago, Sven_ said:

Still in Pripyat. Despite being on the 2nd big map already, I've only killed like 10 stalkers. All the kills else were mutants, mostly small dogs.

The maps seem less detailed than in Shadow Of Chernobyl, but this makes the zone more believable as well as more creepy, of kinds. In particular if you're out at night. (I usually go to bed at night). In SoC, you walk to the left from the beginning area and aready run into a camp of banditd. To the right is the military. And generally, there seem humans out to get you everywhere.
 

That was apparently a requirement from their publisher, they were afraid the game would feel too empty if not enough was happening so they dialled the number of enemies way up.

Kinda ironic that they're doing the same, in a worse way, in HoC, though it seems like after the first patches it's less obnoxious now, but I haven't gone back to any of the egregiously obvious areas to verify. It may just be that Garbage is less affected.

Ran into my first major bug, you're tasked with "finding" one of two items in Garbage, but when I return with only the one they just take it and act like I didn't complete the mission, so I gotta do both, and hope it works I guess, if not I guess I'll just kill everyone. I'll find out in the evening what it's going to be.

 

[BruceVC]

Last night in Underrail I had an excellent battle that was the perfect example of what makes this game so engaging and entertaining

Underrail combat creates this exciting reality where your different builds and skills have to used in different ways if you going to succeed, you cant just adopt the same approach in every battle

Near Rail Crossing there was a side tunnel with 4 Lurker Bandits that included a boss called Flynn the Flayer

Initially I tried my normal strategy which is stealth, grenades and Psi abilities but I got killed 3-4 times and there is a sniper with a shield who could one shot me. So I changed my approach

I planted 2 x mines in a side tunnel and then used stealth to throw a Molotov to hurt them and draw aggro but I ran away behind my mines

Flynn and 2 lurkers chased me and triggered the mines and then I used Psi from a distance to kill Flynn because he is deadly in melee with his special spear

Then I was able to kill the sniper who came from the other direction in one on one combat

I ended up getting lots of loot and my first shield emitter 

Edited December 5 by BruceVC

[melkathi]

6 hours ago, BruceVC said:

 I used Psi from a distance to kill Flynn

And that is why we can't get more Tron stuff.

[Azdeus]

My gog galaxy says I'm only 100 hours into Stalker 2, but that is most definetly a lie, I suspect that the crash I had a few days ago messed up the galaxy logging, I've spent atleast 12 hours a day in the zone on average, so about 150 hours in. Still haven't gone to finish the game or do much of the main story line, I've just been exploring every nook and cranny, parkouring my way into places I really shouldn't be.

If GSC Gameworld continues this frenzy of dropped patches, we will be at stalker 2 2.0 in just a few months

[majestic]

After finishing the D4 season and playing Veilguard I went back to playing Dark Souls 3. I am now done with the game. I am also done with the series, which is fine with me. These games well overstayed their welcome, at least when unlocking all the achievements.

The summary page tells me I have played the game for less time than Dark Souls 2, which is only because Dark Souls 2 takes ages to finish. Dark Souls 3 is relatively short by comparison. The grinding for the achievements though, oh, is just so much worse. If you thought farming in Dark Souls 2 was bad, well, think again. Proofs of a Concord Kept will haunt me in my dreams for weeks to come. Having to grab all the "new" rings from NG+ and NG+2 also meant that one couldn't just rush through to the end.

Which is doubly unfortunate since +3 upgrades of the rings that I did end up using were all found in the DLC areas, so going through NG+(+) was nothing but a useless chore to finish up finding rings and grabbing spells that I didn't get the first time around. Well, and the Proper Bow emote, for which one needs to fail a certain NPC's questline rather early in the game. I'm pretty sure one of the FromSoftware cultists has a long-winded explanation of how and why this is fantastic game design, but it's just not.

Since being fashionable is also one of the cult's favorite past times, I took a screenshot of my character's final appearance. This is a first. Meet pretty Meta McMetaface:

McMetaface wears Morne's helm, Havel's armor, Catarina Gauntlets and Harald Legion Leggins, combined with the Sharp Infused Sellsword Winblades and the Grass Crest shield. Not sure how so much of the community arrived at the conclusion that armor is usless in Souls games. Perhaps a holdover from the first Dark Souls where iframes and rolling worked a lot differently, but even there it is not useless. If it were Havel Tanking the Four Kings would not be a thing. Anyway, the physical damage reduction on this combination is nothing to sneer at. The setup is complemented by Havel's Ring +3, Cloranthy Ring +3 and Ring of Favor +3, with one wildcard ring for whatever resistance is best for the area or boss.

I don't recall needing more than three tries for any of the bosses except Champion's Gravetender (yeah, dunno, that's just like me having problems with an "easy" boss, just like in my first Dark Souls run  where I died more often to the Gaping Dragon than all other bosses combined), and that was limited to DLC ones and Nameless King (Friede, Twiddledee and Twiddledum and Darkeater Midir).

The game obviously plays a lot better than Dark Souls 2. The areas look great, and I enjoyed that it is more linear. I also never found myself yelling at the screen because of ridiculous hitboxes, so that is an area that was either improved a lot, or I just got used to it. It also shares traits with the other games in the series that I have harped on for long enough now - it once again features a gripping narrative and very satisfying endings and the same "story" for the third time in a row, although the game now has the third option for an ending that Aldia was probably looking for.

Spoiler

Or perhaps not. Aldia wanted to be free of the cycle, and the Firekeeper's dialogue during The End of Fire makes it appear as if that was just a general reset button, to begin the cycle fully new, not by linking the flame, but by going back to the primordial dark that existed before the First Flame.

Half of the game felt like gratuitous fanservice, and I still like the slower and more methodical combat of Dark Souls better than this one's, but that is probably also liberally seasoned by hindsight and having played newer soulslikes. Playing Dark Souls 3 after Lies of P and Sekiro makes it look like a red-headed stepchild in between with no identity of its own, which is unfair, as one of those games isn't even a FromSoftware title and the other is much newer than Dark Souls 3, and has a much different combat focus.

[Lexx]

Dark Souls 3 felt quite easy to me. I almost breezed through the main game. Not sure if the game is just generally easier, or if I suffered so much through Dark Souls 2 that my motoric skills improved a lot. On the other hand, for some reason I also burned out from the series a lot with it. Bought the DLC but never actually even started it. Took me a long time to get back to Souls games... actually Bloodborne a couple years later was what brought me back. Probably because it felt so very different.

Oh, by the way. Not sure if I mentioned it, but I'm not in Bloodborne NG+. Just finished off Amelia and nibbled on the Hunters Nightmare already a little bit. Though I'm not sure if I can do that one again now... Facing the Orphan of Kos (some say, Kosm...) is not something I'm looking forward to at all. Especially not in NG+.

Edited December 5 by Lexx

[Wormerine]

13 hours ago, Lexx said:

Dark Souls 3 felt quite easy to me. I almost breezed through the main game. Not sure if the game is just generally easier, or if I suffered so much through Dark Souls 2 that my motoric skills improved a lot.

I am not sure if easier is the best word - more fair, that's for sure. DS2 (similar to Elden Ring) suffered IMO from a lot of cheap bullcrap. I didn't think DS2 was too hard, I just thought it was full of "gotcha" moments. DS3 went back to telegraphing its intent and when it it jump at you, it was rarely with intent to kill.

But there is still, of course, an element of player experience in the genre. The combat model is pretty simple really, as far as player involvement is concerned so skill acquired in one game tend to transfer to another.

Speaking of which - I might be burned out of Soulslike as well - that or I just didn't like recent releases. I used quite a few summons in Lies of P - I just didn't feel bosses were worth learning. I am also somewhat stuck in Erdtree - though I think it has more to do with how unreadable enemy attacks are. I am at the final boss - I learned his first phase and am chipping at this 2nd phase. There is so much visual noise that I don't see another option than to die over and over again, and try to learn and memorise proper dodge timings.

But I don't think it is entirely me. I did enjoy some parts of Erdtree immensily. Some bosses as well - not as much as DS3, but still. I find a lot of the bosses to be artificial difficult though. Killing you through attacks to which proper defense is unclear, a lot of charge attacks which timings have to be memorised, similar looking attacks with different wind up times to trip you up. I don't know I feel Elden Ring was too much - it overstayed it's welcome, and DLC had far too much repeat for my taste as well.

[majestic]

PoE II Early Access soon, I guess.

[Mamoulian War]

PSN has free multiplayer weekend now, so I am trying my luck while playing Ko-op and versus matches in Mortal Kombat 11. Got the hardest online trophy yesterday (not because it is very hard to pull it off, it is just hard to find a Ko-op party of three people in the queue for Group Battle ). To my surprise, the matchmaking is very good, got matched only with one guy who obliterated my old ass, all other guys very pretty much on similar level as me. In previous titles it was pain in the ass to get matched with someone with similar skills. Sooo after a very long time, I actually had fun playing versus players against other people.

[MrBrown]

Path of Exile 2 early access, 5 hours in.

Seems ok so far. They've definitely moved a bit away from what PoE1 was, to a more souls-like approach I guess? Instead of building up 1 skill to spam all the time, you actually have to think what skills to use.

And the campaign seems tougher. That can certainly make the first run through the campaign interesting, but not sure what it does for game longevity. PoE1, like most diablo-clones, mostly works on the long term because of the end-game, and you don't really want to replay the same campaign through every season. So it's either a skipping option, or rushing through it, and this doesn't look like something you can rush through.

Maybe they already have a solution for this, I haven't followed any of the news about the game.

[Wormerine]

On 12/6/2024 at 12:28 PM, Wormerine said:

I am also somewhat stuck in Erdtree - though I think it has more to do with how unreadable enemy attacks are. I am at the final boss - I learned his first phase and am chipping at this 2nd phase.

Update - with storm warning in UK, and not much work to do I spent a bit of time bashing my head against Radahn and finally bested him - ended up using help of a trusty Mimic Tear in the 2nd phase. And frankly after after I saw how absurd he get when he is near dying, I can't say I feel bad about it. Fortunately, I lucked out and managed to survive his final onslaught through panicked rolling and gulping any remaining Esuts Flasks that I had. It could have gone either way, but fortunately, once the lad calmed down he went for his heavily telegraphed grab giving me plenty of space to finish him off.

[Majek]

Proofs of a Concord Kept, now that brought back some nasty memories from 2016.   I don't think i've  farmed anything in Souls games as long as these ****ting things. And i've farmed everything there is to farm in every Souls game.

[majestic]

Path of Exile 2. 3.2 hours so far. Currently not liking it very much.

Bugs, unfinished content (well, it is Early Access) and server performance problems aside - which, quite frankly, I expected there to be anyway - the game's biggest failing, at least on a caster character, is that it just does not play well, like it being weird that non-projectile area of effect spells still obey line of sight targetting and end up where an imagined (but still infinitely fast) projectile would land if cast from your character. I'm not talking about casting something behind a wall, but through elements that would realistically block projectiles but definitely not line of sight.

There's also seemingly no input buffering/queuing for abilities. I don't recall this being a problem in the first game, but here it is. Using a skill with a casting time basically locks the game out of accepting any other inputs until said cast time is over, leading to gameplay that isn't fluid and decidedly unfun, and God help if you if you pick up a weapon with a basic skill that has a casting time and don't bother binding it somewhere else than your usual left click, you know, like the core element of these games? Click on enemies until they explode. Well, it's easy to just put some other ability in your left click that doesn't have any casting time where you can just spam to your hearts content and press another ability in between to summon great lightning orbs, firewalls or exploding ice mines, but still, what if you don't have any other spammable ability at the moment?

I'm not talking about having the ability to interrupt or cancel animations, but I would really appreciate it if I could chain cast skills with some buffering leeway. Especially when playing online where desyncing and server lag and poor connections can and will happen.

While it looks like there's no buffering (I'm still hoping I have a weird input problem or bug or just so much server lag that it just appears to be not very fun to play), the game seems to conserve parts of your characters momentum while using abilities that have no casting time, leading your character to moonwalk at half speed backwards or forwards while spamming fire bolts or little lightning sparks. 's not the worst thing in the world, but pretty weird (and perhaps related to desyncing between client and server).

Otherwise the game looks pretty neat, it trimmed down some of the more annoying elements of the first game and it's still pretty complex (arguably overly so, just like the first Path of Exile). I can't say much about the storyline yet, but so far it is not any better or worse than the first game's. Which is fine, the art of telling an interesting and decently written story in games that are mostly about gameplay has been lost since the early 2000s.

It's been 24.5 years since Diablo II, and so far the only other ARPG that didn't come from Blizzard that played well enough in my opinion was Grim Dawn. I don't get it. Even Diablo IV isn't as fluid and fun to play as Diablo II was, but it's still leaps and bounds ahead of the competition when only looking at the pure gameplay perspective (sadly, the content and pace of new content for Diablo IV is... nowhere near as good). Grinding Gear Games, hire the Blizzard gameplay team. Or at least the guys from Crate that made Grim Dawn.

[Bartimaeus]

Some friends wanted me to play PoE2 with them, but I've been taking a stronger and stronger stance against roguelikes and games with any significant amount of procedural generation as of late. Just can't be bothered to play games that don't have well-defined endings these days.