What are you Playing Now? - the man sez Video games are bad for you - fight the man!

[Theonlygarby]

21 hours ago, Lexx said:

Still playing Expedition 33. I'm in - probably - the last chapter now and oh boy, suddenly everything is ganking me. Thought I was strong now, but nope.

Sounds like it is holding true to the jRPG tradition of making you feel safe until the final boss gauntlet where you will figure out you played the game wrong and need to start over

[Lexx]

Ah, I wouldn't say that I played the game wrong. It's just that the parrying mechanic is extremely important and up until the very late game you can easily ignore it. Technically I can still mostly ignore it and just dodge, but then a majority of the late game fights will become extremely tedious and long. You need to parry to break enemies faster and deal extra damage.

[Malcador]

New D4 season is a bit of a snoozer so far.  Flurry rogue still viable at least 

[majestic]

2 hours ago, Malcador said:

New D4 season is a bit of a snoozer so far.  Flurry rogue still viable at least 

Yeah, there goes my theory of the even group consistently making better seasons, the grind for the new season's mechanics is pretty annoying - although the season's mechanics are pretty fun. I am also not really fond of the Lair Boss rework. It was fine not having to deal with the boss mechanics at all beacuse you could kill them in half a second even on the highest difficulty. Lilith aside for which Blizzard - after season two's ball lightning fiasco - linked her death with following through her entire second phase spiel even at 0 hit points.

Was it really necessary to make Duriel invincible during his phase transitions so he can't skip them any more?

Worst offender by far is the Harbinger of Hatred. Not only is the boss fight not interesting, it also takes ages. It was fine as a final battle at the end of the expansion's campaign, but as a farmable fight you have to do for the season? Yeah, can we skip the portal phases please?

They also spent a lot of effort on the new season cosmetics "battle pass" screen and how it works, making everything much slower and less convenient to access - and greatly reduced the free premium currency you could get from them. So far I could make do with the free battle pass from buying the game and the expansion and the free plantinum for doing the silly thing and preordering, but this season marks the end of that. Well, there goes one of the bigger motivations to keep playing the seasons. Sure there's still the journey titles and all, but I barely ever turn on titles for my characters anyway. The armor sets made for some nice variety though. Ah, alas, yeah, not going to buy the season passes.  

The new "premium" pass just gives you the cosmetic armor you really want without grinding for it, but it costs a ludicrous 25€. In hindsight, I guess it was pretty silly to assume that Microsoft taking over ActiBlizz would change things for the better when it comes to fleecing their customer base with microtransactions.

At least the season journey no longer has forced party play in it. Instead, it is much more gimmicky, what with forcing players to battle bosses on Torment IV with boss powers their builds potentially can't even make use of. Not sure how that'll go, I'm only on Torment III by now. At least Whirlwind Barbarian is viable this season, there' something viscerally statisfying about being a whirlwind of death and destruction in Diablo.

Edited Sunday at 09:41 PM by majestic

[Sarex]

4 hours ago, Lexx said:

Ah, I wouldn't say that I played the game wrong. It's just that the parrying mechanic is extremely important and up until the very late game you can easily ignore it. Technically I can still mostly ignore it and just dodge, but then a majority of the late game fights will become extremely tedious and long. You need to parry to break enemies faster and deal extra damage.

Did you get that thingy that let's you do more than 9999 dmg. Makes fights trivial from what I saw.

[marelooke]

Just made it past "Nest of Vipers" In Kingdom Come Deliverance, and holy hell, is this one of the worst quests I've experienced in a long while. If your quests secondary objectives don't work at a basic level, maybe don't put it in.

Older game, but spoiler alert anyway:
 

Spoiler

You're supposed to poison a bandit/Cuman camp's food and destroy their arrows. The idea is to do this stealthily, either by, well, stealth, or by using a disguise (which I did), but this is simply impossible as far as the bandits are concerned. For starters, they don't sleep. Ever. And to make matters rose they literally have night vision eyes in their backs. I've had bandits that were sitting with their backs to me charge at me from across the camp when I pour poison in their food. Or from beyond the pallisade (guess they can see through solid matter too) Sleeping bandits instantly wake up. The works.

The Cumans, on the other hand, do sleep, though their guards will chase you incessantly to "question" you, forcing Speech checks every single time (until they become unpassable), or turning the whole thing in some sort of Benny Hill situation.

Anyway, I ended up giving up on doing this the immersive way by just poisoning the Cuman food, then charging through the bandit camp burning their arrows and poisoning their food, to then do the same in the Cuman camp after which I jumped the palisade, ran across the bridge and jumped onto my horse and got the hell out of dodge. The obnoxious lock-on system didn't make it easy to just run away either, but after a few tries I did finally manage.

Dunno what's still coming, but if someone were to ask me what is that quest that makes you reconsider replaying the game in the future, well this one sure qualifies.

Edited Monday at 12:21 AM by marelooke

[Lexx]

24 minutes ago, Sarex said:

Did you get that thingy that let's you do more than 9999 dmg. Makes fights trivial from what I saw.

Yes, limit break is necessary at that point. Enemies get so much hp, if you are capped at 9999, you'll die of old age before the fight ends.

The story path is probably still ez, dunno (didn't progress much there since). But everything related to side content has sharply increased in difficulty.

Edited Sunday at 11:24 PM by Lexx

[Malcador]

3 hours ago, majestic said:

They also spent a lot of effort on the new season cosmetics "battle pass" screen and how it works, making everything much slower and less convenient to access - and greatly reduced the free premium currency you could get from them

One of the headscratching changes they've made.  Well, I guess I should be glad they didn't remove free cosmetics fully  

[Theonlygarby]

7 hours ago, Lexx said:

Ah, I wouldn't say that I played the game wrong. It's just that the parrying mechanic is extremely important and up until the very late game you can easily ignore it. Technically I can still mostly ignore it and just dodge, but then a majority of the late game fights will become extremely tedious and long. You need to parry to break enemies faster and deal extra damage.

I am definitely projecting.  It happened to me in final fantasy 8 (I never stacked magic to raise the state boosts)  I got to the end not needing it.  My fault for not reading tutorials.

 

The other was persona 3.  Made it super far without bothering to combine personas at all.  Didn't really understand the friendship mechanics.  Again... my fault for not reading.

Edited Monday at 01:46 AM by Theonlygarby

[Lexx]

I never finished FF8... but more so because it felt like this game just didn't end. And every chapter started the same way, with one character being in a coma. But thinking about it now, I believe that I never fully understood the combat either. For example I had no idea how to fire the gunblade. And I probably never ever used a single limit break.

[BruceVC]

I finally completed Kingmaker after about 130 hours, its one of the best party based RPG I have ever played and its now in my Top 10 RPG of all time

I have mentioned in previous posts what I loved about this game but I will summarize it
 

• combat is the best part of the game. There are dozens of different strategies and ways to win battles
• deep character customization and how you can develop a party
• engaging main narrative, lots of twists and turns and exciting developments
• lots of choices around how the narrative develops and how your choices influence certain outcomes
• great party and companion side quests and how you can engage and build your companion loyalty

I ended up defeating Nyrissa on my third try. It was easier than I thought. She has high AC and lots of spells dont work against her so I did the following
 

• spread my party around so her AOE spells only hurt one or 2 people
• lots of buffs and healing was used during the battle
• I used Kalikkes earth burst ability on 4-5 level burn and that did loads of damage to Nyrissa because it doesn't require a hit
• She was wounded badly and she had to use Heal constantly until she ran out of Heal spells. Also by having to Heal all the time she was limited around offensive spells usage
• My fighters and Ekun did some minor damage to her but they mostly missed
• And then I used spells like Greater Shout which did hurt her

But it was Kalikkes kinetics that did the most damage to Nyrissa, she was my trump card

And the final ending for me worked out well. I let Nyrissa apologize but I gave the Crown to Shyka the Many so she died at the end. Im was happy with that because of all death and carnage she inflicted on various worlds

But excellent experience and I highly recommend this game to anyone who enjoys party based RPG with a complex but worthwhile ruleset

Now Im going to play Wrath, I download it last night. Im in the mood for more Pathfinder 

[Wormerine]

On 5/3/2025 at 8:12 PM, Mamoulian War said:

I have checked today my online performance, and my winrate is currently at 16%. I feel so weak compared to MK11, where I almost never get under 50% winrate  

I think MK are far more newcomer friendly. From what I played of FF beta it seemed less forgiving than SF6 is, and in that game I also had to get my face smashed a lot before I started putting up the fight (and that's after 80h long World Tour tutorial).

Inspired by your stick modding I decided to do some of my own. I have been recommended to install stronger spring and larger actuator, so I ordered some options and will see how it will go. Frankly, more tactile feedback and less movement might just what I need. Or maybe not we will see. I also ordered a bat top as I had to pay for shipping anyway, but I am quite happy with the ball top at the moment.

[Theonlygarby]

13 hours ago, Lexx said:

I never finished FF8... but more so because it felt like this game just didn't end. And every chapter started the same way, with one character being in a coma. But thinking about it now, I believe that I never fully understood the combat either. For example I had no idea how to fire the gunblade. And I probably never ever used a single limit break.

Probably for the best.  I ended up cheating and the end was pretty dumb.  Can't really remember the details but I do remember being very disappointed.

[Mamoulian War]

8 hours ago, Wormerine said:

I think MK are far more newcomer friendly. From what I played of FF beta it seemed less forgiving than SF6 is, and in that game I also had to get my face smashed a lot before I started putting up the fight (and that's after 80h long World Tour tutorial).

Inspired by your stick modding I decided to do some of my own. I have been recommended to install stronger spring and larger actuator, so I ordered some options and will see how it will go. Frankly, more tactile feedback and less movement might just what I need. Or maybe not we will see. I also ordered a bat top as I had to pay for shipping anyway, but I am quite happy with the ball top at the moment.

Looks like miracles sometimes happen After I got asskicked for the first hour at Casual Matches, I have tried just for the giggles the Ranked for the second time. And it looks like Ranked Matchmaking might got a little better. 6 fights today 5 wins and 1 loss My first attempt was 0-6 So either some miracles happened or there are more people much above my league in Casual than in Ranked  

So my ranked is now 41,7% win rate (5-7 Rank Rookie V) and my total online play is at terrible 17% Still having a lot of chaos with the stick, but it seems, that my grip on the bat top has improved a little bit  

[majestic]

Bosses on Torment IV sure have a lot of health. Which means having to deal with their mechanics, which in turn means playing an earthquake based barbarian is slightly annoying. The earthquakes your character spawns every few steps makes it very hard to see what is going on. Well, I have a couple of pieces of gear left that could be better and more paragon levels to grind out (and an item to get that randomly doubles earthquake damage), hopefully that'll be enough of a boost in damage to cut down on the boss fight lengths.

[Malcador]

I generally have no idea what is going on in fights with my rogue. Fun is when a sorcerer is fighting with me, can't see anything.  Not as bad as WoW.

Plugging along in d4, only lvl 44.  Trying to play on Penitent waa too ambitious