What are you Playing Now? Volume XIX: The New Beginning of the End of the Middle

[LadyCrimson]

^ I read most of all that thinking "Path of Exile" and became rather confused.

Becoming "bored" of NMS again, in terms of actual space-hopping gameplay. I keep wanting to make new 'Vette ship designs as something to do, but it becomes a bit annoying re: total ships owned limits and not being able to, say, save a blueprint of a design to insta-build it (if you have all the parts) again. If you keep changing/redesigning the same 2 or 3 to "save ship limit space", you're going to forget how to make that one extra cool one you stumbled upon the design for last week. Screenshots help, but not enough. Anyway -

---I wanted to try making a huuuuuge one for once. Got this fairly nice looking design going and then - the game crashed before I finalized/saved it, and I lost it. lulz.

Edited September 16 by LadyCrimson

[kanisatha]

18 hours ago, Mamoulian War said:

Has PoE1 turnbased patch available already? Itching to replay it sooner or later, but I do not want to start before the TB patch.

No, not yet. I thought it was supposed to come out late this year, which would be around now, but I haven't seen any announcements.

[kanisatha]

After playing several RPGs in a row, I've decided to change things up and play the 4X game Humankind next. Any Humankind veterans here with beginner's tips for me?

[MrBrown]

17 hours ago, kanisatha said:

After playing several RPGs in a row, I've decided to change things up and play the 4X game Humankind next. Any Humankind veterans here with beginner's tips for me?

Looks like that has finally started getting net positive reviews on Steam.

I haven't played it, but supposedly it's the same as the developer's other games, which would mean that production is the best resource so take any early boosts to that ASAP.

[Malcador]

Military missions in Space Colony are crap, will wuss out and take the civilian path.

[Mamoulian War]

More XCOM 2012. I have cleared the Alien Base on Earth and captured first Sectoid Commander. The game is throwing at me pretty tough encounters now. Lost few soldiers due to that. Once I had 6 Mutons and 3 Floaters thrown at me after a single move by one of my soldiers  

[majestic]

I'm pretty sure the last phase of Grand Mother Silk has some patterns that cannot be avoided. She sometimes throws her blades at you from beyond the screen while you have to track spikes on the ground or falling debris, and they're way too fast to dodge without seeing them being launched. Other than that, was okay-ish for a "final" boss fight, but of an uninspired Radiance knockoff. Onwards to act three, after I get rid of the curse, that is. 

[Wormerine]

16 hours ago, Mamoulian War said:

Once I had 6 Mutons and 3 Floaters thrown at me after a single move by one of my soldiers  

Yes, something I didn’t like about FiraXCOM was how pod activation was the most important mechanic on the game. You can go through a mission and not get a single shot aimed at you, or you can make last move in your turn, unveil one or two extra tiles and have a new pod or two take a shot at your squad.

[Mamoulian War]

6 hours ago, Wormerine said:

Yes, something I didn’t like about FiraXCOM was how pod activation was the most important mechanic on the game. You can go through a mission and not get a single shot aimed at you, or you can make last move in your turn, unveil one or two extra tiles and have a new pod or two take a shot at your squad.

Oh yeah, it is pretty annoying to me as well. I still have "brain-muscle memory" from the old Microprose game for tactics used to clear landing/terror sites, and keep forgetting, about this mechanic, which leads to a lot of reloads

[Malcador]

Went back to D3 to destroy my wrist, shame the current season is the God awful soul shards one though.  I enjoyed the Ethereal one the most.  

At least almost up to 1k hours spent on the DH

[majestic]

Finished Silk Song. The final fight is pretty cool, although it will probably make @Lexx tear his hair our, or rage quit again.

Spoiler

It's a Lace rematch with the pacing and randomness cranked up to 100.

Unlike with Hollow Knight, I can't see myself tackling the Steel Soul mode (hardcore mode, i.e. only one life, then game over). I mean sure, it's probably possible to save scum by copying or use a speedrunning training mod, but that isn't really the point of the exercise. I guess simply finishing the game with any% would be doable, but a 100% Steel Soul run? Yeah, count me out.  

[MrBrown]

Hmm, what to play, Endless Legend 2 early access, or new Stellaris DLC?

Ended up playing Deep Rock Galactic Survivor instead.

[Hurlshort]

Wartales has a new expansion coming out that lets you create your own fief. I've been playing through the Pirates of Belarion and enjoying sailing the high seas. 

I also started a new game of Return to Moria. It has been awhile and they've added a lot, but the big thing I'm looking forward to is the next expansion, which will add other dwarves and exterior areas. So my dwarf has been swinging his pickaxe, singing some songs, and preparing for company.

[Sarex]

I need to try Wartales again.

[Malcador]

FInished the civilian path in Space Colony, guess that's as much as I want to play.  Think next on games I installed and forgot to play is Aven Colony.

[melkathi]

While they are both called sumthin Colony, they are rather different games.

[Katphood]

Finished two games:

-Postal: Brain Damaged. Amazing stuff! Can't wait to play the dlc.

-Alone in the Dark: Inferno. Truly an underrated gem. 

 

Now playing: Postal 4.

My God is it awful! Nothing like Postal 2 so far. Gunplay feels soooo bad. And the NPCs are lifeless as hell. 

[marelooke]

Parked my last Stellaris game after I basically won (Galactic Emperor, smacked the Contingency, and enough fleet power to walk over anyone who even looked at me funny). Almost thought I managed to make the Unbidden spawn, but seems Ultima Vergilis just is being ominous when you already beat the crisis, shame.

Started a new game and since I usually turtle I figured I'd force myself into early combat by going at is as a Driven Exterminator Gestalt Consciousness. Only to spawn between two Fallen Empires and another Driven Exterminator. Great.

Also ended up running into some major Trade deficit issues because I'm not familiar with how to play machines, so ended up mostly turtling anyway while I figured out/fixed my economy. At that point one of the Fallen Empires decides to awaken, and since I can't handle them in a fair fight I build up fortress systems and fleets like mad and shelve any plans for wanton galactic murder sprees.

Aaaand then Cetana decides to spawn, obliterating the FE(s), taking some of my (fortified) systems with her and then just basically ruining the rest of the game (as far as I'm concerned). All the research options for the crisis end up outside my borders, so unless I want to fight a whole load of wars to get to them I have no access to them. So I have content myself with nabbing her transports, trying to get somewhere with the situation that way. Unfortunately she somehow goes hostile before she declares war somehow, despite me having "good" rep (bug?) and just "removes" some of my biggest fleets (not even combat, just dialogue and *poof* fleet gone...).

Once she finally does declare war I try beelining her with everything I have left but just get smacked like a fly. She, herself, has 1.5m fleet power, and the rest of the crap in the system she hides in counts for another million or so, even before losing a bunch of ships to bs I managed only like half that.

AI doesn't even try to deal with her, like at all, unlike every other crisis where at least they can act as a distraction. Might as well be alone in the galaxy for this one, and can't rely on Fallen Empires to do, well ... anything as she just outright murders them with a 100% guarantee when she spawns.

This is also where I learned you can't disable a specific crisis, you can pick a specific one, but you can't say "give me any random one, except for that one", which is annoying as from what I've seen I don't think I want her in most of my games (but I don't necessarily want to disable the whole DLC) as she seems ridiculously over-tuned compared to every other crisis (and I just generally dislike things being on timers like this).

Edited yesterday at 12:09 AM by marelooke

[melkathi]

That is one of those annoying things that make me certain developers aren't gamers:

Let me disable the unfun things and enjoy your game.

[Theonlygarby]

10 hours ago, melkathi said:

That is one of those annoying things that make me certain developers aren't gamers:

Let me disable the unfun things and enjoy your game.

I kinda get it from a creative standpoint.  It would be like making a movie and then having people want an option to remove parts they don't like.  Not a perfect example but i could see people wanting their creation to be experienced as intended.

[melkathi]

Incidentally, every parent has to do that with Disney movies.

Everyone loves the Lion king, but everyone who has watched it with a smaller child has fast forwarded past the scary badlands scene.

[Lexx]

Damn man, doesn't that just mean the kid is too young for it? They don't even grasp the story, just watch flickering images. 

[MrBrown]

Played a bit off Endless Legend 2 early access.

Looks really good. Thematics are on point (Amplitude are generally good on that), graphics looks pretty, it runs smooth (smoother than Endless Legend 1 does for me, wtf). Mechanics don't know about yet, haven't played enough. Only thing so far I really didn't like is no governor heroes. Those were quite fun in EL1 and ES2.

[melkathi]

I was in the alpha for that, just never actually had time to do any testing at all. I feel a bit bad about that