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

[Wormerine]

ok, finished Silksong. 100% completion, all achievemnents unlocked, but 4 ones speedrun and ironman related.

I liked it very much. I have nitpicks, though a lot of it is related to optional content so I don't know how to feel about it. Some 100% requirements I thought were unreasonably tedious or obscure, but then again, it is completely optional to do so . I am sure someone figuring some things out, for me it was googling things out once I run out of ideas and went "how the heck was I supposed to find that?!".

Not as good of a metroidvania as Hollow Knight, but much better action-platformer. Loved movement, really liked combat. Most bosses are excellent, few are tedious. Ah, I wasn't too fond of act3. The bosses that become available there are great, but overall I am not sure of the new content available there required an entire new act3. Then again, I thought Castlevania's reverse castle was a bit lame as well. 

[Hawke64]

I have finished Atlas Fallen on the highest difficulty in NG+. The interesting part is that the tools available (the weapon upgrades, new armour sets, and the more powerful Essence Stones) effectively offset it - while the bosses could 1-shoot me, I also was almost instantly and constantly at high Momentum (which additionally meant higher damage to me) and able to use the Shatter attacks with a lot of i-frames repeatedly. The longer battles were somewhat challenging, especially as the screen was getting more "noise" (from the weapon particles to the number of opponents), but, overall, it was easier than the first playthrough. 

The only issue is one of the randomly appearing battles with various modifiers. The foes to be faced vary, but the reward progression is static and carries over between the NG cycles. The thing there is that it is not hard to get hit once and the battle despawns after that. I assume, if I reloaded, the same battle would have been accessible at the same spot, but I have not tried. The regular random battles have an auto-save nearby and the main story ones can be restarted from the start of the encounter which is incredibly convenient. 

I am satisfied with the experience and might try replaying it in a few years. 

On a random note, the NG+ armour sets look much better than the NG ones. They are more detailed and more fitting. 

[Malcador]

Arbiter build for my Paladin in D4 is fun, I enjoy just clicking a button and letting my wings melt everything. 

Edited December 17 by Malcador

[majestic]

17 minutes ago, Malcador said:

Arbiter build for my Paladin in D4 is fun, I enjoy just clicking a button and letting my wings melt everything. 

In a similar vein I'm playing a Crackling Energy Sorceror. Basically just press one button and watch everything die. Fun, reminds me of Season 2. 

[LadyCrimson]

Enshrouded:  for some reason I thought this was an online/MP-co-op focused survival/exploration/building and questing game, - also, early access - so I've ignored it. Then learned recently it can be Offline/SP. Then I learned you can customize difficulty/combat options a fair bit - including a setting where maybe 90% of enemies would ignore you until you attack first - or the usual reduce enemy damage/health while increasing player health/dmg etc.

It was on a bit of a sale, bought it. So far it seems ok - the exploration/world aspect seems fun. Seems to be one of those games where it'd take quite a while to figure out how all the crafting, building works. Might even need a wiki for finer points, game doesn't really explain much re: certain things, learn as you play.  Not saying it's complex, just a bit confusing here and there. Combat has dodge/parry but overall also seems to be more akin to general rpg then "souls like". Like, I made a 1st wand that has a ranged attack and so far (on my ez-cozy settings anyway) I've only had to spam its attack like it's Path of Exile.

Building in the new-game start is a bit confusing/awkward but also would scratch the obsessive-brain tendencies if that's one's thing. At some point one needs npc villagers and workers to upgrade one's base/s. Or something. Tame pets (?), farm, all of that. Anyway - I made a first small base/did stuff in starter area and it was good enough I'll press forward. My main interest was the exploration/building factors.

Edited Friday at 11:54 AM by LadyCrimson

[Hurlshort]

Enshrouded lets you rebuild an entire world. It's probably the best crafting/building game out there right now.

[LadyCrimson]

1 hour ago, Hurlshort said:

Enshrouded lets you rebuild an entire world. It's probably the best crafting/building game out there right now.

My main quibble is the early building, where you only have these really tiny "blocks" you can make. Takes 100's just to make a small house for the rested stuff, and too much time, placing one at a time. Too used to 7 Days and the bigger blocks/fast speed of making a large home box, so to speak. I get there's crafting larger (prefab?) wall/other pieces to use with crafting hammer but I barely started on that (just got the blacksmith - who keeps getting in my way with his wandering).

The starter base spot, I kept being pestered by wolves, who would enter the base zone even tho game seemed to indicate you're "safe" in there. Finally got smart and built a short-height perimeter wall around the whole base-zone. Took forever with those tiny stones, but it worked.

I like that there's climbing and grappling hook for traversal. Little pathways/caves to find. Still have to get the glider/flying thingie.

EDIT: I have a feeling this is the type of game where I might start over after a few days of learning.

Edited Friday at 02:49 PM by LadyCrimson

[Hurlshort]

1 hour ago, LadyCrimson said:

My main quibble is the early building, where you only have these really tiny "blocks" you can make. Takes 100's just to make a small house for the rested stuff, and too much time, placing one at a time. Too used to 7 Days and the bigger blocks/fast speed of making a large home box, so to speak. I get there's crafting larger (prefab?) wall/other pieces to use with crafting hammer but I barely started on that (just got the blacksmith - who keeps getting in my way with his wandering).

The starter base spot, I kept being pestered by wolves, who would enter the base zone even tho game seemed to indicate you're "safe" in there. Finally got smart and built a short-height perimeter wall around the whole base-zone. Took forever with those tiny stones, but it worked.

I like that there's climbing and grappling hook for traversal. Little pathways/caves to find. Still have to get the glider/flying thingie.

EDIT: I have a feeling this is the type of game where I might start over after a few days of learning.

Oh no, don't use the tiny blocks! You can switch between 1x1, 2x2, and 4x4. I think you use alt to switch sizes.

[LadyCrimson]

1 hour ago, Hurlshort said:

Oh no, don't use the tiny blocks! You can switch between 1x1, 2x2, and 4x4. I think you use alt to switch sizes.

I see no such option available (pic), and Alt just switches hotbars.  If it's an option later, I'd guess one has to acquire the ability from something first. Either npc/quest and/or building something which opens up another option. That part is confusing because you build a cheap sleep pad and suddenly game/menu lets you build an actual bed with the resulting mattress as material requirement. Kinda makes one feel forced to craft everything to see if anything auto-opens up.

Anyway, started over. Which led me to discover that if you don't create a new character, the game actually starts a new game with previous/last selected character with all backpack/hotbars retained for a head start. A handy feature for later to avoid early grind I guess, but not what I wanted so I made a new avatar. And built another tiny-stone wall. lol

[Sarex]

Got BG3 and figured out that GOG doesn't work (won't install games) on my cursed version on win 10.  Kind of a pain in the ass to boot win11 whenever I want to play a game, but whatever...

[Hurlshort]

3 hours ago, LadyCrimson said:

I see no such option available (pic), and Alt just switches hotbars.  If it's an option later, I'd guess one has to acquire the ability from something first. Either npc/quest and/or building something which opens up another option. That part is confusing because you build a cheap sleep pad and suddenly game/menu lets you build an actual bed with the resulting mattress as material requirement. Kinda makes one feel forced to craft everything to see if anything auto-opens up.

Anyway, started over. Which led me to discover that if you don't create a new character, the game actually starts a new game with previous/last selected character with all backpack/hotbars retained for a head start. A handy feature for later to avoid early grind I guess, but not what I wanted so I made a new avatar. And built another tiny-stone wall. lol

You neeed the crafting hammer, I believe, and the workbench.

 

Edited Friday at 09:45 PM by Hurlshort

[LadyCrimson]

45 minutes ago, Hurlshort said:

You neeed the crafting hammer, I

Yeah, I'm an idiot. It occurred to me after I wrote that post.  >.> First time I tried to use it, it kept telling me I was missing stuff to use it, so I assumed I needed something special like another item or whatever. Guess you just need the mini blocks in hotbar. But looking at the shapes available, it's pretty lacking/limited where in some cases I could be more creative with the tiny blocks - 7days has like 100's of shapes (and doesn't need a "crafting hammer" wielded). But 7days type of voxel is "anything in a voxel square fills the whole voxel", so two things can't occupy the same square/space, so it's limiting in that fashion.

Not a big deal, I usually don't go too crazy/fancy with building. Seems like Enshrouded I may just make basic bases and then leave it alone.

I am becoming mildly annoyed with the building UI interface and other minor things tho. It feels awkward and clunky for some stuff. That said, the exploration has been great so far. I'll probably focus on that until I've done the whole map, which seems pretty large.

Edited Friday at 10:30 PM by LadyCrimson

[Hawke64]

8 hours ago, Sarex said:

Got BG3 and figured out that GOG doesn't work (won't install games) on my cursed version on win 10.  Kind of a pain in the ass to boot win11 whenever I want to play a game, but whatever...

In case it might help, GOG offline installers unpack everything through the system drive, so you'd need ~140GB of free space there for it to work, regardless of the selected installation drive. This is one of the main reasons why I avoid GOG for larger games.

Why the developers stopped giving a f* about optimisation is another question. 

[Wormerine]

13 hours ago, Sarex said:

Got BG3 and figured out that GOG doesn't work (won't install games) on my cursed version on win 10.  Kind of a pain in the ass to boot win11 whenever I want to play a game, but whatever...

Strange, It says it supports windows10. I was initially to suggest Linux, as BG3 has apparently a pretty great Linux support, but it seems GOG doesn't support Linux? Laaaame

[Sarex]

26 minutes ago, Wormerine said:

Strange, It says it supports windows10. I was initially to suggest Linux, as BG3 has apparently a pretty great Linux support, but it seems GOG doesn't support Linux? Laaaame

5 hours ago, Hawke64 said:

In case it might help, GOG offline installers unpack everything through the system drive, so you'd need ~140GB of free space there for it to work, regardless of the selected installation drive. This is one of the main reasons why I avoid GOG for larger games.

Why the developers stopped giving a f* about optimisation is another question. 

The issue is on my end, something changed in my build that is not letting some apps write files even when ran as admin. That is why I said it's cursed. I have a portable ssd with windows 11 and that is what I use to play games. Waiting on my new m2 drive to arrive and then I'll reinstall windows.

[majestic]

Made a Paladin in D4. Instead of levelling normally, I just farmed 15 or so Whispering Tree gifts on my main. It basically boosted the Paladin to almost max level and gave him enough ancestrals and aspects to come out ready for Torment IV farming (with some gambling for a unique ring). Basically the same gameplay. Charge into a group of enemies and watch them die. Just pressing evade instead of casting Ball Lightning.

[Humanoid]

Bought myself the Moza Trucking Bundle and add-on stalks with the intention of playing the new Nordic Horizons expansion for Euro Truck Sim 2. Alas, stock for the stalks was delayed and I won't get it until next year.

Using the wheel by itself has been a big change from the old Logitech G920 I was using, mostly due to the wheel being approximately double the size. However, I don't think I could recommend using it in this mode without the stalks because the missing inputs stick out like a sore thumb. There simply isn't a conveniently accessible button binding for gear shifts (no paddles on a truck wheel obviously) and indicators. My feedback as it stands, therefore, is to buy both the wheel and the stalks or to buy neither.

[Hawke64]

Started Banquet for Fools. It is a CRPG, the setting is original, the controls are rebindable (the feature itself is pretty, but uncomfortable, though), the party is fully customisable (like in IWD or Solasta). The developers quickly fixed the few bugs I reported. 

The combat is closer to RTwP and the prologue uses a predetermined mid-/high-level character. I must admit, I quite like the ragdoll effects there. 

The game is in EA and the full release is planned for the end of January. The New Arc Line (CRPG, steampunk; the demo ran extremely poorly) team recently posted that they use UE5 (a rather bad idea for a CRPG), so Banquet is my choice for this sale. 

[Hurlshort]

The new Divinity game announcement got me to give Divinity 2 another spin. I haven't played it in 8 years, which seemed crazy, because I don't remember it being that old. Of course, I am old now and I forget a lot.

Originally I played through Act 1 a few times but stalled out in Act 2. I am going to try to push through this time, and I kept the combat easy to help that. I am playing for story. As I said, I had forgotten a lot of the stuff, so it feels fresh. I like the characters. I am playing as Ifen, and I've got Fane, Lohse, and the stabby lady as my crew. Talking to animals is fun. Anyways, I am in Act 2 now, so hopefully I can finish it up this time.

[Wormerine]

36 minutes ago, Hurlshort said:

I haven't played it in 8 years, which seemed crazy, because I don't remember it being that old.

(...)

Anyways, I am in Act 2 now, so hopefully I can finish it up this time.

Well, BG3 spend 5ish? years in EA, so it checks out. Good luck with Act2. My 1st playthrough stopped there, I slogged through it in 2nd playthrough, and two consequent attempts stopped in act2 as well. I don't think you need to do all of its content to progress, and I wonder if my completionist mindset works against me in that act. It is soooo big, and narratively rather static. 

[Lexx]

Just finished Dispatch. All things considered, it was pretty good.

First time in god knows how many years that I've seen D's flopping around the screen. Not just once but multiple times even. Last one ... and I guess first one(?) was in GTA4, I think.
You know, it's kinda sexist to show boobs and all in so many games, but the D is off-limits. Now I feel more represented. 

Some of the choices felt a bit weird, but oh well. For example forgiving a villain in the end, when that character torched a lot of stuff. This is just not right, you can't just be like water under the bridge, imo. But still. Probably the best Telltale-style game I've played in a long time.  

[Malcador]

I think you can cut Invisigal and still get good ending, I guess you need to grind a lot with her in the dispatch segment.

Arbiter wing build in d4 is great fun, bosses on T3 taking a hit for half their health on spawn from it is great. 

[BruceVC]

Im about 210 hours into Skyrim\LoreRim and its time for another update

Im on level 49 and Im very happy with how my level advancement is slowed down. As I mentioned in previous posts LoreRim is about exploration and completing quests because you get limited XP from combat so you have to explore which I love

I have also started going back to try to complete hard enemies and I have been mostly successful but 1-2 enemies I still cant beat which is fine

LoreRim strongly suggests you dont save and restore in combat and obviously no save-scumming. The main reason for this is because it can break save games because of all the scripts that run. You also not suppose to alt-tab for the same reason. Saying all that I have ignored this and I save and restore  and alt-tab all the time and I havent had any serious problems. But what you suppose to do is use a campfire and when you die you always get resurrected in a temple or your last campfire

So I always setup a camp before any difficult dungeon, if I die I just respawn outside the dungeon and then I re-strategize. Thats the suggested approach for hard enemies

Anyway I decided to go back to defeat Movarth the master Vampire who had been terrorizing Morthal and transforming citizens into Vampire thralls

It was the  hardest battle I have ever had in any single character RPG but I succeeded after about 4 hours and I just succeeded, I did the following

 

• I had all my 4 companions with me for the battle who are Gore, Auri, Remiel and Katana. These are all included LoreRim mod companions with thousands of lines of dialogue and dozens of interesting and varied side quests
• I buffed up on potions, oils and used summons
• Movarth has about 12-15 Vampire thralls so I killed them in groups first but  I  was defeated but I respawned outside his cave. I did this twice to make the main battle easier
• Finally it was just him and one  tough thrall and I used my dragon shouts and normal combat skills and  I used a passage so he had to attack me from the front and blocking helped

At the end all my companions were defeated, I had exhausted all my potions  and I was on 10 health and low stamina but I was able to kill him. Katana has a shade which spawns when she is defeated and that helped me as well

As I said, hardest battle I have ever had in these types of RPG

And then I have defeated about 7 dragons which are always tough but I have an effective strategy, I see what breath they using and then I buff that defense and use the appropriate oil  or spells  opposite to that because typically thats means the dragon has a weakness. So a frost breathing dragon is more susceptible to fire attacks. It works more or less but these dragon fights always require thinking and using  the right items

LoreRim has dozens of unique and interesting features and improvements to make your game more interesting, for example each deity has different side quests and blessings and you need to work on these to advance favour but you can swop anytime to another deity at a shrine if you want. Im currently a follower of Hermaeus Mora and on certain enemies you find these Eldritch Pages that contain lost knowledge for about 8-9 different books  and you need 8 pages to create an Eldritch Book and that grants you increased magic benefits. So I am working towards that but its random which pages you find and Im only on 5 pages for 2 of the Eldritch books and the rest are about 2-4 pages

And  then I just started the Dawnguard DLC, you can only start this DLC once you defeat Movarth because of how hard Vampires are. So  I will participate in  this DLC while Im busy with the main quest. I am leaving Dragonborn for later but I do go to Solstheim for other quests. I like the whole Morrowind interaction

 

So far LoreRim is still the best sandbox and open-world RPG I have ever played and its highly recommended

[LadyCrimson]

Well, Enshrouded for me seems to be one of those games where you're never quite sure how much you truly like the game, but every day you sit down and keep playing it. It's neither rpg systems enough, nor free-sandboxy enough to fully enjoy it in either fashion.

Pros:
---Exploration really is the best aspect far as I'm concerned. Although like any larger open world type map, there are empty areas, mostly around map edges. Still, points of interest at least aren't super spread out, so density is decent. And one time I dropped down a barren ledge (ledge hopping to get down a cliff), saw a gravestone in the middle of nowhere. Wondered if I could break it with my pickaxe. I could - and there was a loot chest revealed.
---in the first area/biome, dungeons have been small but kinda fun. Nothing difficult but the climbing, jumping, traps occasionally make it feel like brief, simplified tombraider-ing. Kinda. The design/similarities might get repetitive tho.
---loot/chests enemies, areas etc seem to respawn, but takes an hour or two of real time spent in game (exiting game doesn't work with chests tho/patched out, I hear). So far areas don't seem level-scaled. eg, respawns feels like a cross between MMO and ARPG's but a slower pace perhaps.
---Since it's voxel, if I can't jump high enough, I can just pickaxe myself a few dips into a rockface and go up, if I want. Stuff like that.
---the Glider feature is nice. I keep forgetting I can use it to, say, shortcut-leap down a chasm, but it's a great traversal feature.

Cons:
---Why do I have to literally kiss a tree or flower to chop it down/pick it up? Or nearly stand on top of dropped loot to pick it up? Does my character have three inch long arms?
---a strange sense of minor latency (even Offline) between actions and it actually applying or game doing its notification things, or sometimes re: comabt actions, like switching weapons.
---am still not fond of the progression systems (crafting, upgrading), which I've mentioned already. It's nice in theory/I'm sure it clicks with many, but I constantly feel like I'm going to waste my time doing anything until I have everything discovered/unlocked that might make early thoughts/work obsolete.
---combat is terrible. I don't mean difficulty,  I mean auto-targeting is terrible, especially with the wands/staves. No way to turn it off completely that I can find and it means if I want to target something behind an enemy, I can't. Apparently this seems  to be a common complaint.  I tried melee and my chr. scoots forward 2 feet with every swing animation, which I hate. Luckily with the easy settings you can mostly just ignore how bad it is. Still, it's terrible. 

Edited 10 hours ago by LadyCrimson

[LadyCrimson]

Enshrouded:  Ok, I've been cursed with something called Hemotoxin for hours (RT) that never wears off. Drains health and blocks mana regen. There was no apparent way to get rid of it once I realized it wasn't going away.  So I just dealt with it, because EZ settings made it a little annoying but not major. Then I got around to getting more NPC's into my base and one could craft a remedy, but it requires a resource found in another slightly higher level biome of which I had zero notion of where to travel to get there. I finally googled it. What poor design for a new player (allowing that curse to take place so early, in "starter biome", before one may have found/gotten that NPC or multiple biomes).

Made my way there, just got into it, then died exploring a POI, and game put me half way across my known map because the only "load if you die" becaon I'd seen/encountered was ages ago in a different POI. I have two tower-FT locations found, neither anywhere near where I was.  You can use base-altars as FT (place, delete later) but it's a hinky travel  workaround with limits. On one hand, rationally it really isn't that bad. On the other hand, between that and all the curse stuff, I semi-rage quit.

Also, not liking the storage options or crafting station/options stuff too much (No Man's Sky is better on both fronts imo). And the combat is still terrible. I'd guess once I have everything unlocked I'd enjoy it more in the sandbox fashion but getting there - maybe later.  I get why it's popular, mind. Just a little too MMO or whatever for me perhaps.

Time to try 7 Days 2.5.