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

[Malcador]

Aven Colony, the UI irritates me. But it's fun enough, some challenge.  Not quite sure how I am managing Shai hulud on the second level, I assume just more manual repairing of buildings 

[Hurlshort]

Greedfall - This game is pretty good. Story and setting are engaging. I'm only 6 years behind on playing it.

[melkathi]

On 12/24/2025 at 11:56 PM, Hurlshort said:

Greedfall - This game is pretty good. Story and setting are engaging. I'm only 6 years behind on playing it.

But only about a month behind me playing it, so you are good, carants.

 

Just be careful that you do Old Countries in a New World before Mystery if the Ancient Ruins. Anything else in the game you can progress and leave as you wish (the few times things are timed it will tell you). But if you progress those specific quests in a mix, you can get the game breaking bug I got. 

[Hawke64]

Banquet for Fools. The highlight items key does not highlight NPCs or all items, so I just trotted forth past the nameless crowd in the starting fort into the wilderness. After walking through several maps with combat only (the in-game map with directions was not quite helpful), I got stuck in an ambush and decided to look for another way east after several attempts. The another way was a cave with spiders and resulted in the same outcome. The game does not have an automatic journal, which I noticed after a few hours, so I recorded what I remembered in the free-text notes. The formation being hard-bound to LMB and the dodge to the cursor annoy me a fair bit. I also discovered a bunch of smaller bugs (e.g. being able to leave locked buildings) and decided to pause the playthrough for the time being. I suppose, not being wolf'd upon loading a save is an improvement over the developers previous title, Serpent in the Staglands.

Spoiler

This was a lot of wolves. 

Death Trash. The game had sat in my library for a few years with the release date somewhere far away. The combat is quite satisfying (the stamina is used only for rolls and stealth, but not attacks), but it has been quite story-light so far. I've visited 2 non-combat locations and cut through many more combat-focused ones. The issue is that there is no free health recovery, so I've been running with 1-2 HP for the past few hours, as I might need the limited resources later. Still, the controls are comfortable (I do not dodge to the damn cursor), the combat overall is enjoyable enough, and loading is very quick. I hope the story picks up at some point soon. The game had sat in my library for a few years with the release date somewhere far away. The combat is quite satisfying (the stamina is used only for rolls and stealth, but not attacks), but it has been quite story-light so far. I've visited 2 non-combat locations and cut through many more combat-focused ones. The issue is that there is no free health recovery, so I've been running with 1-2 HP for the past few hours, as I might need the limited resources later. Still, the controls are comfortable (I do not dodge to the damn cursor) and the combat overall is enjoyable enough. I hope the story picks up at some point soon. 

 

Edited December 26, 2025 by Hawke64

[Mamoulian War]

18 hours ago, melkathi said:

But only about a month behind me playing it, so you are good, carants.

Looks like, I’ll be the last in this thread to play that game

[melkathi]

1 hour ago, Mamoulian War said:

Looks like, I’ll be the last in this thread to play that game

So, should we schedule you for next month?

[HoonDing]

RIP Spiders.

[Theonlygarby]

Playing outer worlds 2 and tainted grail.  Switching between the two hoping one will pull me in.

 

So far id say tainted grail is closer to pulling me in.  I like the grim setting a lot more than the goofy and kinda dumb outer worlds.   

 

Tainted grail feels a lot like how I remember oblivion.  It even feels 20 years old like oblivion.  There have been some quests that were interesting.  Characters and dialogue don't annoy me.  It's not bad, but it also doesn't do anything special.  Pretty standard fantasy open world RPG.

 

Outer worlds is just so souless.  I'm almost done with the first planet and I'd have to think hard about any mission that sticks out.   Or a characters name even.  I'm roleplaying as a brilliant dumb guy...  not sure how that works but I chose brilliant and witty then chose dumb as a negative perk.  If this was a game I was invested in, the combo of dumb and brilliant would ruin my immersion, but it actually fits the goofy setting. 

[Mamoulian War]

11 hours ago, melkathi said:

So, should we schedule you for next month?

I Think It will have to wait a little bit in my backlog. I am a little bit busy IRL last few months, and my current primary gaming goal is to finish my last two owned Soulborne games, before I turn 50 and still have some reflexes I have nit started them yet though, so my plans might be still subject to change

[marelooke]

Poked a bit more at S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 now that 1.8.1(.1) is out and, well, feels mostly the same as before. The main difference appears to be that some mutants feel tankier again (Bloodsuckers, notably) and there's more of them in the wild (Poltergeists especially). I also have visual artifacts now, so yay for that?

Haven't found the new weapon/missions yet so no opinion on those.

Honestly, this is one of those games that the more I play it the more disappointed I get. The environments are great, but they gave up on everything else that made the original games great to get that fidelity it feels like, immersion being the main thing, but the storytelling is just bad in a lot of ways, and given that it's pretty in-your-face in this one it's kinda hard to ignore.

Just played through the SIRCAA part (again), and am now at the Noontide base

Spoiler

it's been literally hours, a day at most, since "the event", and the place has to feel deserted, but they just couldn't help themselves and slapped a mutant in there. I mean, I can get the ambush at the end, but the Bloodsucker right when you enter? That's just, ughhh 

As a side note, ambient subtitles are still broken (though slightly less than before), most of the time (by which I mean: "almost always") the first line of a dialogue doesn't get subtitled. My Ukrainian hasn't gotten any better since the last major patch so it's still really annoying.

[Lexx]

Man, I really wanted to play some new game over the holidays, but just nothing looks interesting to me right now. Dispatch was the only thing still on my current list, but that was done in 2 days. Big sad.

[uuuhhii]

finally played dispatch

great art and genre style

didn't feel a game are this good and want to play again immediately since mass effect 2

hope this is the direction telltale style game is going

[Hawke64]

15 hours ago, Lexx said:

Man, I really wanted to play some new game over the holidays, but just nothing looks interesting to me right now. Dispatch was the only thing still on my current list, but that was done in 2 days. Big sad.

Any specific genre (gameplay/setting) you would like to try? 

---

Death Trash. The story has picked up, though I have not found an alternative solution for the quest I did not want to do. The Tower and the Godhunters' Prison locations were significantly larger than any previous ones, with the latter, unfortunately, being extremely light on story progression per encounter (as in, I cleared 4 large floors for 1 quest McGuffin and 1 lore bit). On the other hand, the Tower had 1 puzzle and 3 (!) quests with multiple solutions and skill checks. 

In terms of balance, I have found a decent 2h sword, attached an upgrade to it, and maxed out the Melee Sharp and Stealth skills, so I have a decent chance to 1-shoot non-boss foes. However, if I do not do so, they have a very high chance to 1-shoot me. The regular ranged enemies have perfect aim and just strifing is not sufficient to avoid getting shot, though it is possible to get out of the attack distance (depends). The PC does not have auto-aim either for the melee or the ranged attacks. Nor do I have the ability to restore HP automatically between encounters, while the enemies seem to do so. Thus, any 1-on-1 or 1-on-closely standing group encounters usually end in my favour fairly easily. If anything does survive the first strike, it results in a fair bit of kiting and dodging. Enemies do not dodge, at least. Reloading is almost instantaneous and automatic upon dying, so redoing a battle 3-30 times is less annoying. 

There have been 3 bosses so far - 1 with arena gimmicks (you can clear the arena, save, and face only the boss for 75% of its HP bar; it restores health if you leave the arena; has 1 attack and summons trash mobs at 25% HP), 1 with 2 attacks (just hitting and AoE explosives), and 1 which did not fight back but had a boss HP bar, therefore counts. 

The enemy variety feels sufficient, though it is mostly humans with weapons, a few zombies (regular, explosive, charging), 2 types of robots, and 1 type of turret. Also wierd dogs. I think it is possible to attack any NPC at will which is nice. Same for the locations - desert (and with meat), ruins (and with meat), underground facilities (and with meat), 1 purple forest. The equipment feels good, as every new weapon helps greatly, though it has only been dropping from the regular foes rather than being found in chests or dropped from the bosses (I did get a fairly useless but fancy-looking mask). I have found 1 armour set during exploration and purchased the one I use. Lockpicking feels pointless, as the value of the items found usually does not even offset the lockpick spent, while the XP gain is negligible (10-20% of a bandit). 

Regarding the above-mentioned quest, it gives an ability which might (will test) be required to access the newer areas, namely, the Perished City. From a quick look at the news and discussions, there might be more story content there. 

---

Update. Tested, the quest is not required to proceed. The Perished City has a better distribution and variety of pretty much everything. 

Edited December 28, 2025 by Hawke64

[Hawke64]

I have finished the available content in Death Trash. The pace improved significantly in the Perished City area. 

It was a positive experience overall and I look forward to the full version. 

[LadyCrimson]

7 Days to Die - well I like the re-added smell system, although it's overtuned so I had to alter it a bit.   The rest is kinda - well, it's still what it is. I've heard they're considering a semi-return to LBD - not fully but a combo + books. I didn't like their LBD back when. Not sure if I like the sound of that. Oh well, I can just play 1.0-b333 forever if I want.

Enshrouded - I did cure myself of that curse, and then promptly disabled Curses in the options. I noticed that option when I started the game, but I just thought it would dictate whether enemy casters would do normal debuff spells all the time or rarely.  Turning it off after being cursed only half worked - the visuals of it and mana regen not working remained (could be a bug).  Anyway -- some other comments:
----I've come to the conclusion this is the kind of game where you cannot unlock all crafting/building options etc until you've basically .... finished the game. The questing/biome discoveries aspect anyway. So if one is looking for sandboxy in that sense, you'll be playing for 60-80-100+ hours before that truly kicks in. Unless there's rush method guides, which I don't "do" on first-runs.
----quite often a quest marker (NPC wants something, to unlock something etc) had me going in circles for an hour or more around that marker, trying to find the "way in." Blocked my castles, blocked by cliffs/valleys, blocked by "deadly shroud" I'm not of a level to travel through yet. I'm sure there's some lone ez path in but I apparently could never find it. Frustrating.
----turned off weapon/mining gear durability because the decay rate is ridiculous - at least early-middle - re: mining or longer dungeons etc. even with repair stations scattered around. Apparently there are eventually repair kits, but guess what, I don't have that ability yet. Shocker. I did loot one in what seems to be a "plains/grass" biome.
----I hear they may plan for a Creative Mode for full release. Maybe I should wait until then. I'm an odd duck sometimes tho, where the more frustrated a game makes me, the more stubborn I become.  I mean, there ARE things I like a lot about Enshrouded. I think.  Heh.

Edited December 30, 2025 by LadyCrimson

[Sarex]

Playing BG3 in small spurts. Exploring the first map and getting ready to go to the goblin fort. The game hasn't grabbed me so far, but the combat is not tedious in TB.

[kanisatha]

27 minutes ago, LadyCrimson said:

----I hear they may plan for a Creative Mode for full release. Maybe I should wait until then. I'm an odd duck sometimes tho, where the more frustrated a game makes me, the more stubborn I become.  I mean, there ARE things I like a lot about Enshrouded. I think.  Heh.

Isn't Enshrouded one of those games where you cannot save the game anytime anywhere?

[LadyCrimson]

36 minutes ago, kanisatha said:

Isn't Enshrouded one of those games where you cannot save the game anytime anywhere?

Yes. I assume it does some behind-scenes autosaving but you cannot manually save, outside of exiting/reloading.
Flame altars are your base markers. They also function as FT waypoints, and when you exit game, it will load you into the last/closest flame altar you were at. Thus people make sure to always have one flame altar available they can still build, so they can temp-use for those purposes. You can't place them inside some dungeons or in "the shroud" (I think), but you can place them at/near POI's/mines etc you want to revisit. How many total flame altars you can place in the world depends on upgrading the altar - I'm up to 7, I think the max is 10.

With general POI's, you can place altars so base area covers the POi and turn it into your base. Redesign a broken down castle or farmhouse, stuff like that. Or just anywhere you want. The base stops things from respawning within its area.

Edited December 30, 2025 by LadyCrimson

[Malcador]

Trying Echo of Lilith in D4, yup, not happening, reflexes too slow for the one shot mechanics

[Mamoulian War]

Goal 9/2025 achieved

December 31, 17:45 – Finally, I was able to have few hours long session for finishing XCOM: Enemy Unknown from GOG. I wanted to finish few more achievements before finishing the game (Including one rare for mind-controlling an Ethereal), so I have postponed the last mission for a while. Before the last mission. After I have filled out all of my check-boxes and some crafting, I've entered the Gollop Chamber with one of my Psionic trained soldiers. The contact with the Hive Mind was successful and I've entered the Temple Ship. With that I have also unlocked last Slingshot DLC achievement, as one member of my party was Shaojie Zhang, whom I've befriended long time ago in "Low Places". The last mission felt a little bit easier than some of the basic missions. Maybe due to me trying to be as cautious as possible. The game as a whole was real gem for me and worth the time spent on it, although I had my "reservations" about the alien spawn mechanic. As it was my first playthrough, I've made many mistakes, which cost me few soldiers, but on Normal difficulty it was manageable to redeem them.

45 hours in total.

Not much time this year to play a lot of games, so hopefully a little bit more time will be available next year  

[Mamoulian War]

And third Kombo Challenge finished in MKvsDCU. This time Sonya. And it was pain in the ass trying to figure out the patterns to program the controller, as almost every combo had a pro-move, which made the search for exact frames more time-consuming. It took me almost 5 hours to program my controller and it was far from perfect. Next in line is Shang Tsung, which has from the roster the lowest number of players who were able to perform all of his combos. So I expect to spend as much time on him as on Sonya .

[Theonlygarby]

Tainted Grail has pulled me in.  It has POE1 vibes.  You talk to gods and dead people.  It's grim.  There are giant statues with their hands poking out of the earth.

 

The King Arthur story was off putting to me to begin, but its unique enough that I am enjoying it.  

 

There is a decent variety of monsters.  My favorite being the fog monster.  Sometimes it's just fog, sometimes it's a fog monster.

 

The cinematics before a boss fight are unnerving.  Oddly enough I think the lower budget graphics make it more creepy.  Hard to explain exactly.

 

So far the choices seem to be pretty basic.  I haven't had anyone comment on my actions now that I'm in a new area... even though they probably should consider me an enemy?  

 

Its definitely not perfect but at least I'm engaged.

[LadyCrimson]

Enshrouded: 
---I'm 70% enjoying the game, I guess, but it feels similar to No Man's Sky, where as I unlock stuff and try things, I slowly realize 80% of the unlocks I have zero interest in/would never use. But NMS has the advantage of zillions of planets for random fresh starts vs. Enshrouded's static map and questing (even if it's pretty large). I think most (solo) people who get more than 100-200 hrs out of enshrouded are going to be the mega-builders, who want to make 5+ massive, 30hr+ to make each one, bases needing 1000's and 1000's of materials for both walls and deco (I swear 78% of crafting is deco, like spoons, plates, chairs, plants, lighting, etc).
---all I care about is block varieties (metal, wood, colors, styles), altar-placement-limit upgrades, backpack upgrades and storage upgrades.
---the farming is a cozy or mass production effort thing for those who like such. You don't have to do it if you don't want, you'll loot the minimums for main upgrades.
---the cooking/foods, far as I'm concerned, are too many and aren't that useful. Just like NMS.  Maybe a few, or on hardest difficulties, but I mean, mostly it's a time-waster.
---weapons are mostly found/loot, armor is occasionally looted but is mostly crafted (but as a mage, don't really need a lot of that)
---the fishing mechanic reminds me a bit of FFXV. Although you can also put it on Easy where you auto reel fish in.   >.>
---I could see myself replaying the game a couple times, "rushing" more to certain points and then just building, but that's probably about it (at its current EA stage anyway)

Early on I found a pair of boots with 6% faster run. Since there are no mounts, I've kept those on forever. I have yet to see any more upgraded boots - crafted or loot - with that attribute.
I'm at around 60-70 hrs probably, still haven't seen all biomes. I do get task-distracted a lot tho.

[majestic]

On 12/30/2025 at 10:39 PM, Malcador said:

Trying Echo of Lilith in D4, yup, not happening, reflexes too slow for the one shot mechanics

Try playing Auradin, Lilith pops before she gets any mechanics off. 

[Malcador]

On 1/4/2026 at 10:03 AM, majestic said:

Try playing Auradin, Lilith pops before she gets any mechanics off. 

 Yeah beat her that way with wing strikes, sort of funny to kill her in second form by running away. Still a deeply annoying fight for me.

Aven Colony is still going, have a mission to get 1000 people, basically I need to be the anti-Stephen Miller. Shouldn't be too hard but I prefer to move slowly.