^ If they at least made it so it wasn't percentage based and easy settings let us old/slow farts react before being dead, that might help.  Or the meteor attack didn't cover half the donut, or its laser beam wasn't six miles wide and follows you around. The design of the fight arena tho is always going to problematic. You can easily "slide/teleport/glide" avoidance yourself off the edge.  Seriously, it's a super skinny donut with a mile wide center hole as well as the outer edge drop off. Did I mention the boss can fly? And has adds?

And yeah, I think nov. 2026 is their current projection (delayed a couple months), although per usual re: EA, I always have my doubts. Although I don't get the feeling it'll be 10+ years, haha.

There are a couple other "indie" games I've had my eye on but I like (mostly) completing games before I move on, first, otherwise I never finish anything. I was also looking at StarRupture but it seems a bit too Satisfactory/factory  type building for my tastes.

Ok, got Altar upgraded to 9.  For some reason I thought there was one more past that, but that option is now greyed out like there's nothing left.  Hm.  So there is now either:

---actually try to finish most/all of the, uh, 50-70+ "quests" I've been ignoring, as well as some optional dungeons, the last few NPC's, as well as fill out any of the rest of the map (maybe 15% left). But game isn't really item-hunt worthy and revisiting/marching through areas multiple times to reach quest marker locations is already growing old.
---ignore all that and finally just resource grind to build giant bases and/or an entire "village", probably with a 2nd twinked chr (that wouldn't have all altars taken up as map markers....). Do I care about that. Undecided, really. Building is fun but never been one to make giant fancy stuff.  Probably because I'm not good at it and/or it takes more time vs. longevity of my motivation.
---find another game
--binge watch some TV
--binge-sleep the rest of the winter.

🤔

Edited January 24Jan 24 by LadyCrimson

Finished and strongly disliked The Talos Principle 2. It is the perfect example on how to spoil a decent puzzle game with splattering the "production values" onto everything. It also advertised the DLCs upon starting a new game. While the puzzles themselves are fine, the long runs between them, a lot of visual junk and voiced dialogues with a poorly-implemented skip function are infuriating. The lack of quick saving was irritating in the more complex puzzles and them unlocking only when I was looking at the end-game was unwelcome. So, I tried 2 of them, looked sadly at the fast travel system not working the one time I could actually use it (it activates only from the train and only for the puzzles in the other areas), and proceeded to the ending. 

Finished and liked Arcade Spirits 2: The New Challengers. Also started Laugh Track from the same developers (free to play with an optional donation DLC). Both are good visual novels. The former offers a lot of character customisation options, though some important parts are hardcoded (e.g. being young, non-disabled, and prone to "inspirational" speeches). 

Tried Vigilantes. Seems fine. 

Tried Insomnia: The Ark. Spent 10 minutes running in circles in the third area (appropriately called The Stop) trying to find how to progress. Then I was able to find the first door and walk 10m more, after which I reached a dark corridor with a broken bridge and a lot of invisible walls. The two issues are that the brightness is not possible to adjust in-game and the camera angle is very narrow and points downward (no target lock, as far as I can tell). While there might be an amazing branching sci-fi story with diverse and complex gameplay systems ahead, I like seeing things and not being able to do so does not encourage me to continue. 

Finished the demo for Tactical Breach Wizards and liked it. A quite jolly tactical game. 

Spent a few days on and off trying to get MIO to run and recognise the keyboard at the same time. Installed Linux Mint which solved the issue, but have not actually played it yet. 

Edited January 24Jan 24 by Hawke64

battletech extended (BEX)

have been playing battletech advanced and rogutech since those mods were released, but never played BEX. am shocked by how much we enjoy bex. is more stable compared to bta and roguetech. the bex mech lab offers fewer options, and initiative and evasion is handled more like the base game than the other mods mentioned, but am near completing a full merc career and am just about to start fighting the clans; start year for our career is 3047. 

am likely gonna play until am able to field as many dire wolves and warhawks as we please, although am disappointed the bex omnimechs is nevertheless having hardpoints.

one thing we especial miss from roguetech is the inability to be able to choose where am dropping on a map. bex frequent drops us in the middle o' multiple enemy lances with the back o' our out-of-cover stalkers typical pointed at least a half dozen mechs with better initiative.

whatever. point is that am having more fun than expected.

admission: other than fritz (chess,) is few computer games am having invested more hours into than battletech. 

sux that hairbrained weren't able to do a sequel.

HA! Good Fun!

Played through Bloodborne again. Well, almost. Didn't do Gehrman yet, but the DLC is done. Took me over an hour again to beat the orphan of Kos (or some say... Kosm). First phase is for sure a lot harder than the 2nd one. First one needs a lot of patience and some luck. 2nd phase is pretty much just "dodge into him" and don't drain your stamina too fast.

After that, I went a little bit into Elden Ring again. Haven't finished the DLC yet, still lots of content for that one. But damn, the game is visually just beautiful. 

VirtuaVerse was good, bit tricky I found,  but was an interesting setting and the art and music is good (latter is personal taste, I like keygen music).  Still find it funny the saviours (sort of) of humanity are basically a Scene group called "The Blade", no numbers at the end though.

Im about 400 hours into Skyrim\LoreRim and its time for another exciting update

Im on level 67 and as I have previously mentioned slowing down XP gains is the best way to experience the hundreds of quests and force yourself to explore. It really makes you an active participant in everything LoreRim creates and provides

There are too many events and developments to cover them all so I will just focus on the main things

I have been playing the DLC with the main quest but completing quests at different stages and I have completed Dragonborn. I really enjoyed the whole Morrowind integration and Solstheim is a nice place to explore. I did make one " mistake ", I got to the final battle with Miraak without learning the Dragonrend shout. After being utterly defeated in minutes about 5 times I discovered you suppose to use Dragonrend to defeat his 2 dragons or he will basically restore himself twice which means you need to defeat him 3 times

Just trying to defeat him once was almost impossible so I did what I hate doing and used Console Cheats to give myself endless Health and Stamina. I defeated him and took his very powerful Mask and Robes. The Mask seems overpowered and gives you 25 health regen/second so I only use it rarely even though its a legitimate item. I like the challenge and reward of strategy in tough battles and an item like this used with blocking means you can often be at full health in most battles

I still have to defeat Vahlok a very powerful Dragon Priest on Solstheim, I tried and failed after defeating Miraak and I dont want to cheat to defeat Vahlok

I have 5 companions but I only use 2 at a time unless its a very hard battle. I have Auri, Remeil, Katana, Gore and Serana. Each of them has unique side quests and different personalities but overall Serana is my favorite...I dont think I can Romance her so Im disappointed 

I have now joined all factions and Im in charge of the Mages and Thieves Guild after completing there main quests. I still do quests for the Dark Brotherhood, Companions and Bards guild

The Companions have offered to make me a Werewolf which Im uncertain about and the Dark Brotherhood wants me to assassinate the Emperor which I doubt I will do even though I have progressed this quest

As far as the main quest is concerned I have fought Alduin once and now Im busy with side quests around this and I decided to align with the Stormcloaks in the Civil War

Im plodding along with Dawnguard and I have completed the Soul Cairn and found both Elder Scrolls you need and I now need to use moths to read them. I really like Dawnguard, the interaction and history of Serana is compelling

Its feels like Im getting to the end of the overall game, Im probably about 120 hours away from that?

I have started after 7 years or so the 2nd part of the incomplete trilogy of Celestian Tales. Simple and easy going RPG, which unfortunately not sold enough to satisfy the new owner of the studio, so with high probability, the third part will never be released, which is a shame, as it is one of the rare Indonesian games. Anyway for now, the game is fine, with lot of dialogues, which are sometimes funny Only had one more challenging fight for now, but I started it on Normal Difficulty. For now the only thing which bothers me, is that the devs removed the Story Log, which was part of the first game, so I have to be sure to play it without bigger breaks, to not forget the plot 💽

Enshrouded: reached a spot where one can periodically farm lvl 50 gear. Good spot for a base altar. Chr has done all the main, non-side/animal husbandry stuff and I'm now just running all over re-collecting oodles (and oodles) of resources, crafting items/blocks etc, for a 2nd "semi-creative/builder" chr/world. Main chr. will be the grinder and other chrs can just build anywhere, with maxed altar upgrades and the like from the get go.

I also discovered one doesn't have to fish in any particular biome. What you can max catch seems bait type dependent. eg, can catch high lvl fish with frog bait, anywhere, any biome. So I found this waterfall near Lower Meadows (semi-starter area) that fell into a literal puddle not big enough to fish in. I pickaxed a large hole under it, and it filled with water. Build a pier over it and placed glowing blocks so I could see at night etc. Fished for an hour. Suddenly realized my created pond's water level was still rising and flooding my pier/base. Had to put in a couple drains at the water level I wanted. So that's what those are for. :P

Edited January 28Jan 28 by LadyCrimson

Elden Ring: Just started Shadow of the Erdtree DLC. Yeah, I'm getting my butt kicked.

Turok 1: Good ol' days, this thing is still fun! I am on world 6(The Lost Land) right now. The difficulty with enemies is getting higher and higher.

Going for Turok 2 and 3 once I am done with 1.

Kind of rage quiet Octopath Traveler. Got to the very end, and find that not only do I have to grind through 8 mini-bosses (takes about 30min?) to get a go at the final boss, I can't save so presumably if I fail I'll have to start all over again, and I suddenly need all 8 of my characters which I haven't so far at any point of the game. Bah.

Maybe I'll get back to it at some point, dunno.

My Steam "favorites" list currently/for a while has seven games that are in blue text, stating "update required/paused." To which I say - not right now/not ready, and then go Offline again when I'm done doing whatever I went "online" for.

Tainted Grail: I liked the original release quite well, but the DLC didn't appeal - I bought it because it was a King Arthur-legend type game, not an undersea/cthulhu (or whatever) legends game. Oh I'm sure the Arthur lore is in there somewhere. But you know what I mean. But I keep it installed in case I ever want to replay the older/non-patched vanilla version I have backed up.

I'm still waiting for a Stray 2. :P

Edited January 30Jan 30 by LadyCrimson

6 hours ago, Katphood said:

Elden Ring: Just started Shadow of the Erdtree DLC. Yeah, I'm getting my butt kicked.

Turok 1: Good ol' days, this thing is still fun! I am on world 6(The Lost Land) right now. The difficulty with enemies is getting higher and higher.

Going for Turok 2 and 3 once I am done with 1.

At risk of taking this post into WOT territory I'm relieved to see you still posting and in apparent good spirits.

8 hours ago, MrBrown said:

Kind of rage quiet Octopath Traveler. Got to the very end, and find that not only do I have to grind through 8 mini-bosses (takes about 30min?) to get a go at the final boss, I can't save so presumably if I fail I'll have to start all over again, and I suddenly need all 8 of my characters which I haven't so far at any point of the game. Bah.

Maybe I'll get back to it at some point, dunno.

Yeah, I quit as well when I realized you kinda had to repeat 8 gameplay loops for all the characters. It was great for about 4 of them.

As with every year, the holiday period is spent visiting my parents and playing co-op games with my sister. The wrap-up:

[b]Kingdom: Two Crowns[/b] - Charming if obtuse design. Technically a rogue-lite I guess but so mild as to lose only minimal progress with each death. This becomes especially true in co-op mode as it becomes especially hard to truly die as it then requires both players to lose their crown at the same time. Ultimately there isn't a whole lot of content in the game, all done within a single-digit amount of hours. After getting back home I tried the Shogun campaign, knowing in advance that it's 99% a reskin of the standard European campaign, but all it did was confirm the game doesn't really have meaningful replayability.

[b]PlateUp![/b] - If Kingdom was the mildest possible roguelite, then this is at the opposite spectrum. The only meta-progression really is being able to start with a couple of appliances in future runs. Anyway, while visually rather bland, that's obviously not the point of the game. Instead, its main selling point over something like Overcooked is the strategic element required in designing your restaurant before running it. You then are challenged to keep it going for 15 consecutive days without a single failure, and that's the standard way to play the game.

There's another face to it all though, and that's a Factorio-like (I think, I've never played Factorio) automation challenge. This is one of those games where by design, you fail eventually because the volume continues to ramp up not just from days 1-15, but indefinitely. I only got the smallest taste of this side of the game, mostly because it only really becomes possible after the 15-day mark, in the optional "overtime" period. That is, you've "won" the level but choose to keep playing until death claims you. I suppose it's apt then, then the only way to stave off death near-indefinitely is to become wholly machine.

[b]For The King 2[/b] - This is a game I heard had a really rough launch a couple of years ago, with many players questioning whether it could actually become a better game than its cult-classic predecessor. Just as well then that I didn't try it until recently, and it seems to have matured into a pretty solid product. There are still glitches and general UI jankiness that give a glimpse into its premature launch, but I'm happy to call it an improvement on the first game.

The biggest change for mine isn't the limited positioning system added, where you are no longer three characters standing side-by-side, but four characters (plus a posse of optional mercs and pets) arranged in a 2x4 grid (though it's baffling that your starting position within that grid is mostly random). Instead, it's the revamped action economy where instead of simply having a single action per turn, but having a primary and secondary one instead. The main upshot of this is that your offensive moves no longer come to a screeching halt whenever you need to do something like taunting, moving out of a flaming tile, or simply reloading your gun.

One recurring criticism I see is that the main campaign is now broken up into five separate ones instead. The sum of the five is of course a fair bit longer than the single campaign of the original game, but this means there is zero continuity between the campaigns in terms of your characters. Instead, you start each leg with a fresh new level 1 party, with the old level 8-9 party being forcibly retired each time. An odd decision indeed, but perhaps excusable in the context that the game scales poorly at high levels.

[b]Hades[/b] - Yeah, unlike the others this isn't co-op, it's just what I've been playing solo this month. Day late and dollar short obviously given the sequel has been out for a while now, but I'm holding off on purchasing it until it arrives on the Microsoft Store. An odd thing to do you might think, but the ability to play the same copy and continue the same save between my PC and my Xbox have been invaluable.

Anyway, it's a good game with great presentation, with my expectations perhaps set a little too high due to the pre-existing hype. I feel it's a bit too bullet-spongey and visual clarity can also be an issue, especially on smaller screens (and in this context, 55" feels small). Now I've only just cleared the game for the first time, and I'm well aware through genre convention that this is the point where the game truly starts, but I'm not sure I'm really willing to invest that much time into this "post-game" content given the sequel is apparently a "true" sequel which does mostly the same things but better.

Looks like I'm almost done with Shadow of the Erdtree. This DLC is so big, I probably have spend the same amount of time on other Souls games. Same as the base game, the visuals are just so damn good. The fights don't seem to be too hard anymore either. Guess they did some tweaking with patches after release. Or I just got better, but I kinda doubt it.

Edited January 31Jan 31 by Lexx

Started playing Songs of Conquest, and now I just want to go replay Wrath of the Righteous.

Finished Shadow of the Erdtree. Radhan was such a bitch that I decided to cheese him in the end. I don't feel bad about it, this phase two is worse than Orphan of Kos in Bloodborne. That one at least felt fair.

Game is still beautiful, also really damn long. Probably the longest Souls game there is so far. The DLC map was a bit of a mixed bag. While looking great everywhere, it had some areas that felt incredibly rich in detail and then there were some areas that have been nothing but looks. Barely any consumables even. Not sure if they were running out of time for those areas, or if they exist to add more "depth" to the world. A bit like in a heroes journey, you know, where you don't just fight and loot all the time, you also travel and have slow downs. It's ok, I guess. Just noticed that those places showed up quite often in mid- and late-game.

Thinking of going into NG+ but not sure yet... I kinda want to... but it for sure will take a couple years then to unlock everything again.

On topic of Elden Ring: the single worst boss fight in the base game was Alecto.

Nah, you just need to anticipate when to dodge. It's not that badly telegraphed. Worst by far is Radhan in the DLC. This is probably the most bullcrap boss of any FromSoft game I've ever dealt with so far.

Yeah, dunno. Still have Shadow of the Erdree unfinished, but I'm so burnt out on FromSoftware games that I can't get myself to play it. I killed Moon Knight Whatsherface and then said "Yeah, that's it, I'm good" in spite of my progress bar OCD (having to obsessively scour the world for Scadutree Fragments also really doesn't help my desire to pick it up again). Which means I can't comment on Promised Consort Radhan, but the base game is full of steer manure boss design. It just is generally not all that noticable due to the open world design making it really easy to be overlevelled and getting some leeway in the fights.

The game is the culmination of the arms race against players, with a major mechanical shift away from being able to react to enemies towards having to memorize attack patterns, and there's nothing in the game that more exemplifies this than Malenia's Waterfowl Dance. Sure it's easy enough to deal with once you know how, i.e. either that it is somewhat reliably cancelled by ice pots or that simply dropping target lock and walking behind her makes her miss the part of the combo that is otherwise undodgeable, in addition to doing a whole lot of input reading (note that incorrigible FromSoft fanboys will say that the game doesn't actually input read, the bosses just react frame perfectly to player animations, which just proves how far up Miyazaki's ass their heads really are).

Her heal-on-hit ability is also a hard counter for a variety of counter attack and block builds that otherwise work fine in Elden Ring and even the DLC, where such builds got a boost by the Deflecting Hardtear basically turning your character into Sekiro from, uhm, Sekiro for five minutes, and they actually even patched out ways to hit trade or stunlock her. And let's face it, the first time you got her to phase 2, you probably died to Scarlet Rot because that bloom effect sure goes for a long way and has an incredibly unintuitive moment when it can be dodged.

If your main takeaway for stupid boss design from the Elden Ring base game is anything but Malenia's steaming fountain of excrement you're probably playing with Spirit Ashes or in co-op.

33 minutes ago, majestic said:

but I'm so burnt out on FromSoftware games that I can't get myself to play it.

I mean, there is no shame in taking a break. I've bought Elden Ring on release, played it for like a month straight and then stopped. A year later I picked it up again, played for a while, stopped again. Middle of last year I finally completed it, then went into the DLC... and after like half of it took a break again to finally finish it last week.

This game is so big and it can get very tedious with the continuous attempts on bosses etc.. getting burnt out feels like a natural part of it at this point.

I hate it when certain boss fights don't let you summon spirit ashes. Killed the first boss in the DLC (the lion faced fella) on my first try but that two sworded mini boss fight...I think I tried it 20 times and I still can't beat him. He has two swords and an endless stamina bar. He either shoots at you with the crossbow or just charges at you like a bull. I hate such boss fights. Doesn't give you a break once he starts attacking.

In such cases it is best to avoid the boss for now and explore more in the open world. You need to find scadutree fragments to upgrade your blessings. The more you have, the more damage you can take and dish out. Once I've hit the 12 blessings, most content in the DLC became easy, with the exception being Radahn, that bitch.

I have started NG+ now and played a little more. The bosses were still easy, but some of the open world mobs got a lot tougher.

Edited February 3Feb 3 by Lexx

I have sadly reached the end of my LoreRim\Skyrim journey. I defeated Alduin last night so the main quest is completed

I had some major script issues progressing the quest to fight him but it finally all worked and I could complete the Dragonslayer quest

As I mentioned previously overall its been the best single character open-world RPG I have ever played. I got to level 73 and I spent about 430 hours on the game which is the most time I have ever spent on any single player game

I still need to complete the final battle in Dawnguard because I had some bugs so I left it for later

There are many quests I can still do but I will stop playing on a high note. Once the main quest ends in games its never the same for me to continue from a motivation perspective

But excellent overall experience and the game gets a solid 92/100 on the globally respected "BruceVC game rating system " 🐉