What are you playing now? Part 3'ish

[LadyCrimson]

I discovered they're making a game called Divinity:Original Sin (2013). I liked Divine Divinity a lot but never played the later ones.

But this new one seems interesting because it's top-down perspective and has turn based combat. The video on their website makes it look "over-bright" (I might need sunglasses while playing) but I'm going to have to keep an eye on it.

[Zoraptor]

I suppose it's the 'happy for an empty glass' approach.

If you buy an empty glass described as an empty glass you don't get the right to complain that it isn't full when you bought it.

[Oner]

Guild Wars 2. Start was rough, like in every other game, but it's good fun.

[Gorth]

I discovered they're making a game called Divinity:Original Sin (2013). I liked Divine Divinity a lot but never played the later ones.

But this new one seems interesting because it's top-down perspective and has turn based combat. The video on their website makes it look "over-bright" (I might need sunglasses while playing) but I'm going to have to keep an eye on it.

Maybe their screens are set up for being "on camera"?

 

Looked very nice though. Definitely worth checking out when it gets released.

[Tale]

Started Fall of Cybertron today and didn't put it down except for a break to eat until I was finished.

 

I guess that means I liked it.

[Cantousent]

Still playing TOR when I get the chance. I'm a little irritated because you can sometimes turn in quests in two different places and get different reward on the light side/dark side spectrum. After a few glasses, I tend to forget which ones and go to the nearest triangle just to turn in my set of stacked quests and I miss the chance at an alternate turn in point. Still, I'm actually having a lot of fun. I was leery of a Star Wars MMORPG, but it's actually pretty good. I've done some flashpoints, a lot of battlegrounds, and several heroic group quests. The heroics are pretty easy to do two to four levels higher.

[Blodhemn]

Deus Ex:HR - Started putting more time into this. It's a good enough game to keep me playing - mainly the environment and leveling up. I wish they didn't choke the melee use with the depletion of energy - why can't I just do a normal melee attack without the use of some special energy source powered by an energy bar? I mean you can find enough energy sources to where it's almost redundant but obviously they meant to give you limited melee use for "game balance" purposes - which just comes off as lazy design. It also doesn't make much sense to do this since the gunplay feels very much like the Fallout 3 engine - very stiff and almost useless shooting mechanics unless you just want to sit far back and pickoff enemies via headshot. This is the type game where sometimes I want to be stealthy and other times I want to play it faster and just bust through enemies with bullet spray, but unfortunately the gunplay is just too rigid to really do that. The boss battles are almost laughably bad. I really don't enjoy the bigger missions so far - the smaller, sidequest stuff is better but still isn't great. I don't know, this game is just generic as it gets but the unique gameworld and leveling up is enough to keep me interested.

[Raithe]

Deus Ex:HR - Started putting more time into this. It's a good enough game to keep me playing - mainly the environment and leveling up. I wish they didn't choke the melee use with the depletion of energy - why can't I just do a normal melee attack without the use of some special energy source powered by an energy bar? I mean you can find enough energy sources to where it's almost redundant but obviously they meant to give you limited melee use for "game balance" purposes - which just comes off as lazy design. It also doesn't make much sense to do this since the gunplay feels very much like the Fallout 3 engine - very stiff and almost useless shooting mechanics unless you just want to sit far back and pickoff enemies via headshot. This is the type game where sometimes I want to be stealthy and other times I want to play it faster and just bust through enemies with bullet spray, but unfortunately the gunplay is just too rigid to really do that. The boss battles are almost laughably bad. I really don't enjoy the bigger missions so far - the smaller, sidequest stuff is better but still isn't great. I don't know, this game is just generic as it gets but the unique gameworld and leveling up is enough to keep me interested.

 

They originally had the melee maneuvers for free with no energy use required. But during game testing they found it basically made every tester slide into stealth route and auto-melee kill/ko the enemy. So to encourage the development of discovering creative routes they jury-rigged the energy use for melee. Or something along those lines...

[Nonek]

Playing Dragon Age: Origins again, i've modded my character to use the Qunari model however and suddenly the lack of talking really fits, he just stands glaring down at everybody silently demanding answers. Still a pity i'm stuck with the boring Cousland storyline.

 

Damn I love Origins combat, i'd forgotten how good it was, especially the brutal finishers. I wish they'd give me a decent thief character however, can't tolerate princess tippytoes or puss in boots.

[Tigranes]

Make your PC the thief, very powerful smashing through everyone in dual-wield, and the flanking makes the combat a bit more interesting as well.

 

Really enjoyed DAO but probably won't go back to it now. Been restarting 3 or 4 characters in Arcanum not able to choose what to play and it's delightful.

[Calax]

Make your PC the thief, very powerful smashing through everyone in dual-wield, and the flanking makes the combat a bit more interesting as well.

 

Really enjoyed DAO but probably won't go back to it now. Been restarting 3 or 4 characters in Arcanum not able to choose what to play and it's delightful.

And a thief could end up dang near invincible if you get the right advanced class.

[Nonek]

Played a duster thief in my last runthrough, tremendously enjoyable, though on the import to Awakening he did become somewhat outrageously overpowered. He even had his own worshipper in the form of Sigrun, now why couldn't they have had her in Origins instead of the walking bloody cliche Oghren.

[Fighter]

So to encourage the development of discovering creative routes they jury-rigged the energy use for melee. Or something along those lines...

 

Except if I remember correctly you pretty much have to take everyone down anyway if you don't want to miss out on XP. The game doesn't reward you for avoiding the enemy.

[Calax]

It does, but nearly as much XP

[Hurlshort]

I don't really remember lacking enough xp in DE:HR, and I went with the sneak around route most of the time.

[Cantousent]

I got my ship last night and just had a chance to do stuff with it this morning. Brilliant! I didn't think I'd like it this much, but it's awesome. I could take or leave the space combat missions, but having my own ship is just the bomb, even if it's really not all that much more useful than going to the fleet. I finally have a couple of companions to mule for me full time. I can have one do missions and make crap while the other helps me smite bad guys.

[Orogun01]

It does, but nearly as much XP

I don't think it does, the bonuses were if you went by completely undetected and without triggering alarms. Whether you kill someone or not, however the lethal takedowns were "noisy".

[Blodhemn]

They originally had the melee maneuvers for free with no energy use required. But during game testing they found it basically made every tester slide into stealth route and auto-melee kill/ko the enemy. So to encourage the development of discovering creative routes they jury-rigged the energy use for melee. Or something along those lines...

That's what I figured. Instead of doing that - they should've kept unlimited stealth kills in but the second anyone sees/hears you, it turns into hand-to-hand combat like Alpha Protocol or something along those lines. They made the stealth melee too powerful, and in turn lazily limited the use.

[Lexx]

They shouldn't have made it a stealth kill, imo. Especially that the loud-looking animation is silent and the (more or less) silent looking kill-animation makes noise is very strange in my opinion. I think either switching it, so melee kill attack is silent, or making both non-silent would have been better for the game.

[Blodhemn]

Yeah, the game doesn't make real-world sense in a lot of ways, but I'm willing to overlook that aslong as it doesn't impede the gameplay too much. The melee is close to getting there though. You have to waste praxis points on these nonsensical energy cells and they don't even recharge on their own. You'd think the technology would've improved by then and that's buying into the idea that doing one move is going to completely drain my energy - wth? Honestly, I don't find the alternate routes to be near creative enough for the developers to be overly concerned about their overpowered melee mechanic abuse. It moreso cheapens the experience and is why I don't find the major missions to be much fun. I just stood back and did headshots and killed everyone in my last mission. It's pretty hilarious seeing suspicion levels drop, even though you've killed many guards in plain view, just because you've stepped back into an airvent. I'm just glad that they did grant me enough ammo to headshot enemies when I want to, otherwise I doubt I could get through the game. So, even though the workings of the game are a bit weird, atleast there are alternate methods no matter how crude, ultimately it gets you through the game without too much of a headache.

[Gorgon]

Deus Ex:HR - Started putting more time into this. It's a good enough game to keep me playing - mainly the environment and leveling up. I wish they didn't choke the melee use with the depletion of energy - why can't I just do a normal melee attack without the use of some special energy source powered by an energy bar? I mean you can find enough energy sources to where it's almost redundant but obviously they meant to give you limited melee use for "game balance" purposes - which just comes off as lazy design. It also doesn't make much sense to do this since the gunplay feels very much like the Fallout 3 engine - very stiff and almost useless shooting mechanics unless you just want to sit far back and pickoff enemies via headshot. This is the type game where sometimes I want to be stealthy and other times I want to play it faster and just bust through enemies with bullet spray, but unfortunately the gunplay is just too rigid to really do that. The boss battles are almost laughably bad. I really don't enjoy the bigger missions so far - the smaller, sidequest stuff is better but still isn't great. I don't know, this game is just generic as it gets but the unique gameworld and leveling up is enough to keep me interested.

 

They originally had the melee maneuvers for free with no energy use required. But during game testing they found it basically made every tester slide into stealth route and auto-melee kill/ko the enemy. So to encourage the development of discovering creative routes they jury-rigged the energy use for melee. Or something along those lines...

I though it was just that making every mele a cutscene required no extra coding, and having them available for no energy cost would would have left the whole thing too easy. Edited August 26, 2012 by Gorgon

[Blodhemn]

Which is why they should've done something with hand-to-hand combat instead of melee = insta kill. Using an entire energy cell for one maneuver, but then getting it refueled by eating an energy bar which lacks real nutrition is just shoddy and lazy. But I guess in a game like this, you have to forget about anything logical. I mean they do have giant airvents throughout every location that's around sensitive information and completely unguarded.

Edited August 26, 2012 by Blodhemn

[Orogun01]

Which is why they should've done something with hand-to-hand combat instead of melee = insta kill. Using an entire energy cell for one maneuver, but then getting it refueled by eating an energy bar which lacks real nutrition is just shoddy and lazy. But I guess in a game like this, you have to forget about anything logical. I mean they do have giant airvents throughout every location that's around sensitive information and completely unguarded.

It seems everyone forgets that this game was rushed. Plus, melee is not even one of their worst design decisions.

[Blodhemn]

Which is why they should've done something with hand-to-hand combat instead of melee = insta kill. Using an entire energy cell for one maneuver, but then getting it refueled by eating an energy bar which lacks real nutrition is just shoddy and lazy. But I guess in a game like this, you have to forget about anything logical. I mean they do have giant airvents throughout every location that's around sensitive information and completely unguarded.

It seems everyone forgets that this game was rushed. Plus, melee is not even one of their worst design decisions.

 

That makes sense. Concerning the bulk of the game there is a lot of things that are "ok" and come off as if they were quickly decided upon and nothing that's really great other than the look of the environment. I mean for as much as an unpolished game Alpha Protocol was, atleast the combat choices made more sense and hey, the gunplay is actually kind of fun. Deus Ex destroys Alpha Protocol as far as making a nice gameworld, but that's pretty much the only thing it does better. AP combat is better and the story + voice acting + role playing takes it to a whole other level.

[Calax]

One thing I laughed at in Deus Ex was the fact that you could buy a "punch through the wall" technique that was used like three times.