What are you playing now?

[Keyrock]

 

.... no, no wait! It's the other way around. I *stop* playing games that I'm getting zero enjoyment from. Phew, I'm just silly like that.

 

I was still getting a little enjoyment out of Pillars at the end, namely the story bits, I was just absolutely hating all the combat.  Normally, if I dislike a game I just stop playing it too, but in this case I was enjoying myself at the beginning, and by the time all the combat started to really wear on me, I guessed (correctly) that I was fairly close to the end and just decided to power through to the finish.  At that point, I had invested enough time in the game that I wanted to see the story through to the end, even if it wasn't a particularly exciting story.  With me, it's easy for me to drop a game if I dislike it right off the bat or even somewhere before the halfway point; a perfect storm of self-inflicted pain happens when a game I had been enjoying starts to irritate me somewhere around 2/3 to 3/4 through the game, as at that point I'm determined to see it through to the end, and I'll hate play it if I have to to get there.

Edited May 1, 2015 by Keyrock

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

 

 

Well, I finished Pillars.  I tried the final battle twice on Hard then just switched to Easy and beat it.  I'm sure I would have gotten through it on Hard eventually, but I was so tired of the game at that point that I didn't give a **** about any achievements or sense of pride for finishing on a higher difficulty, I just wanted it to be over as soon as possible.  It's a game I started out liking and wound up hating by the end.  I get the expansion "free" because of my pledge, but I don't know if I'll even play it.  Maybe after I cool off for a while my feelings will change, but right now I'd rather have my toe nails ripped off with pliers than play Pillars any more.  Finishing the game feels like a thousand monkeys just jumped off my back.  I'm free.

 

 

I too force myself to play through games that I'm getting zero enjoyment from.

 

.... no, no wait! It's the other way around. I *stop* playing games that I'm getting zero enjoyment from. Phew, I'm just silly like that.

That's nice. Would you like a cookie?

[HoonDing]

Combat heavy game without combat xp... it's like dry humping.

[Gfted1]

You must understand, combat xp forces people to not rp. FACT.

[Bartimaeus]

Uh...combat XP has pretty much absolutely nothing to do with PoE's combat problems. In fact, I am glad they had the foresight to remove it - otherwise it would be even more unbearable than it is if they were trying to encourage you to fight every single battle possible. At least you have the OPTION to avoid some percentage of combat with little to no consequences.

Edited May 1, 2015 by Bartimaeus

[HoonDing]

I would have accepted no combat xp in Pillars of Divinity considering the hand-placed nature of the combat. Plus there's so much other stuff you can do in the game.

 

Instead of xp, one could still be rewarded with hand-placed (rather than random) loot in Divinity when a bold and creative strategy pulls off.

[Keyrock]

Uh...combat XP has pretty much absolutely nothing to do with PoE's combat problems. In fact, I am glad they had the foresight to remove it - otherwise it would be even more unbearable than it is if they were trying to encourage you to fight every single battle possible. At least you have the OPTION to avoid some percentage of combat with little to no consequences.

Yeah, I'm happy combat sorta gives no xp as it makes a stealthy playthrough more attractive since you won't be missing out on as much (a little xp and some loot), and that's the only way I can ever see myself playing Pillars again.  I've been trying to figure out why the combat in Pillars wore on me so much and I can't quite put my finger on on.  The mechanics themselves are solid and you have a good deal of options at your disposal.  The battles can be lengthy, even the pushover ones, but a game like Wasteland 2 had just as lengthy battles, lengthier in fact, partially because of turn-based, and I played that game for just as long as Pillars (slightly longer, actually) and I was still having fun at the end and was eager to play again after finishing (the only thing that stopped me is the announcement of the move to Unity 5; I decided to wait for that to happen), whereas at the end of Pillars I was just happy it was finally over and had no intentions of playing again anytime soon, if ever.  I'm thinking it might be a combination of a couple of things:

 

1) There is a metric ****ton of combat in Pillars, just a ridiculous amount.

2) The sight issue.  A combination of trees and such obscuring vision and all the different effects further impairing vision makes it quite often really hard to tell what the hell is going on.  I can mouse over the green circles or portraits to get an idea of where everybody is, but that's further effort my brain has to put in to process and remember positioning of everyone.  Whereas in Wasteland 2 I can always clearly see where everyone is with basically zero effort (or rotate or zoom the camera if my view is obscured at all).  I think all that extra effort my brain has to put in just to keep track of where everyone is takes its tool after a while.  *sigh* I'm getting old.

Edited May 1, 2015 by Keyrock

[Keyrock]

I'm playing 200cc Mario Kart 8.  It's freakin' bonkers and I love it.  It does take some getting used to, though.  That previously completely useless brake button is pretty doggone necessary now.

[marelooke]

Playing PoE little bits at a time to avoid getting burned out on it (and the combat, especially). Still somewhere in Act II, went back to my keep, cleared the first 5 or so levels of The Endless Paths of Od Nua and going back to sidequesting now to get my reputation with Defiance Bay up so I can continue Edér's quest.

 

Aside from that I'm burning through Saints Row IV in the same way as the previous game: doing every single side-mission available before continuing the main story, I already found out in SR3 that that isn't such a good tactic (because you end up only getting rather fun weaponry near the end that way) but recent games have given me an irrational fear of unannounced points of no return...

[LadyCrimson]

Went back to Path of Exile ... just an hour or so a day. Mostly to item-grind to get chrs and inventories ready for Act4. I'll probably want 300000 orbs of whatever and such due to changes...

[Humanoid]

You people made me pre-emptively drop the PoE difficulty to easy.

 

I'm still spending most of my time on D:OS co-op though, and can say I much, much prefer PoE's XP system. D:OS has some terrible XP distribution that can swing wildly between alternate solutions (or just the simple matter of remembering to talk to someone after doing some tangential thing), leaving people alternately underlevelled or overlevelled for a particular chunk of content. That said, the munchkin's rule of thumb here is that taking the violent solution will generally result in at least *double* the XP the peaceful solution provides - though in some cases the actual optimal solution is to talk your way out of some fight, then immediately initiate the fight anyway.

[Bartimaeus]

Ah...the Infinity Engine technique. Pickpocket for reward, talk to again for XP and double reward because whoever was programming the game was clearly stupid (Tolgerias's multiple Rings of the Ram come to mind), kill them as they're leaving the map for more XP as well as whatever they currently have on them (there's a million examples where you can do this, including, again, Tolgerias), and since their variables have been set as if they're alive/not pickpocketed for their next appearance elsewhere because of shoddy coding, rinse and repeat the process for wherever they show up next (Elminster/Terminsel and his Ring of Protection +2 that you can pickpocket each time he appears comes to mind). Woo.

Edited May 2, 2015 by Bartimaeus

[GhostofAnakin]

Started Chapter IV in the Witcher 1.  It's ... kind of a strange jump from the stuff in Chapters I to III, and then what I'm doing in Chapter IV.  I'll probably see later on how it connects, but right now it's like I started a brand new story and am on the prologue/intro level.

[Nonek]

Started Chapter IV in the Witcher 1.  It's ... kind of a strange jump from the stuff in Chapters I to III, and then what I'm doing in Chapter IV.  I'll probably see later on how it connects, but right now it's like I started a brand new story and am on the prologue/intro level.

 

I am fairly much in the same place, wandering around, listening to the music and watching the days and nights pass in and around Murky Waters, ocassionally completing a quest when I feel the urge, or gathering various components. If the Wild Hunt can evoke the dreamy fairy tale ambience of chapter IV somewhere in its gameworld, then I for one will be more than content.

[Darkpriest]

TI Compendium was released so back to heavy DotA2 sessions. waiting for TW3 though and playing some campaign in Age of Wonders 3 once in a while. Or some map in Endless Legends

[WDeranged]

I decided to push on to the final battle in PoE and had my ass utterly handed to me over and over.  Ended up going back a few saves to level up some more and craft about a billion paralyse scrolls.

[Rostere]

craft about a billion paralyse scrolls.

 

[WDeranged]

So there I was with a huge stack of potions and scrolls when I all I needed was one spell (gaze of the adragan) to steamroll everything...I came out of that fight with barely a scratch 

 

All in all I've enjoyed PoE lots but by the end I definitely started to get bored with the combat, there's no ramping up of complexity beyond a certain point.  

 

The main story was decent and has given me a few things to contemplate but it didn't grab my balls like PS:T or Morrowind.  The companions I chose were mostly memorable, Durance and Aloth I found especially amusing but I'd have liked more meat to their quests...all the companion quests felt a bit light really.

 

The ending was good and had some satisfying slides but I'm mostly glad it's over, sixty hours is a long time to grind through samey combat for the sake of the story.

[Keyrock]

I decided to push on to the final battle in PoE and had my ass utterly handed to me over and over.  Ended up going back a few saves to level up some more and craft about a billion paralyse scrolls.

That final battle has a crazy difficulty spike.  I'm all for the final battle in a game being the most difficult one, but maybe that jump in difficulty is a bit much.  I mean, that battle was exponentially harder than any other battle I had faced in the game; granted I never did reach the bottom of the Paths of Od Nua and face whatever was there.

[WDeranged]

 

I decided to push on to the final battle in PoE and had my ass utterly handed to me over and over.  Ended up going back a few saves to level up some more and craft about a billion paralyse scrolls.

That final battle has a crazy difficulty spike.  I'm all for the final battle in a game being the most difficult one, but maybe that jump in difficulty is a bit much.  I mean, that battle was exponentially harder than any other battle I had faced in the game; granted I never did reach the bottom of the Paths of Od Nua and face whatever was there.

 

 

Yeah I gave up on Od Nua too, next time round I guess.  That battle was basically impossible with the abilities I had, seems a bit odd that gaining one level and one spell should make it so much easier.

[ManifestedISO]

The Golf Club PS4. If simplicity can be both addicting and challenging, then I've found it. Just like real golf, no tutorial, no hints, only trial and error, mostly error but a few birdies so far. There's an announcer commentator companion voice named John ... for a minute I thought, am I online or something, is this damp Canadian gentleman watching me play, how could there be so many voice files. More than anything it's a fun game to learn and get the hang of.  

 

 

[GhostofAnakin]

The extra weapon slots in the Witcher 1 seem like such a huge waste.  I never use the axe/dagger/etc. non-witcher weapons, so they're only there to earn me some orens.

 

Speaking of which, that's one area the Witcher 2 greatly improved: loot and finding weapons that are actually better than your starting weapons.  In my Witcher 1 play through, I'd been using my same silver sword since the beginning until I got that one in Chapter IV, and I was using my original witcher steel sword until I bought the weird named one from the blacksmith's son in Chapter IV.

[Nonek]

Just leaving Murky Waters for Vizima, and am seen away by a dog on the Vodyanoi priests island shrine to the Lady, this leaves me wondering whether this dog is the same nosey dog that followed me in the Swamp. I know that hound can die but as a herald of the Lady death may not be an end, and I wonder if she was watching me since that time.

 

The nosey dog always seemed to be something of a Chekhov's gun that never had a resolution.

[Keyrock]

I'm playing more Mario Kart 8 and Metro 2033 Redux (Ranger Mode, of course).  I need to cleanse the palate before diving into the next lengthy cRPG playthrough, which might wind up being Serpent in the Staglands, provided that game winds up being as good as it looks.

[ManifestedISO]

Okay, whittling away the handicap. From 21 down to five, all on the same course. Shot 69 last round with an eagle on the second and two chip-ins. Longest hole-out, 131yds ... less skill, more luck. Longest putt, 31ft. Getting the hang of going up a club, adjusting loft, dropping her in. John is as witty and matter-of-fact as ever. Still hearing new sound bites after sixteen full rounds.