What are you playing now?

[melkathi]

Nearing the end in Pillars of Eternity. Some things have happened in the game that were spoiled to me in this thread series. It was a bit of a shame that it occured, but it is not the end of the world. I'm enjoying the game despite some flaws. It's not an instant classic game or my favorite Obsidian game, but I do not regret my backing of it.

 

 

I have managed to stay an amazing 100% spoiler free so far

[mkreku]

Played The Witcher 3 for almost 5 hours last night. So far it's very good and surprisingly polished. I especially like the subtle humour and the very Polish feeling game world (I drove through Poland last summer and I get the same mood when running through The Witcher). The only thing that bugs me so far (and to be fair, it bugs me a whole lot) is that the game was advertised as being open world, but it's not. It's the same "open world" as the Stalker games, as in having pretty big levels that you move between. Lots and lots of invisible walls everywhere. "The world ends here" blah blah without any geographic explanation. You can actually be running in an open field with kilometers of view in every direction when all of a sudden your character just stops and says that the world has ended. Pretty annoying and an extremely clumsy solution for this non-problem.

 

Other than that my first impressions are very positive. Even the interface feels very slick and clever and with the complexity and amount of features this game has, that's quite a feat. I know people were complaining about the downgrade in graphics, but I don't care. The game looks spectacular and that's all that matters to me.

[Emc2]

Got my platinum for Bloodborne, pretty excited. This meant that I ran through it three times, defeated all the bosses, got all the equipment, and beat the chalice dungeons. And I loved every minute of it.

It took me 7 runs and 3 characters (~230 h) to get all the achievements in Dark Souls. They were very inefficient runs, but I've never really felt the need to get all the achievements in a game before. The best part is that I still boot up the game occasionally for PvP or random challenge runs. Definitely worth the price, I doubt Bloodborne is any different. Does the game still have those horribly long loading times?

[HoonDing]

Played The Witcher 3 for almost 5 hours last night. So far it's very good and surprisingly polished. I especially like the subtle humour and the very Polish feeling game world (I drove through Poland last summer and I get the same mood when running through The Witcher). The only thing that bugs me so far (and to be fair, it bugs me a whole lot) is that the game was advertised as being open world, but it's not. It's the same "open world" as the Stalker games, as in having pretty big levels that you move between. Lots and lots of invisible walls everywhere. "The world ends here" blah blah without any geographic explanation. You can actually be running in an open field with kilometers of view in every direction when all of a sudden your character just stops and says that the world has ended. Pretty annoying and an extremely clumsy solution for this non-problem.

 

Other than that my first impressions are very positive. Even the interface feels very slick and clever and with the complexity and amount of features this game has, that's quite a feat. I know people were complaining about the downgrade in graphics, but I don't care. The game looks spectacular and that's all that matters to me.

I'm disappointed when I noticed locked house that only get unlocked when you advance main quest. It's Two Worlds 2 all over again.

 

Also not very rewarding exploration at all. Kill a monster 6 levels above Geralt and get 5 xp... yey.

[Keyrock]

I'm 3 missions in on my 4th attempt on experienced difficulty in Invisible Inc.  Will this be the time I make it through to the end of the campaign?  Probably not, though I am off to a pretty good start, despite failing (but surviving) the last mission I did.  That last mission was a good lesson in humility.  Through the nature of procedural generation, sometimes you're going to get a map that's going to make achieving your objective extremely difficult.  

 

In this particular mission, I was tasked with breaking into a guard room and retrieving a highly secured item.  I found the probable location of the guard room straight away, it was surely behind the security door past the laser field.  The security door was no problem for my team since Banks can break lev 1 security locks for "free" (she doesn't need to swipe a passcard off a guard), the laser field, however, needed to be turned off, which involves hacking and shutting down a generator.  The problem is that the generator wound up being located on the polar opposite end of the map.  You pretty much couldn't have possibly put it any further away.  By the time I found the generator I had already found the exit (the two were in close proximity to one another) and security level was already up to 3.  Even if I did manage to backtrack and get past all the guards and drones, by the time I would have gotten the loot and started my journey back to the exit (essentially all the way back to where I had just come from), security level would have been up to at least 5 (read: extremely high).  While, in theory, it was still possible for me to complete my mission, the likelihood of success would have been exceedingly low.  I took the cowardly, and wise, path and decided to just head for the exit.  I still managed to loot a good number of safes during that mission and overall it was a nice score, even if I didn't get whatever was the highly secured item.  

 

In my experiences with the game, you ideally want to already have your primary objective completed and be on the way out by the time security level 3 hits.  If you can't complete your primary objective by the time security level 4 hits, you need to abort the plan and get out.  If you can hit a safe or nanofab on the way out at that point, that's great, but you can't stray and waste time.  Security level 4 and up means get out and get out fast, because they ain't ****ing around any more.

Edited May 19, 2015 by Keyrock

[Gfted1]

Also not very rewarding exploration at all. Kill a monster 6 levels above Geralt and get 5 xp... yey.

Thats a feature designed to prevent the game from forcing you to kill everything in the game. Help game designers help you. 

[HoonDing]

Also the fact that your weapons get nearly broken after every five fights and it costs a ton to repair. There's just no incentive to get off the beaten path.

[Tale]

 

Got my platinum for Bloodborne, pretty excited. This meant that I ran through it three times, defeated all the bosses, got all the equipment, and beat the chalice dungeons. And I loved every minute of it.

It took me 7 runs and 3 characters (~230 h) to get all the achievements in Dark Souls. They were very inefficient runs, but I've never really felt the need to get all the achievements in a game before. The best part is that I still boot up the game occasionally for PvP or random challenge runs. Definitely worth the price, I doubt Bloodborne is any different. Does the game still have those horribly long loading times?

 

I never really noticed the load times, even before the patch that was supposed to fix them. So I'm not a good judge.

 

Got about an hour of The Witcher 3 in. Feels like The Witcher 2 to me, but slower to start, and with more openness. That's not a bad thing.

[Labadal]

Final thoughts on PoE.

 

I just beat the game on hard, playing for around 72 hours, completing every quest in the game. I played an unarmed monk (dwarf). I will start off by saying that I don't regret backing the game, but that it has its problems.

 

My two cents:

 

I approached most combat encounters the same way: Send in tanks and then use ranged characters to help out. Things changed a bit when I had the paladin and druid in my team, because they were used as both melee and ranged combatants. There were some fun encounters, namely the bounties and a few fights here and there. Otherwise, I just stuck to the same tactics a lot of the time. Pathfinidng wasn't always what I wanted it to be and that was my biggest fear pre-release. People expected it to be good, but I said on the Obsidian fora that it was one of my biggest concerns. It worked most of the time, but there were moments when it truly pissed me off. I still miss hard counters, I didn't like the camping supply system, and ally/enemy AI was a bit of a letdown. I didn't hate melee engagement, but it should have been used as an ability in the game. The entire game shouldn't revolve around it. I usually just stuck to the same spells most of the time and when I reached level 9-11, I used the low level spells almost all the time. I barely used any potions or food, so that added a little challenge. Party members were mostly useless as their stats were crap, but I stuck with them for story reasons.

Visibility in combat was at times very annoying. Luckily, it didn't reach NWN2 levels for me.

 

Most maps looked nice, especially those that had been painted over. On the other hand, there were some maps that looked a little rough. In general, I was very impressed with the graphics. Armour designs also looked cool and I bought stuff just to see how they looked. Voice acting was decent and the writing was also decent. Above average according to me, but not as good as MotB or some of their other games. The music wasn't something I thought about much, but the soundtrack grew on me and I have to say that I really like it.

 

The quests were a bit underwhelming. There were a few good ones like one in Dyrford village, and some others here and there. A lot of the quests were a bit too straight forward and not super exciting. I guess it was nice that you could solve quests in different ways. As I said earlier, I really liked the bounties and they were a fun challenge. On the other hand, I was disappointed by everything else that had to do with the stronghold, barring the mega dungeon which I liked.

 

While I don't think the combat is as good as the IE games, I still liked the character system, even if it needs to be improved. I felt like there is a lot to choose from with how you develop your class. I had Eder as a tank but I also made a custom two handed fighter that I used occasionally. The companions were a mixed bag. I didn't care much for Pallegina, Sagani and Aloth. I really liked Durance, Eder and Hiravias. The others were okay. When it comes to other NPCs, there weren't really many that I cared for or hated. Again, there were a few that stood out, but in general, I forgot about many of the NPCs after a while. 

 

My biggest disappointment is a selfish one. I was not happy to see how backer NPCs were handled. I saw mine and his sotry didn't match what I had written at all. He was a monk, that was about it. Had I known, I would have made an item. I hope that they don't have a useless reward like that for the next KS game.

 

All in all, I'd give the game an 8/10. I prefer F:NV, MotB and AP over PoE, but then again, those are some of my favorite rpgs. I'd put it with KOTOR II which I also like a lot.

 

(It's 2 AM over here, sorry for the incoherence and spelling mistakes.)

[GhostofAnakin]

I picked up Witcher Wild Hunt, but my PS4 had to do a system update and my 'net speed was being an ass today and it took forever.  So I haven't had a chance to actually play yet.

 

Instead, I went back to finishing up my PoE play-thru.  Feels like I'm nearing the end.

[BruceVC]

Also the fact that your weapons get nearly broken after every five fights and it costs a ton to repair. There's just no incentive to get off the beaten path.

 

I imagine the idea behind that is to get you to find ways to generate revenue so you are " forced " to explore and do side quests

 

I think its clever ?

[GhostofAnakin]

Anyone playing the Witcher 3 on the PS4?  Anyone know how to skip the intro video that plays every time the game loads?  It's pretty long and I'd rather not have to watch it every time I load up the game.

[Bokishi]

I think that video is the loading screen

[GhostofAnakin]

That's a long loading screen, then. :/

[mkreku]

Played some more last night (only for a few hours directly after running a 10 km race..) but it felt even smoother for me than the previous night. Naturally I had to raise a few setting just because of it. Now on half Ultra/half High. I love my R9 290X!

 

I have not had the experience of HoonDing. Yes, there's equipment deterioration, but I usually upgrade my weapons and armour before they fall apart. Crafting is actually fun in this game. I love that I almost never have to hunt for ingredients for the things I want to make. I usually solve it by breaking down things I don't need into components or buy them (expensively) from the vendor. It's just a matter of balancing cost versus amount of work it would take to get it myself. My witcher is very poor..

 

I've left the starting area now (without picking up any glass bird.. sigh) but the game has not yet opened up for me. We'll see.

[SadExchange]

Anyone playing the Witcher 3 on the PS4? Anyone know how to skip the intro video that plays every time the game loads? It's pretty long and I'd rather not have to watch it every time I load up the game.

If you are able to, I believe it would be the square button.

[HoonDing]

It's striking how schizophrenic TW3 is as a game.

You have a large open world, but CDPR does everything in their power to force the player to focus on the main quest by having much higher level monsters everywhere. Which would be alright if it were like Gothic but you aren't even rewarded for killing them unless you like random crafting junk and repairing your weapons every ten minutes.

 

Basically you develop Geralt by completing main quests. Even sidequests give at most 25 xp (bizarrely enough the same amount as a succesful Axii check during dialogue).

 

The only good reward for exploration are the magic runestones that give ability points.

 

It's understandable CDPR made TW3 open world considering their direct competition made one but nobody would've objected against areas more similar to TW1 and 2.

Edited May 20, 2015 by HoonDing

[Malcador]

I think I got 350xp from one side quest helping the girl attacked by the griffin. Tempted to knock off all the '?' on the map but yeah, could do with XP for offing these monsters I find out there or restoring sites (that's a decent feature).

 

Might also get some ingredients to make some potions, right now can make diddly squat.

[HoonDing]

I found a diagram somewhere for a unique silver sword and can actually craft it... but it's level 13.

[mkreku]

Played some more today after work. The game started off good but it's actually growing on me. I agree that the exploration is not as rewarding as it could be (lack of xp, lack of other incentives) but I love the side-quests and the main quests. The side-quests feel very lavish (for lack of a better word) with higher than usual production values and great writing. I love that they never feel cheap and always feel like little stories instead of fetch quests or the like.

 

The second map is much bigger than the first with almost an overwhelming amount of stuff to see and do. I'm really enjoying this game.

[Amentep]

Man, Invisible Inc. is a TENSE game (yes, that needed to be ALL CAPS).  There are so many hard decisions to make.  Do you keep your team together or split them up?  Do you make a risky move or play it safe and stay hidden?  Keeping your team together allows them to work together and tackle more targets at a time, but time is one of your greatest enemies and splitting your team up allows you to cover more ground and more efficiently.  Playing it safe keeps you hidden and out of danger, but wastes precious time.  Things can get nail-bitingly tense as you try to make your escape once you've achieved your goal (or just decided to bail because it's not worth it).  The security noose starts closing in around you and you're desperately trying to stay hidden and find a way past the guards to safety.  In those situation, contrary to time being against you, patience is a virtue.  If you ever wanted to play a much less combat focused and much more heavily stealth focused XCOM, this is it.  I freakin' love this game.

 

Edit:  Also, this game is hard.  I got wiped on the very first mission on my first try.  I got wiped on the second mission on my second time around.  On my third (and current) try I just managed to survive the third mission (and rescued an agent in the process!).  That's on Experienced difficulty, btw.

 

Game sounds interesting; will look to play it sometime in the future.

[GhostofAnakin]

One thing I've been impressed with about the Witcher Wild Hunt so far: during cutscenes, the character models actually move realistically as they speak.  If they're distraught, they'll pace anxiously or rub their hands while they talk.  If they're explaining something, their hands move in gestures that us normal folk would move our hands about when explaining things, etc.  In comparison, with some games the character models don't move in sync with what they're saying.  They'll be begging me to save their daughter with a trembling voice, yet the character model is just standing there scratching the back of their head.

[HoonDing]

Velen map is really big, but outside locations marked by '?' there's really nothing interesting to find. And even the marked locations are most of the time chests guarded by monsters. Unlike for instance Skyrim where there were a lot of interesting unmarked locations.

[marelooke]

Playing some DA:I and getting rather annoyed with all the crashes (especially when factoring in the loooooong loading times, think it's been since the first Witcher that I've been so annoyed by loading times, which, back then, were mostly caused by the DRM CDPR used on that game)

Edited May 20, 2015 by marelooke

[Keyrock]

Still playing Invisible Inc.  On my 4th attempt I'm as deep as I've ever gotten, in terms of missions completed.  The mission before the last, I pulled off a pretty slick escape, dragging a downed agent a good long way to the exit after completing the primary objective.  Overall, I can't be too proud of the mission, because I started the mission off with several errors and serious oversights, which wasted a couple of my rewinds and put me in the position where I needed to pull one out of my *** to get all my agents out alive.  The last mission I did went much smoother and I got out with a bunch of data that will open up new missions for me (hopefully there is a vault breach in there as I have a blank passcard).  All 3 of my agents are somewhat upgraded and fairly well equipped.  This is the most highly skilled and most well equipped team I have ever fielded.  Hopefully I don't blow it and can keep this going to the finish.

 

Once I manage to complete the campaign, however many more attempts that takes (hopefully zero), I think I'll try playing Endless Mode (no end to the mission, survive as long as you can) on Ironman Difficulty (no rewinds).

Edited May 21, 2015 by Keyrock