What are you playing right now?

[Tale]

I'm liking XCOM 2 more now that I use disabled timers from the workshop. Still got a timer yesterday to deactivate a distress signal, but it was a good change.

 

I still don't like advent or all the micro on the map. Got a supply drop? Better fly all the way to South Africa to get it! Got X on the map? Better fly and scan for a few days there. ALARM, BETTER STOP DOING THAT, THIS OTHER THING'S GOING ON.

 

I love the new overwatch behavior, where they're not all firing on the same guy, causing 4/5th the team to miss because he died to the first shooter.

[Malcador]

Playing Overwatch. Rather annoying matches against 6 Bastions or 6 76s.

[Serrano]

I'm about to start Dreamfall Chapters. Since I backed it on kickstarter way back I've avoided the offical site, threads and articles about the game, now three hours before it's finished downloading I've apparently found out a massive spoiler. I hate it when that happens  . I've also just finished Assassin's Creed Syndicate which I liked a great deal, loved having two protagonists the story switches between and both characters were awesome, I hope both of the lead voice actors get more work, they gave great performances. 

Edited June 22, 2016 by Serrano

[melkathi]

Witch Hunters just got added to Mordheim.

[ShadySands]

DDO

 

Got my Drowlock to 8 after running ToEE

[Blarghagh]

Playing Overwatch. Rather annoying matches against 6 Bastions or 6 76s.

 

I participated in a 6 Winston team. The weirdest thing is that we won in record speed. Just goes to show Overwatch's biggest issue - hero stacking in teams always beats a "balanced" team. The nature of the rock-paper-scissors counter playstyle means you can only beat a stack with another stack. That doesn't allow for interesting or creative decisions in your gameplay. I know people want to play their waifu, but at least limit the amount of a hero on a single team to 2.

[Vaeliorin]

So, I'd said that I was going to buy DA:I when the Game of the Year version was <$20.  I don't check the price religiously or anything, just when I happen to think about it.  So today, I went and checked the price, and it was on sale for $19.99, so I bought it.

 

I've played about 5 hours (most of which was just talking to people) and it's...not terrible writing.  It's not particularly good, but it's not terrible.  The combat, on the other hand, is...I think saying it was bad would be generous.  Maybe if the camera zoomed out about 5 times as much as it does (maybe more...it's hard to tell) it would be okay, but as it is it's basically impossible to see what's going on.  I had to turn the difficulty down from Nightmare to Hard (which was a ridiculous drop in difficulty...I went from getting killed and going through all my potions in the first boss fight to using 1) because I kept getting killed in the first boss fight because I couldn't tell what was happening.  Cassandra was run off about 3 screens away getting killed by the boss, I couldn't see the freaking mechanical gimmick (the rift) because apparently it was above the camera, the camera don't snap when you change party members (I know some people hate that, but I like it) so I'd find myself not realizing who I was controlling (because apparently casting an AoE can also select a companion when you click, or something...) and just generally it felt like a clusterf---.  I can't even imagine how you can play with friendly fire on, since you have no control over what your companions do (I guess you could play with only single target abilities, but that seems like it would be a bad idea.)  The menus are horrible, the gear is silly (why do I only have weapon and armor?  What happened to individual armor pieces?) and I don't know who thought it was a good idea to make me spam the 'v' key to put things on the mini-map instead of just...putting them on the mini-map, but I'd like to smack him upside the head.

 

It almost has to get better (I'm almost positive it had generally good reviews) but I'm not really sure how that could happen.  I wasn't expecting it to be great (or even good, really, but being Dragon Age I had to give it a chance eventually...) but I was expecting better than this.  Maybe I can find some mods that will make it less awful...here's hoping.

[DreamWayfarer]

On the rifts, I've found they are much easier to activate if you switch from the tactical camera (what was its name?) to the Third Person Shooter view, press the button and switch back.

[Tale]

Finally got a mission to rescue one of my old captured soldiers in XCOM 2. And it was the character I created with character pool, too!

 

Two to go...

 

I've almost killed the Berserker Queen. They're really quite easy if you savescum. And are playing Normal. I could not imagine playing this game with timers, Ironman, and any harder. Just imagining triggering the Berserker Queen while rushing against a timer and not being able to set up an overwatch trap to deal with it scares me.

 

The Viper King used to kill my dudes in two actions!

[the_dog_days]

Witch Hunters just got added to Mordheim.

We look forward to your return in October.

[Chilloutman]

Finally got a mission to rescue one of my old captured soldiers in XCOM 2. And it was the character I created with character pool, too!

 

Two to go...

 

I've almost killed the Berserker Queen. They're really quite easy if you savescum. And are playing Normal. I could not imagine playing this game with timers, Ironman, and any harder. Just imagining triggering the Berserker Queen while rushing against a timer and not being able to set up an overwatch trap to deal with it scares me.

 

The Viper King used to kill my dudes in two actions!

 

So, where is that thread with obs board members as team members?

[Tale]

So, where is that thread with obs board members as team members?

 

When XCOM 2 initially pissed me off, I figured I'd just end up abandoning the game so didn't set it up.

 

But since I'm still playing, I guess you have a point. I'll work on the name list today and start up an Ironman run.

 

Edit: There's a chance this will be XCOM: EW or Long War though.

[Humanoid]

If you want EW/LW to draw randomly from a name list, you can use this handy generator here, all it does is spit out a text file with the correct formatting.

 

I've tried manually fiddling with the namelist in XCOM 2 but it was a hassle and doesn't distinguish between soldiers and other types of character, including civilians. Character pool is the right way to go about things there, but there's a setting in an ini file you can change to force the game to *only* grab soldiers from the pool, instead of drawing a mix.

 

EDIT: Just to illustrate how big a winning Long War roster can be, this is my barracks in the final month of my LW victory. October in the second year, which would be the twentieth month of playing. I had a pretty clean run of it, with only two deaths (plus one blueshirt) so this is probably a bit bigger than the average roster though.

Edited June 22, 2016 by Humanoid

[Tale]

Character pool in XCom 2 is a pain in the ass to set up, though. Because you got to fiddle everything. I don't want to have to pick out color schemes and helmets for everybody I'm putting in the list.

[Humanoid]

I just took the default appearances every time I generated a character for the pool, pretty much. Functionally it ended up the same as using a custom namelist in the first game. All this was before the extra customisation DLC was released though, so everyone was pretty vanilla.

[Tale]

On the upside, you can make Herve Caen and set him up as a Dark VIP.

[Katphood]

Started playing ICO. Going straight for Shadow of the Colossus after I'm done with ICO. Feel like warming myself up for The Last Guardian. 

[marelooke]

With the release of the new Warband I've put XCOM2 on the backburner for more Mordheim...

[Vaeliorin]

I'm kind of ashamed to say this, but I've played 22 hours of DA:I now, and I'm honestly enjoying it more than Witcher 3. That's not to say it's a better game (it isn't anywhere near as well written, Witcher's horse is a millions times better, the combat's kind of a wash with a sligjt edge going to DA:I) but I'm not being dragged down by all the pointless points of interest in DA:I, and I don't have to pay attention to the combat (which feels much better now that I know I can rotate the camera in tactical mode.) I still haven't left the Hinterlands (I've got like 3 or 4 quests left there going by the list on the wiki...not that I've been following it, I just wondered what I'd missed, and except for the tiny corner I haven't explored yet, I haven't really missed anything I care about...I'm missing some mosaic pieces and shards, but who cares), which by all accounts I've read is the worst part of the game, so hopefully that turns out to be true for me as well. Heck, even most of the companions I expected to hate aren't as bad as I expected (though I don't have them all.) Sera's pretty terrible, though (she can't possibly be as stupid and immature as she seems, but no way in hell am I going to put up with her to find out.)

 

I think what it boils down to is DA:I's "open world" works much better for me than Witcher 3's. If Witcher 3 was more tightly focused, I've no doubt I'd enjoy it more, as the parts when I was working on long quest chains were really enjoyable, whereas with DA:I I've basically ignored the story (mages, templars, demons, blah, blah, same old, same old is what I'm getting so far.)

 

Still probably never buy another Bioware game until the game plus DLC is under $20 ever again, though (whereas previously I'd pre-ordered Collector's Editions of pretty much everything since BG2.)

[Chilloutman]

I'm kind of ashamed to say this, but I've played 22 hours of DA:I now, and I'm honestly enjoying it more than Witcher 3. That's not to say it's a better game (it isn't anywhere near as well written, Witcher's horse is a millions times better, the combat's kind of a wash with a sligjt edge going to DA:I) but I'm not being dragged down by all the pointless points of interest in DA:I, and I don't have to pay attention to the combat (which feels much better now that I know I can rotate the camera in tactical mode.) I still haven't left the Hinterlands (I've got like 3 or 4 quests left there going by the list on the wiki...not that I've been following it, I just wondered what I'd missed, and except for the tiny corner I haven't explored yet, I haven't really missed anything I care about...I'm missing some mosaic pieces and shards, but who cares), which by all accounts I've read is the worst part of the game, so hopefully that turns out to be true for me as well. Heck, even most of the companions I expected to hate aren't as bad as I expected (though I don't have them all.) Sera's pretty terrible, though (she can't possibly be as stupid and immature as she seems, but no way in hell am I going to put up with her to find out.)

 

I think what it boils down to is DA:I's "open world" works much better for me than Witcher 3's. If Witcher 3 was more tightly focused, I've no doubt I'd enjoy it more, as the parts when I was working on long quest chains were really enjoyable, whereas with DA:I I've basically ignored the story (mages, templars, demons, blah, blah, same old, same old is what I'm getting so far.)

 

Still probably never buy another Bioware game until the game plus DLC is under $20 ever again, though (whereas previously I'd pre-ordered Collector's Editions of pretty much everything since BG2.)

 

is there DA:I with all DLCs availible? Summer sales is upton us so I might grab it for reasonable price on steam

[marelooke]

I'm kind of ashamed to say this, but I've played 22 hours of DA:I now, and I'm honestly enjoying it more than Witcher 3. That's not to say it's a better game (it isn't anywhere near as well written, Witcher's horse is a millions times better, the combat's kind of a wash with a sligjt edge going to DA:I) but I'm not being dragged down by all the pointless points of interest in DA:I, and I don't have to pay attention to the combat (which feels much better now that I know I can rotate the camera in tactical mode.)

Eh, tactical mode is pretty useless in the majority of fights anyway. I only bothered with it during the Dragon battles iirc (maybe some of the other tougher battles too, I don't remember)

 

I still haven't left the Hinterlands (I've got like 3 or 4 quests left there going by the list on the wiki...not that I've been following it, I just wondered what I'd missed, and except for the tiny corner I haven't explored yet, I haven't really missed anything I care about...I'm missing some mosaic pieces and shards, but who cares), which by all accounts I've read is the worst part of the game, so hopefully that turns out to be true for me as well. Heck, even most of the companions I expected to hate aren't as bad as I expected (though I don't have them all.) Sera's pretty terrible, though (she can't possibly be as stupid and immature as she seems, but no way in hell am I going to put up with her to find out.)

She actually is. At least I failed to find any redeeming qualities. Companion quality is a bit hit and miss but she was, as far as I'm concerned, the low point. The rest ranges from OK-ish to pretty great (my favourites being Solas and the Grey Warden, Varric wasn't really at his best in this game, imho, though I still liked him).

 

I think what it boils down to is DA:I's "open world" works much better for me than Witcher 3's. If Witcher 3 was more tightly focused, I've no doubt I'd enjoy it more, as the parts when I was working on long quest chains were really enjoyable, whereas with DA:I I've basically ignored the story (mages, templars, demons, blah, blah, same old, same old is what I'm getting so far.)

 

Still probably never buy another Bioware game until the game plus DLC is under $20 ever again, though (whereas previously I'd pre-ordered Collector's Editions of pretty much everything since BG2.)

Games with a focused story and open world don't really mesh well. If you provide a story with some sort of time pressure (even if only implied like, say, find your lost (step)kid, like in Witcher 3/FO4) then it just doesn't make sense to put that off to do "other stuff". I mean, you can make it sort of work (like having to collect x amount of gold before being able to rush off after Irenicus in BG2), but once you reach that goal it just doesn't make much real sense to postpone it.

 

DA:I just forces you to go all over the world to make progress towards your goal, side quests are generally more accidental things that happen on the way rather than a conscious divergence away from the actual goal you want to reach and that actually seems to work better.

 

I mean, how many people would postpone looking for their missing kid because...woooooo shiny! (in Cespenar's voice )

[Tale]

is there DA:I with all DLCs availible? Summer sales is upton us so I might grab it for reasonable price on steam

It's not on Steam.

 

I grabbed the version that included DLCs back on Black Friday for PS4. Still haven't gotten around to playing it.

 

Edit: Help, I'm addicted to the Steam sale. I just bought the Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;birth games. I know I shouldn't, but the reviews are so positive with people talking about quirky humor and stuff. And an education game about learning Japanese, that was made in RPG Maker.

 

I need an intervention.

 

Okay, that's it, no more games until Zero Time Dilemma.

[Chilloutman]

Ah yeah, DA:I needs that stupid EA client right? :/

[Hurlshort]

Origin.

 

I rarely start it up, but when I do, they always seem to have some free game available.  Peggle, Jade Empire, I think even Crusader: No Remorse was going at one point.

 

Honestly it is less intrusive and runs better than Steam, but there isn't much reason for me to use it often.

[the_dog_days]

Origin.

 

I rarely start it up, but when I do, they always seem to have some free game available. Peggle, Jade Empire, I think even Crusader: No Remorse was going at one point.

 

Honestly it is less intrusive and runs better than Steam, but there isn't much reason for me to use it often.

The only reason I don't use it more is because I prefer small studio or indie titles. Other than that, I think its as good and in some ways better than steam.