What are you playing right now?

[Vaeliorin]

I've been playing fairly heavily modded XCom 2.  Using the Long War Perk Pack, Laser Pack, SMGs, and Muton Centurion along with A Better Advent, Additional Mission Types, True Concealment, Increased Squad Size, The Axe Mod, and a couple UI things.  It's really fun and challenging.  A Better Advent adds some crazy (and scary) enemies.  In particular I hate Advent Gunslingers (nothing like getting your whole squad shot at when they use FaceOff) and Advent Tech Commandos (who can blow up your grenades like the Psi Ability Fuse...they need to die first.) 

 

A Better Advent always changes the AI.  I actually lost a "Protect the Device" mission because, despite having engaged them, an Andromedan and a Sectopod (not at the same time) attacked the device, doing a combined 21 damage to it and destroying it, which is something I'd never encountered before.

 

Also, a Snapshot Sniper with Run and Gun from the AWC is pretty awesome.

[Wrath of Dagon]

Just realized that early on in Technomancer, I was so eager to get new abilities I missed an important upgrade for the electric fist that would've made the battles in the rest of the game much easier. What an idiot.

[Orogun01]

Just realized that early on in Technomancer, I was so eager to get new abilities I missed an important upgrade for the electric fist that would've made the battles in the rest of the game much easier. What an idiot.

Trust me, you didn't miss anything. I barely used electric fist and much less got a lot of hit with it, towards the end with all the sustained abilities I only had one charge with which I mostly use the lighting bolt. It always hit and jumps to nearby enemies.

[Keyrock]

How does Technomancer's combat compare to Bound By Flame's?  I thought BBF's combat, while far from perfect, was significantly better than Mars: War Logs'.

[Wrath of Dagon]

I'd say it's a mix of the two. Seems faster and more hectic than Mars. Magic is a lot more powerful than Flame, especially when combined with one of the stances.

 

 

Just realized that early on in Technomancer, I was so eager to get new abilities I missed an important upgrade for the electric fist that would've made the battles in the rest of the game much easier. What an idiot.

Trust me, you didn't miss anything. I barely used electric fist and much less got a lot of hit with it, towards the end with all the sustained abilities I only had one charge with which I mostly use the lighting bolt. It always hit and jumps to nearby enemies.

 

It's very good against the heavies. Stun them then beat the crap out of them. Edited July 18, 2016 by Wrath of Dagon

[Labadal]

Pokemon Go all day long. Told the kids at work to put on their shoes and then they helped me Pokemon hunting. I did the searching and then I let them catch them Haven't seen 6-7 year olds so happy in a long time. We also have a pokestop near so we could fill up on pokeballs. They also got to see me take over a gym. They were hysterical. But most fun was when we found an evolved or legendary pokemon. They went crazy. We spent 50 pokeballs trying to catch it and then it still managed to get away.

 

Fun times. They were so damn happy, but I'd lie if I said that I didn't have fun myself.

[Keyrock]

I'd say it's a mix of the two. Seems faster and more hectic than Mars. Magic is a lot more powerful than Flame, especially when combined with one of the stances.

 

 

How is the character progression relative to the challenge of the enemies?

 

For me, both Mars: War Logs and Bound By Flame start out relatively the same; your character is a pathetic weakling.  The biggest difference is in the progression of your character's power level relative to enemies.  

 

In M:WL you remain a pathetic weakling throughout the entire game.  While your abilities do get a bit stronger, the skill increases are pretty mediocre and the enemy strength and numbers grow at least as fast as your character.  In that game it feels like you need every single weapon and armor upgrade available just to keep up with enemies.  I am forced to constantly cheese the system just to survive as I'm almost always massively outnumbered and nearly every enemy seems stronger than me.  Also, companions are completely and utterly useless in M:WL; they're good for 10 seconds of distraction at best.  

 

In BBF you start out as a pathetic weakling too, but your character grows in power relative to enemies throughout the game.  By the late stages of the game I was feeling like a legitimate badass and I very rarely felt the need to resort to cheese tactics.  Even when severely outnumbered I could usually buff myself quickly, then charge in and dispatch a couple of the weaker enemies very rapidly to reduce their numbers to a manageable amount.  Also, companions, while still not great, have a more measurable impact on the battle.  Heck, they even kill enemies once in a while all on their own.

Edited July 18, 2016 by Keyrock

[Wrath of Dagon]

Character progression seemed to me more like BBF. Keep in mind I played on Normal, on other difficulties you might get a different impression. One thing that's noticeable all those area respawn enemies get leveled up a couple of times in the game, and those fights become very much harder as soon as it happens. After a while you get used to them and level up a bit and then it's not too bad. Companions seem quite useful (you have 2 with you now), especially some of them. They have a lot more health than the PC, and thus make excellent meat shields. But I really didn't have a lot of trouble in Mars either, especially the BBF bosses were much harder than anything in Mars, and the end game of Mars to me was quite easy with all the Jedi abilities, so really I had the opposite impression from yours.

Edited July 19, 2016 by Wrath of Dagon

[Keyrock]

The only BBF boss fight I had trouble with was the Deadwalker General battle in the swamp, and that's mostly because my character was still pretty weak at that point.  It took me a bunch of tries and when I did beat him it was a tense nearly 10 minute battle that involved me mostly running away.  Later on in the game I got to face a Deadwalker General again as a mini-boss and I MASSACRED the dude quick and easy.  By the end of the game I had somewhere around 30% crit chance with my axe (I concentrated on weapon speed, crit, and damage for gear upgrades).  I didn't bother much casting fireballs because they did pathetic damage, they felt like a waste of mana, but I would flame up my axe and flame myself up then charge in and just murderate stuff.  If I crit (which was fairly often) with a flamed up axe I could nearly 1-shot weaker enemies and take a big chunk off tougher enemies.  Flame weapon and flame shield were awesome when maxed out.  My character was all types of OP in late game, but maybe that's because I went full-demon.  I should try it again going down the humanity path and maybe stabby stabby style instead of big 2-hander axe.

Edited July 19, 2016 by Keyrock

[Wrath of Dagon]

Whenever a significant new enemy type appeared in BBF I would have some trouble until I got used to fighting them. I think the first real boss took the most retries, and then depending on the quest order I had to fight two female hybrids and then somehow I had to reload and then did it in a different order and only fought one.

Edited July 19, 2016 by Wrath of Dagon

[Fenixp]

Dear Lord why didn't anyone tell me how addictive these bloody citibuilding sims are!? "Oh sure, I'll play it for an hour or two, that's worth 5 bucks, right?" -6 hours later- "MY LIFE!"

[Ganrich]

Dear Lord why didn't anyone tell me how addictive these bloody citibuilding sims are!? "Oh sure, I'll play it for an hour or two, that's worth 5 bucks, right?" -6 hours later- "MY LIFE!"

Same thing happened with me and Stellaris. I had to force myself to stop. Just gotta upgrade one more thing, and then one more, and another, and a day later...

[Fenixp]

Same thing happened with me and Stellaris. I had to force myself to stop. Just gotta upgrade one more thing, and then one more, and another, and a day later...

LOOK AT WHAT I BUILT!

LOOK AT IT! And I won't stop until the whole map is civilized! I also believe I am hungry.

Edited July 19, 2016 by Fenixp

[Harry Easter]

Divinity: Original Sin Enhanced Edition. The Original came out two years ago, but I still love playing this game. It has the kind of interactivity I only find in  Fallout 2 and Arcanum, but it does some things better than those games. The battles for example. And it has found a nice solution for the pacing problem of those games: it turns the story into a treasure hunt, which makes it necessary to explore the world. A fitting device for the plot too.

Edited July 26, 2016 by Harry Easter

[Tale]

Oxenfree

 

Holy crap where has this game been all my life?

[GhostofAnakin]

I'm pretty sure I'm nearing the end of Technomancer.

 

The combat no longer gives me issues, though I'm not sure if that's because I became better at the mechanics or because the enemies didn't seem to get any more difficult than the ones I faced at level 5 or 6 that were giving me problems.  Playing as a rogue, so having the ability to use poison helps.  Stab one enemy and poison them, then move on to the next while the poison damages the first.  Rinse and repeat.

 

I'm not sure how I feel about the companion dialogue.  Part of me wishes that when you've already seen a dialogue response, it's no longer an option.  As it is, I'm constantly clicking on dialogue options I've heard before in case they have something new to say.  So far, the dude with the missing arm had the best companion sidequest.

 

It's not the most polished of games  -- the voice acting isn't very good -- but, just like with Mars War Logs, I'm enjoying it.

[Lexx]

 

Same thing happened with me and Stellaris. I had to force myself to stop. Just gotta upgrade one more thing, and then one more, and another, and a day later...

LOOK AT WHAT I BUILT!

 

LOOK AT IT! And I won't stop until the whole map is civilized! I also believe I am hungry.

 

 

You should not start with OpenTTD. Actually you should, the game is awesome and one of my all time favs.

Edited July 20, 2016 by Lexx

[Gorgon]

As expected, Technomancer is GoTY.

Any relation to Yodorowsky

[the_dog_days]

Oxenfree

 

Holy crap where has this game been all my life?

My GOTY so far. It has a NG+ mode with new scenes and dialogue.

[the_dog_days]

I've gotten back into Elder Scrolls Online. Once I accepted the fact that it is a MMO and not Elder Scrolls VI, I started to really enjoy it.

[Tale]

 

Oxenfree

 

Holy crap where has this game been all my life?

My GOTY so far. It has a NG+ mode with new scenes and dialogue.

 

I got spoiled on the broad strokes of that. Looking forward to it.

[Wrath of Dagon]

Finished Technomancer. Very good, high quality game. Quests are well designed, RPG systems are well developed, large fairly open areas. It's an improvement on Mars in almost every way. The one thing that will bother some people are constantly respawning enemies as you backtrack back and forth. This is the same as Mars, but even more pronounced as the maps are large and new quests pop up all over the map and you have to run all over. It would be better if the enemies respawned randomly instead of all the time, and if they weren't always exactly the same in the same spot. But at least you get lots of SP from them so rapid progression isn't a problem, and trying to find the route of least resistance could even be considered part of the game play.

[Gorgon]

Never even realised it was a sequel to Mars Wars. Alright, they got my money. 

[the_dog_days]

Never even realised it was a sequel to Mars Wars. Alright, they got my money.

I think its a prequel.

[Gorgon]

Learning curve is pretty steep, still trying to figure out if I'm supposed to switch stances during combat. I mean it would make sense to shoot your force lightning and then empty your gun, all I seem to wind up doing is pressing dodge and spamming fast attack like Witcher 3.