What are you playing right now

[Gorth]

Made my way to Defiance bay and did a minor side quest picked up in the Inn. Then headed out and explore a bit more of the outdoors before exploring the city. Made a roundabout way over a wilderness area on the way to my keep (to spend my new coins on more upgrades). Ran into a sizeable group of "feral druids". Ouch. They didn't so much rain on my parade as carpet bomb the area with lightning and I was all out of lightning rods

 

Good thing I got a save from just before that encounter.

[Tale]

I hate to admit it, but I've decided to abandon Pillars of Eternity. Steam says I got 46 hours out of it. I'm in the last act I think and the start of White March part II. But I'm just not motivated to see what's next.

 

Still, it's not all bad, I do recall enjoying those 46 hours. And even Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 required a second playthrough from me before I ever finished them.

 

Maybe I'll give it another whirl after Tyranny. To pass the time until then, I'm only playing shorter games. 8-12 hour long. First up is one Halloween sale purchase, Corpse Party!

[Fenixp]

I hate to admit it, but I've decided to abandon Pillars of Eternity. Steam says I got 46 hours out of it. I'm in the last act I think and the start of White March part II. But I'm just not motivated to see what's next.

Sticking to Pillars of Eternity is ... Difficult. I was so enthralled by the game first time around that I managed to finish it, but when I was replaying it with WM, I started noticing just how much pointless filler there is. Just a trash encounter after trash encounter. That game really needed proverbial editor to ask "What is this encounter for? And this one? How is this location relevant to the plot or lore? So, are you absolutely, positively certain you need to undermine quality of your megadungeon by having 15 floors just because backers?" and cut and chop to make the game half its length. 

[melkathi]

I am glad that I stayed at the basic backer tier. And it was the mega dungeon that had me too worried to go above

[Fenixp]

Eh, I still think it was well worth the 40 EUR I paid for it, and after all I spent like 190 hours or so with it which kinda attests to how much I enjoyed it. I'd probably play it for even more and finish it like 4, 5 times if the game was shorter - I still absolutely adore character creation, progression mechanics and combat, for me it's pretty much the top RTWP combat system in an RPG.

[Lexx]

It was just too long for me. I really can't play 60 hour games anymore unless they really, really, really hook me up, which poe simply did not.

[Chilloutman]

I hate to say it but my biggest grudge with PoE combat were spells and abilities. I just don't have that much patience to study each creature and each spell to see if its right target for it. There should be some clean indicator what defensive stats spell target. And these 'immersive' spell names didn't helped. I still enjoy that game on lower diff but I can't force myself to study combat log for hours to find out that I was using fort targeting spells on creature with high fort saves etc.

[melkathi]

For me there were just too many teleporting and blinking enemies for a game with such importance on attacks of opportunity

[Blarghagh]

Sticking to Pillars of Eternity is ... Difficult. I was so enthralled by the game first time around that I managed to finish it, but when I was replaying it with WM, I started noticing just how much pointless filler there is. Just a trash encounter after trash encounter. That game really needed proverbial editor to ask "What is this encounter for? And this one? How is this location relevant to the plot or lore? So, are you absolutely, positively certain you need to undermine quality of your megadungeon by having 15 floors just because backers?" and cut and chop to make the game half its length.

 

 Story mode difficulty for the win, for me. It makes most trash negligable. It also makes the real fights negligable, but since I've never been someone to really get deep into the strategy of CRPGs and am mostly there for the story, it makes the sacrifice worth it.

 

Plodding my way through Draenor in WoW, if nothing else it's nice for the nostalgia factor of seeing Draenor before it got turned into the hell-hole that was Outland.

 

Quests are uninspired as ever though: go free this guy. Oh, and in case you were considering trying something smart that didn't involve murdering your way through the enemy: here's a quest to kill 15 of the enemy's guys. I feel like these areas mostly coast on the nostalgia wave, at least for me.

 

Anyway, *hate* what they did to the class balance. My mage is as tanky as your average paladin for some reason, and hits like one too. Glass cannon? Yeah no. "Concrete peashooter" more like.

The lack of skill trees totally killed the variety in skills you had as well (after they already murdered utility skills earlier; in Cataclysm or WotLK or so), no more access to Arcane Explosion if you aren't arcane specced. Huzzah and stuff. In general it seems they've continued pushing the Fire mage spec in the wrong direction. I kinda enjoyed how positioning and aggro management were key to getting good DPS out of a Fire mage, now with all these mobility  crutchestools it's just too...streamlined? Honestly, it feels more like playing an Arcane mage in WotLK (which I didn' t quite enjoy as much, so yeah)...

 

Anyway, will probably work my way through Draenor at least (curious to see Shattrath) after that is up in the air.

 

Ironically, the cloth wearing mages and warlocks are much tankier than my mail wearing Shaman. Enhancement Shaman has never been more fun. Anyway, don't expect much of Shattrath. You never get to go in.

[HoonDing]

I'd be willing to invest in the combat if you actually got xp for it.

[Gfted1]

You do, in the Beastiary.

[Blarghagh]

I'd be willing to invest in the combat if you actually got xp for it.

 

If you'll only do it if you can use it to grind xp just goes to show it's not very good, doesn't it?

[Fenixp]

I'd be willing to invest in the combat if you actually got xp for it.

No. Just... No. XP for combat is an archaism that needs to die for so many reasons.

 

Story mode difficulty for the win, for me. It makes most trash negligable. It also makes the real fights negligable, but since I've never been someone to really get deep into the strategy of CRPGs and am mostly there for the story, it makes the sacrifice worth it.

That's boring tho. As I said, I really enjoyed the combat - there was just too much of it against very similar opponents. Repetition can kill even the most entertaining gameplay. Edited November 1, 2016 by Fenixp

[Malcador]

Letting my sister pick choices in ME 1 seems to not work as she, I quote, "doesn't have time for this bull****". I guess Kaidan lives this time.

[sorophx]

No. Just... No. XP for combat is an archaism that needs to die for so many reasons.

I'd go as far as saying that XP is an archaism. 

[GhostofAnakin]

I was this close (I'm doing the finger thingy to indicate small distance) to buying Skyrim remastered for the PS4 today.  But then I reminded myself that I already own the 360 version, and I wasn't a big fan of much of the storyline anyway.  So I'd basically be paying for a game to look prettier.

 

Maybe if it was a game that I enjoyed that was on the older generation consoles (ie. as much as I give it grief, I'd buy a remastered Mass Effect series), but not one that I was only "meh" about the first time through.

 

If I do ever end up getting it, it'll be when it's in the bargain bin and I've got absolutely nothing else to play.

[Labadal]

No more talk about Ni No Kuni! Got the Platinum trophy. I noticed that I was missing several alchemy recipes, so I looked them up and got the required amount of items and got the last trophy.

 

Now, it is time for Morrowind GOTY and I will mix it up with games I got from ShadySands.

 

I will put all of these on hold, once Tyranny, releases, though.

[Tale]

Tale Plays Free Games On Steam

 

This time, Electric Highways. Weird little mazes with an electronic soundtrack that sounds like it's midi. I gave up three stages in, it's just not entertaining.

 

In other games: I tried playing Shadows of the Empire gain. It has not aged well. The controls alone are awful.

 

Edit 2: Also started up Final Fantasy VI on Steam today. The font's crappy, the UI is crappy, the character sprites are crappy. Amazingly, the environments and enemy sprites are superb. How'd they get that right, but screw up the rest?

[Fenixp]

I'd go as far as saying that XP is an archaism.

Yes, actually, that's entirely correct. Well, they can feel free to call their arbitrary points XP for all I care, but I want to see more systems like one present in Vampire: The Masquerade or, hopefully, Tyranny (because that one'll be awesome, right?)

[Lexx]

What is it that Tyranny makes different?

[Fenixp]

I -think- Tyranny is supposed to use some mix of trainers and learning by doing system? I generally really enjoy learning by doing system because it solves most issues I've got with XP systems.

[ShadySands]

You level up skills with quick time events

[Mamoulian War]

I actually hate leveling by doing stuff and I prefer XP, because most of the time the skill based leveling is broken. Hitting **** 1000 times to get enough skillpoints to level up is boring and lot of games don't give you enough options to levelup all of the implemented skills. Trainers can solve the issue somehow, but the main issue becomes non-existant time management. If you go in middle of the save the day quest for a week of training, the game should reflect that, and give you hard time with the quest...

[Katphood]

Modern Warfare Remastered: There is a new update and it allows you to play the multiplayer even though the official release is November 4th. You have to find a session to join though(just check out one of the Modern Warfare Remastered communities at the game hub and join one of the sessions there) and screenshots and videos get deleted apparently. Too bad my internet is at snail speed right now.

 

 

Witcher 3: Blood & Wine: Hearts of Stone was a whole lot of fun but I've heard that I shouldn't expect the same level of writing in Blood & Wine from some folks at teh interwebz. Doesn't matter though, because a.the writing will be awesome nevertheless b.I am REALLY excited to explore the new setting. Looks very vivid and colorful! 

 

 

MWR multiplayer will go just fine with Blood & Wine. Good times, good times... 

Edited November 2, 2016 by Katphood

[Bartimaeus]

Owlboy. Basically a 2D Zelda platformer with flying. Enjoying it so far.

Edited November 2, 2016 by Bartimaeus