What game are you wasting time on?

[pakoito]

I'm willing to get hooked to a 2d waifu png collector gacha if the core game is any good, and I can plan on Mac without bluestacks or similar emulation crap.

 

[Frank Capicoli]

Dark Souls 3 Cinders mod:
Dark Souls 3 is my least favorite Souls game so I don't mind seeing how modders can change the experience. One of the things that's often criticized in vanilla DaS3 is how linear progression is, in Cinders there are 9 placed sequence breaking shortcuts and 12 item choices at character creation that allow for a much less linear experience. The mod adds an absolutely huge amount of armors and weapons from prior Souls games placed throughout the world to discover and dress up your ashen barbie doll. Magic and faith have been reworked to be more viable compared to vanilla, poise has been reworked to always be active instead of being dependent on swinging a weapon.

There are a lot of changes I'm not going over but overall I've enjoyed the mod more than DaS3 vanilla, Project Scholar for DaS2, or Daughter of Ash for DaS.

 

[curds]

Finished a replay of Planescape: Torment yesterday. God, I had forgotten what a dip in quality the game takes once you leave Sigil. The writing is still good, but the plot begins to feel rushed. There's hardly any side content (is there any from Curst onwards? Can't think of any). There's a lot of tedious combat (made worse by the fact that the rest of the game doesn't really prepare you for it). First half of the game is great, of course.

I started playing Icewind Dale immediately after. The weather over the last few days has been cold and wet, so it goes nicely with IWD. This is probably my favourite Infinity Engine game, which is funny because it's the only one (along with IWD2) that I haven't finished. I love the cozy, down to earth atmosphere and I find the writing a lot better than that of the BG games. I also think it has the best combat of all the IE games, except for, maybe, BG2.

I've also been play Divinity: Original Sin on and off since November. I took a few weeks off, but now I'm back into it. It's a fun, addictive RPG. Not particularly deep or challenging, just good old fashioned fun. The turn-based combat is very satisfying and entertaining. It's the first really pretty game that I've played since getting a decent PC. The music is great, too. The writing and voice acting are kinda lame but that's not bothering me too much. I'm REALLY not a fan of the Diablo-style loot system. Or the character system.

The world interactivity is fun, but really frustrating when it arbitrarily won't let you do something that you should be able to. For example, in Cyseal there is a rope bridge with a trap door beneath it. You have a teleporter stone at this point, and you can drop it over the edge of the bridge, yet you cannot teleport to it.

 

[DeepOcean]

I've never played the other F.E.A.R. games, so this will be a marathon through the whole series.

Enjoy while you can, FEAR and its DLC are awesome while the sequels are just very mediocre console FPS. FEAR was made by an awesome company, FEAR 2 was made by an awesome company declining into popamole and FEAR 3 was made by some random guys that were hired to do some quick cash grabbing.

 

[Wunderbar]

Replayed Anachronox (actually started my replay last year but was sidetracked halfway through).
This game was more redpilled and prophetic than Deus Ex, just look at the things it has predicted:

Spoiler

Aussies

Eat soylent, sleep in a pod and racemix

Manlets

Roasties

Simps

Twitter

Furries

Russian orthodox church

Deus Ex Human Revolution

The plot of Christopher Nolan's Tenet

Retro-gaming fad

Ubisoft's game design philosophy

Bill Gates

Epstein didn't kill himself

Police brutality

American voting system

Even the party is full of current day characters, such as

Spoiler

Manchild who reads comic books

Boomer who only makes the situation worse

Infinitron

Genius black woman

Non-binary attack helicopter

Fierce dangerhair

Person of color quota

 

[Wunderbar]

This week Tom Hall announced he’s joining Resolution Games, the Stockholm, Sweden-based company that Candy Crush Saga co-creator Tommy Palm runs. Hall has joined as a senior creative director and said he’s happy to work on “de-stressors,” or games that reduce daily stress.

i'm glad to hear that Hall has recovered from a stroke, but holy shit. "Sweden-based", "candy crush saga co-creator", "games that reduce dailys stress". Anachronox Prime is so, so dead

 

[Ezekiel]

Back to Blaze. Got three more S's with her. In a small way, I regret getting this far, because now that I have only three levels left, I feel more obligated to finish it. I suck at these last three. I wasn't planning to do them all.

 

[Ezekiel]

And now I've beaten Arcade mode on Hard. I'm usually good enough that I seldom lose lives anymore, but when I'm in danger of having to start everything over if I fail, I start losing more in the later levels. It's all psychological. Finished it with zero lives.

Edit: Done! Last S took shorter than I thought. Blaze remains my favorite. Want the planned DLC now!

 

[Abu Antar]

I've taken a break from F.E.A.R. because I constantly get reminded of how shit I am at FPS games. Hopefully I can give it my full attention this weekend. I'm only on normal difficulty and reload more than others would have to. Still enjoying myself, but I will cancel the marathon of the series. I still plan to try all of the games and DLC, but spread them out throughout the year. Metro 2033 will probably the next one as I have experience with it.

Otherwise, I am playing a lot of Cyberpunk. I have somewhere between 50 and 60 hours played. Did every gig and blue mission in the Badlands, and I'm on my way to clear out Pacifica and two other areas.

I don't see myself playing the game again, but if that were to happen, I would skip all blue missions. The yellow missions are enough if I'm being honest. The rest is just Ubisoft filler.

The thing is that between all the killing tasks, there are actually some fun quests for you to do, but CDPR are trying their best to hide them between so much filler.

Itemization is still The Witcher 3 bad, but the general masses seem to lap it up. I'm not even bothering to buy items from shops. I just equip improved gear that I get.

Guild Wars 2 is on hold. One guy in the group is swamped with work, and we'll only play together. The others recommended Destiny 2, but I passed.

My go to game when I just want to take my mind off things has Been Troubleshooter. I do think it's one of the most fun turn-based games that I have played in a while, but one thing that bothers me is that some missions are way too long.

 

[Catacombs]

I constantly get reminded of how shit I am at FPS games.

I am playing a lot of Cyberpunk. I have somewhere between 50 and 60 hours played.

Is Cyberpunk easier for you?

 

[laclongquan]

UFO Afterlight is nearly done. I am hesitating between finish it off for good, or reloading waaaaaay back in middle game where I decide on an important strategy, simply to test if it's any difference.

And also worry about what next? Tactical gunporn, character management game is not plentiful to play.

 

[Abu Antar]

I constantly get reminded of how shit I am at FPS games.

I am playing a lot of Cyberpunk. I have somewhere between 50 and 60 hours played.

Is Cyberpunk easier for you?

Very much. It's a huge difference. Stealth, smart weapons, and quick hacks. A huge difference in enemy AI, and upgrading your gear (despite poor itemization in general).

 

[Kabas]

Bastard bonds
A party based rpg that seems a bit too simple at first but quickly starts to inroduce a few more nuances like the ability to recruit monsters, different elements for your blasts and etc.
Developers have a strong fetish for scantily clad burly man.

Didn't manage to grab my interest for long, will probably give it another chance later.

 

[JDR13]

Otherwise, I am playing a lot of Cyberpunk. I have somewhere between 50 and 60 hours played. Did every gig and blue mission in the Badlands, and I'm on my way to clear out Pacifica and two other areas.

I don't see myself playing the game again, but if that were to happen, I would skip all blue missions. The yellow missions are enough if I'm being honest. The rest is just Ubisoft filler.

The thing is that between all the killing tasks, there are actually some fun quests for you to do, but CDPR are trying their best to hide them between so much filler.

Itemization is still The Witcher 3 bad, but the general masses seem to lap it up. I'm not even bothering to buy items from shops. I just equip improved gear that I get.

The filler isn't the issue, it's people being OCD about it, and I can tell you're at least somewhat OCD by the way you talk about "clearing" areas. Like TW3, the best way to enjoy it is to play in an organic manner rather than a mechanical one. I do the blue missions, but only if my path happens to take me through one.

The loot system does suck, but the writing and quest design are really, really good. I definitely see myelf replaying it a few years from now with all the DLC.

 

[madhouse]

The filler isn't the issue, it's people being OCD about it, and I can tell you're at least somewhat OCD by the way you talk about "clearing" areas.

This. Games aren't to-do lists where everything must be checked off. If someone really likes a game, it's worth replaying it to see what they've missed by playing it in a different way. Ideally a game has that replayability value in the first place. Games should be fun. I see so many people complain that they're not having fun because they're inconvenienced by their autism and obsessive OCD to grind all the content at once. Just write a chores list for your house and do something productive at that point.

 

[DeepOcean]

Problem is that the main quest of Cyberpunk is really short and most side quests are full of talky bits and very, very light on gameplay, so this "OCD is ruining people's enjoyment" narrative is nonsense, the main quest in the game can be finished extremely quick and bigger side quests are very light on actual gameplay and full of "lets follow this character and talk alot". If the game had enough meat on the main missions and side missions, the open world content could be properly spaced out with main quest content. Blaming players for them trying to find enjoyement on open world gameplay as the main quest is so thin with content, doesnt make sense for me.

The issue is, after the prologue, Act 2 has four major quests with alot of steps being "go there talk with Goro", "go there talk with Judy", this isnt gameplay even because the dialog you engage is very linear and if the dialogue were replaced with V's cutscenes talking with those characters would pratically result the same. Of those Act 2 main missions, you only get a bigger chunk of gameplay on one Goro mission, one with Judy and one Pacifica mission and by bigger chunk of gameplay, I mean very short stealth, 10 min sections if you know what you are doing and isnt a shitty player even on Very Hard.

This OCD narrative also doesnt make sense because the game has a huge warning once you get on Act 3 "Finish your side stuff NAOW as this is a point of no return." So, yeah, "people burn themselves up because of OCD" totally not because the main quest is light in content and isnt missing at least an extra act. Yes, I did try to only clean the side content on the way to quests but most "quests" are you talking with a character and are hardly a serious break from the usual repetitive content. When you finally get to an interesting bit like that Arasaka infiltration mission with Goro, it is over on 10 min and you return to the monotony of Main quest: lets talk alot, Side quests: let's go choomba boom-boom for money when the main quest says you are dying every 10 seconds.

 

[Wunderbar]

The filler isn't the issue, it's people being OCD about it, and I can tell you're at least somewhat OCD by the way you talk about "clearing" areas.

This. Games aren't to-do lists where everything must be checked off.

except devs themselves treat their games like to-do lists of boring shit, and you can't just know whether this question mark is another boring activity or a meaty sidequest beforehand.
The game literally tells you "here are the things you can do!", but then all of those things are boring shit so you quickly burn out. How about not include worthless content in the first place?

 

[madhouse]

quote

I'm speaking in general sense. I haven't even played Cyberpunk.

The filler isn't the issue, it's people being OCD about it, and I can tell you're at least somewhat OCD by the way you talk about "clearing" areas.

This. Games aren't to-do lists where everything must be checked off.

except devs themselves treat their games like to-do lists of boring shit, and you can't just know whether this question mark is another boring activity or a meaty sidequest beforehand.
The game literally tells you "here are the things you can do!", but then all of those things are boring shit so you quickly burn out. How about not include worthless content in the first place?

There is clearly a difference between doing a few quests, facing potential dissappointment, and setting out to do literally everything because your OCD is too strong, and you simply must do everything, and you absolutely can't stomach not having played the perfect game with the perfect chracter in the perfect 100% completion run™. Do you really exhaust every single dialogue option just because it is there (even if you don't really give a shit) and go through every corner just to make sure you didn't miss everything?

How about not include worthless content in the first place?

I agree. There's definitely too much filter in a lot of games. I'm guessing it's because some confuse time sunk in a game with the actual quality of it, so at least if you have any buyer's remorse, you can pretend it was worth it, because after all it only took you 200 hours to do all the useless fetch-quests and randomly generated garbage tier collect-a-thons.

 

[Wunderbar]

setting out to do literally everything because your OCD is too strong, and you simply must do everything, and you absolutely can't stomach not having played the perfect game with the perfect chracter in the perfect 100% completion run™. Do you really exhaust every single dialogue option just because it is there (even if you don't really give a shit) and go through every corner just to make sure you didn't miss everything?

of course, if it's an RPG. I'm trying to do everything i could as long as it helps me with upgrading my character. Any unexplored corner can potentially contain a chest with an item, any unchecked dialogue option can potentially lead to a sidequest. It's not an OCD, it's just a normal thing when you play and RPG.

 

[samuraigaiden]

I'm playing Morrowind. Yesterday I defeated Dagoth Ur. My character is an Imperial knight named Ignatius Valentis. Before being named Horator by the Dunmer houses and Nerevarine by the Ashlander tribes, I had already risen to Master of the Fighter's Guild and Knight of the Imperial Dragon of the Imperial Legion. I also completed the quest line of the Imperial Cult, but didn't get further than the rank of Invoker because my character attributes don't match the requisites - which makes sense by the way. He's a warrior, not a pilgrim. After the meeting with Vivec that preceded the my incursion beyond the Ghostgate, I thought it was a good idea to take the moment to join House Redoran and complete that quest line - since Redoran is the ideal Dunmer House for warrior type characters. Big mistake. I did a couple of missions and dropped it, instead going back to the main quest. Guild quests in Morrowind (including the Houses, Temple, etc.) are all early game quests. It makes no sense doing them after being named Horator and Nerevarine, not only because some of the them are redundant (and many are repetitive if you do more than one quest line) but also because at that point you have larger fish to fry. Somebody else can help that farmer get rid of a couple of mudcrabs. Especially since she lives almost a mile from the beach. In the coming weeks I'll tackle the Tribunal and Bloodmoon expansions.

My point is doing everything there is to do in a game is dumb. You should just do what feels fun.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

My point is doing everything there is to do in a game is dumb. You should just do what feels fun.

This depends tremendously on the particular design of any game. Morrowind is an excellent example of a game designed for replayability by having enough optional content to fill multiple (in this case, three) playthroughs without overlap, while still expecting each playthrough to be of substantial length (perhaps 40 hours, without expansion content). There are 10 joinable guilds/factions with a large number of quests, and they are each designed more or less for one of Morrowind's three basic character archetypes (fighter, mage, thief/stealth), so that any character sticking entirely to a basic archetype will have 3 suitable guilds/factions (or 4 for mages), while a hybrid character can choose from a mix of guilds/factions suitable to that build. Moreover, there are a large number of miscellaneous quests, not connected to any guild/faction, plus many locations not connected to any quest that can still be explored and plundered.

By contrast, Cyberpunk 2077 lacks any structure for its optional content except geography --- but that same geography is used to separate the optional content by level ranges, since certain neighborhoods contain low-level gangsters intended to be killed by V early in the game, others contain mid-level gangsters intended to be killed by V in the mid-game, and the remaining 'hoods contain high-level gangsters intended to be killed by V in the late-game (and nearly impossible to defeat for a low-level character, since the game applies severe penalties based on level differences). Even though the stats present in the game can be used to create different character builds that support different combat styles, there isn't any suitable method of separating content so as to avoid repetition in a second playthrough. And it would be a stretch to fill two Cyberpunk 2077 playthroughs with separate optional content, because the sum total of content is far less than in Morrowind. In fact, since combat is terribly designed, and there isn't much gameplay aside from combat, the optional content might as well be completed in a single playthrough with an increasingly-higher-level character, to avoid wasting time.

 

[fork]

If you don't want to waste time, not playing that pos at all would be an even better option.

 

[PulsatingBrain]

If you don't want to waste time, not playing video games at all would be an even better option.

I guess.

 

[madhouse]

If you don't want to waste time, not playing that pos at all would be an even better option.

Games are not a waste of time. I respect games enough to not think that. You're the arbiter on what is waste of time to you.

 

[Wunderbar]

If you don't want to waste time, not playing that pos at all would be an even better option.

Games are not a waste of time. I respect games enough to not think that. You're the arbiter on what is waste of time to you.

Fork was talking about Cyberpunk