What game are you wasting time on?

[newtmonkey]

Decided to take a break from turn-based RPGs:

Baldur's Gate
Still playing this in "multiplayer" mode so I could generate a full party. One thing I never liked about this game is the companions and how they're written—it seems totally inconsistent with the writing in the rest of the game, which is otherwise decent. Anyway, this has been key for me to accept this real-time stuff as a true RPG and I am now having a blast playing this game. Setting the autopause setting just right makes it feel almost like a turn-based game. Fun game!

Dark Souls
My fourth playthrough, though first on PC. This time my goal is to become the ultimate pyromancer, which means getting all the pyromancy spells, maxing out the pyromancy flame, and only using the starting pyromancer armor set. I had actually played as a pyromancer my first time through on the PS3, so it's fun revisiting the class and using my meta-knowledge this time around. Pyromancy is easy mode, but it's very fun. This time around I learned how powerful the Combustion spell is—insane damage if you keep upgrading your flame, casting is faster than most melee weapons, and no stamina usage! It seems like cheating lol.

Diablo
Man this brings back memories lol! It's aged pretty well imo. I'm playing a rogue, and it's like playing an action shooter game. Diablo was never a deep game, but it's a lot of fun and the atmosphere (excellent pre-rendered sprites and AMAZING music) more than makes up for it. The music is seriously amazing—everyone loves the Tristram theme (it's a masterpiece), but the dungeon music is just as good.

 

[Axioms]

Shockingly player Thrones of Britannia because I loves Wales. If I couldn't be Wales I would never play this game.

 

[Kabas]

Completeting the Dawn of War - Soulstorm(As the heretical fellow who rants about metal bawkses) made me hungry for more rts and so i remembered that i have a Warlords Battlecry 3 in my library.
I like the huge amount of races and classes you can choose from, together with the overworld campaign map where you can choose your battles.

As a level 23 Orc Assassin i must say that i really should have went east and allied myself with the dark elves as early as possible. Would have saved me a bunch of headaches and allowed me to take advantage of the shadow strength skill(which massively boosts the combat skill at night) way earlier. While orcs do have an access to goblin shaman who can switch the time to night compared to the dark elven sorcerer you can't get him pre-battle unless you already have a leveled one in your retinue.
But no biggie, even without the night time my assassin is already at the point where he can storm the enemy bases by himself.

 

[octavius]

Playing Terror From the Deep I have gained more understanding and empathy for these guys.

Spoiler

 

[samuraigaiden]

I bought a Chinese handheld (Anbernic RG350). It plays pretty much just old console games via emulation, so that's what I'm doing now.

Currently I'm playing Final Fantasy 2, original NES version with the latest English patch by Chaos Rush. It's pretty neat actually. There's a keyword system for dialogues, you learn a keyword from one NPC and then you can use it to inquire other NPCs about that topic. You have 2 slots to equip items in order to use them in battle and each character can only use the item they equipped on themselves. You don't actually level up, character growth is a mystery box unless you check a FAQ (which I haven't).

Anyway, one thing I've noticed about handheld gaming is that my tolerance for grindy gameplay grows considerably.

 

[tindrli]

subnautica below zero

 

[Puukko]

Been playing AC Origins, haven't touched the series since BF. The base gameplay loop is the same, but now with RPG elements. I am way too early to say if these systems hold up, but upgrading gear seems to be about as simple as it gets. Visually it is very nice and I am surprised that even my modest 1070 can basically max it out. After an hour I decided to completely turn off the HUD and found this to be a good choice as it greatly aids with immersion not to have markers and arrows distracting you all the time. It works fine 90% of the time, but sometimes you are expected to use your hawk to pinpoint a target (the hawk itself is a cool addition) but without the HUD you're nearly in the dark, relying on audio cues that really aren't enough on their own, so in those cases I turn the HUD back on. Also, the lock on system is a bit lousy and drops off on its own sometimes if you turn around, tumble and the like. Other than that, I am really enjoying wandering around ancient Egypt and relying more on my own perception like, you know, an assassin would... although the character in this case is more like a deposed sheriff.

 

[DeepOcean]

Finished the main campaign of Spellforce Platinum.

There are some games that enter on that list of: "Man, this idea is so good, pity the execution is so bad." , you go keeping playing in the hopes of eventually get good and reward the time spent and in case of Spellforce, the last chapter (the game has three) is where the game really starts, the problem is that 2/3 of the game feel like a tutorial that doesnt end on how simplistic the gameplay is until you reaching the end where finaly the game starts getting harder and you have access to more powerful spells.

The problem isnt exactly that the mechanics are shit (some are), nope, you have access to 12 spell schools and 6 fighter schools and 6 main attributes, you gain a really stingy amount of skill points and attributes per level, meaning you really need to concentrate to get a decent build , there are alot of interesting and powerful spells on the game too. There is actually material here to make a decent RPG out of it, as Spellforce is also a RTS, the RTS part isnt also that bad, it is alot more simplistic than the RPG side but still, you have access to 6 races, each with some racial quirks. All this huge content supposedly would make for a really nice game but it doesnt because like Pillows of Eternity, you can talk about mechanics all day, if the actual content is shit, no amount of mechanical depth will save your game.

And the content here is weak, imagine you took a map, you duplicated it twice the size it should have while your units walk in turtle speed on this huge map full of nothing beyond some chests with random loot with grossly underleveled useless spell scrolls and items, some little enemy outposts/trash mobs for you to curbstomp with your OP heros and the rare fetch quest. You know, as Sid Meier said, a game is just a set of interesting decisions, however, if there is no decisions to be made, what is the point?

Most fights and missions on the game can be finished without breaking a sweat by just group selecting your dudes and right click enemies, if they are melee, activate the ability that gives them 300% damage for 10 seconds, there you are, that is the level of complexity in decision making involved. And about the 12 spell schools? Isnt casting spells fun? Well, it would be, if for 2/3 of the game wasnt better for you to just pretend magic didnt exist and go 100% warrior on how superfluous the starting spells are. The starting spells, mostly are single target spells, many with cooldowns and long animations to be cast and that can be interrupted and resisted when you are playing a RTS with dozens of units on the screen, I see how some of those spells might had been useful for the rare soul that played multiplayer when this game was released but on single player, most starting spells are damn superfluous.

Also, you cant buy most spells scrolls (necessary to learn spells) and even the few spells that you can actually buy, their high level versions have such ludicrous pricing that you can spend the whole money you earned on the game to buy a single scroll that isnt even that high level. I'm talking about spell level, what is this? Well, lets say you want to make some kickass necromancer and have an army of undead summons, lets say you bought summon skeleton level 4 and you can summon your skeletons, however, because the spell scrolls that drop are random and higher level ones extremely rare, soon enough, because of level scaling, the enemy units would have level 11 while your skeletons are still level 4 because you didnt find a scroll with higher spell level to learn a higher level version of the spell, if that makes spells look useless for most of the game, you are exactly right. Do you think I will play the game all over again to see how an undead army would be if your spells are only really useful when you are level 20 IF you were lucky to find a high level scroll that you need? Nope.

Also, one last point, if you dont have a class based system, try to balance your game so jack of all trades are viable, because classless systems basically dangle all that huge number of skills the player could have right away, if you dont support jaclk of all trades kind of characters, meaning, you gain zero benefit from a generalist character (like on this game), you just pulled a bait and switch, offered alot of options to the player and just condemned him to a trap build and the only solution is a restart, at this point you were better with a class system. The reason you gain zero benefit from a generalist character here is on how level progression works, quickly, most skills with low investment will become obsolete because enemy hp keep growing while the spell damage and the hp of your summons dont.

TLDR: Lessons to learn here:
Think about how how the enemy level progression relates with the player skills, dont just do a lazy linear level progression for the enemies, call a day then dont give attention on how that might impact player builds.
Dont make your maps too big if there is nothing on them.
Dont make a system on a vacuum without thinking how the moment to moment decision making of the player would be.
Give enough material for the player from the get go for him to think about if you have any hopes for him to replay your game, no fucking way I will deal with the pain of hours upon hours of babies first ARPG this game is just to see how the other spell schools are on the end game.
The pacing of the game is important, if 2/3 of your game play like a barren field of decisions where you dont need to make a decision, it is bad, doesnt matter how good on paper it is.
Be careful with scale, some of those spells are only useful for single target and that is okay if you are dealing with a party of 6 but if you are dealing with dozens of units, the scale of the spell and the scale of the oposition are completely mismatched what makes that spell useless, that is even more important because fireball, that is a single target spell is the only offensive spell the fire school has for 2/3 of the game and it is a useless spell because of that.

 

[Kabas]

Completed the final mission in Warlords Battlecry 3. I think i broke it somewhat by imediately rushing the enemy in a mission where i am supposed to defend myself for 20 minutes. A bit anticlimatic.
Decided to try magic and made a Plague lord Pyromancer. It's hard to find a useless spell in a pyromancy school i must say. You have a healing spell, a soul flame to give your units a bit of xp and a firebreath that grants your horde of ghouls and slimes the ability to shoot fireballs. Fun.

I heard that some people prefered the previous game, so i also checked the Warlords Battlecry 2. You get a conquer the map campaign here and the hero building is a bit more complicated in this one. Your hero can choose the class only after the first level-up from 4(less depending on the race) main ones, needs to choose a specialisation on the next one and on the further one you get to spend points to upgarde your attributes/skills and purchase your perks/spells.
I can see why some people prefer this one, so far i made a Fey Ice Mage.

 

[Okagron]

Since i have been hankering for some old school turn based combat lately, bought Dragon Quest 11. Specially because i heard a lot of good things about it and i really like the series in general.

 

[fork]

Tried Biomutant, stopped 15 minutes in. Shit graphics, shit art style, shit combat, shit UI, banal boring shit story. Why would anyone waste time developing, funding or playing shit like that, ffs.
Tried Visage, stopped approximately 15 minutes in. Walking speed of an amputee (na, just kidding, it's slower than that), you have to open a quadrillion of drawers with your mouse (believe me, it's beyond tedious) just to find an item in one of them, in order to use items you have to hold a button (who the fuck came up with this retared crap), and there's just nothing happening.

Jesus Christ the gaming industry embraces everything that's shit. The worst controls, the worst gameplay, the worst UIs, the worst of everything is becoming the standard. I think it's about time I killed myself. There's really not much left in this world worth living for.

Started a replay of Painkiller after that. I remember Painkiller being a good, but not great FPS that tried to buy its way into the competitive scene but failed (rightfully so btw, Quake 3 is way better for duels). But it was a competent single player experience. It's better than 99.99% of eveything released in the past 5 years or so. Why and how have devs become so complete fucking shit that a slightly above average FPS from 17 years ago feels like a classic all of a sudden?

 

[Dwarvophile]

Been playing AC Origins, haven't touched the series since BF. The base gameplay loop is the same, but now with RPG elements. I am way too early to say if these systems hold up, but upgrading gear seems to be about as simple as it gets. Visually it is very nice and I am surprised that even my modest 1070 can basically max it out. After an hour I decided to completely turn off the HUD and found this to be a good choice as it greatly aids with immersion not to have markers and arrows distracting you all the time. It works fine 90% of the time, but sometimes you are expected to use your hawk to pinpoint a target (the hawk itself is a cool addition) but without the HUD you're nearly in the dark, relying on audio cues that really aren't enough on their own, so in those cases I turn the HUD back on. Also, the lock on system is a bit lousy and drops off on its own sometimes if you turn around, tumble and the like. Other than that, I am really enjoying wandering around ancient Egypt and relying more on my own perception like, you know, an assassin would... although the character in this case is more like a deposed sheriff.

There is a HUD Toggle mod for this game, I used it, it works well.

 

[samuraigaiden]

Why and how have devs become so complete fucking shit that a slightly above average FPS from 17 years ago feels like a classic all of a sudden?

Painkiller is a classic and one of the most influential games when you look at the contemporary FPS landscape. The new Doom plays more like Painkiller than like old Doom.

It's a shame what became of the devs.

 

[BLOBERT]

BROS JUST CAUSE FOUR

FREE ON FAGPASS SO WHAT THE HELL

REVIEWS WERE MIXED BUT I LOVED THE OTHERS

IF YOU LIKE TWO BETTER THAN THREE YOUD LIKE THIS

MINDLESS BLOWING SHIT UP WITH THE OCCASIONAL MISSION

THE EXPLOSIONS LOOK AND SOUND GREAT

HARD TO BE OBJECTIVE THOUGH CAUSE I PLAYED THE OTHERS ON THE FAGBOX BUT ON THIS ONE IT IS MAX SETTINGS GAMING PC ABOUT THREE OR FOUR FEET FROM A FIFTY INCH TV AND SOUNDBAR WITH SUBWOOFER

TGAT MAKES EVRY GAME BETTER LOLLLOLLOL

 

[Fenix]

Tried Biomutant, stopped 15 minutes in. Shit graphics, shit art style, shit combat, shit UI, banal boring shit story. Why would anyone waste time developing, funding or playing shit like that, ffs.

Game full of agenda - @ speaking like imbeciles, mentaly challenged - mooma instead of mom, distorted speech like mentaly ill or underdeveloped speak.
You can guess if you allow your kid to dive deep in the world of mentally chalenged genuises - it won't help them to develp mentally, and what doesn't help - gets in the way. I heard grown people experienced mental suffering from this game.

+++

I tried to play HoTA (horn of the abyss) - Russian mod for HoM&M3, like they play it on tournament on twich like on this channel https://www.twitch.tv/king_spb or this https://www.twitch.tv/voodoosh
Shieeeeeeet this is so hard to make chains and to push through main guard on 121...
I spent whole day today, passed through main guard on 131 or something vs bot, and still continue...
I hope I will be faster with practice.

 

[DeepOcean]

Well, after finishing the Spellforce 1 main campaign, tried a bit Spellforce 2 and as soon as I realized they ruined the system of Spellforce 1 by removing attributes and removing like 90% of the spells of Spellforce 1, dumbing it all down to two talent trees, I noped it out as soon as possible. Spellforce 1 had shit content, generic fantasy schlock for a story and a fun RPGish character development system, Spellforce 2 doesnt even kept what was good on Spellforce 1 so I jumped straight to Spellforce 3.

Spellforce 3 is on a strange spot being a RTS/RPG hybrid, I'm still on the main campaign, but so far, it is a partial recovery from the shitness of Spellforce 2 but at same time being far inferior to Spellforce 1 in terms of the RPG side of things but far superior to Spellforce 1 in terms of quality of content, especially on the writing department.

In terms of gameplay, they brought the ability stats back but didnt bring the fucking huge 12 schools of magic with 10 spells each that Spellforce 1 had back, they still have in their place, anemic skill trees where your character can only select 3 skill trees of 6 skill trees, they tried to compensate for those anemic skill trees by implementing a simple combo system and allowing you to select the skills and invest stat points of your entire party, what wasnt a thing on Spellforce 1 but that isnt enough, especially as there are alot o repeated skills on those already anemic skill trees. You gone from having skeleton armies to just summoning 3 zombies for 10 seconds, that is the level of dumb down that the series never recovered after spellforce 2.

It is a pity, mechanically speaking, it is like Spellforce 1 is the best, there is an abysm called spellforce 2 and Spellforce 3 is barely better than 2 by just recovering some that was lost but not much else. The RTS part remains as abysmal as ever, the series never had good RTS gameplay but here, they have resources dependent on map sector control and the resources are not global, also, the Ai has infinite money and just rush your base nonstop from the first minute and love to get its entire army slaughtered by the AoE abilities of your heroes over and over again, you also dont control your workers directly, honestly, it feels like a dumb down version of Spellforce 1 RTS mechanics with needless complication that doesnt make the game better adding bs for you to keep track on for no gain, basically, you occupy some sectors to get a bigger army, defend those sectors with towers and rush the enemy, that is the level of complexity here, also, most races are copies of each other what makes the RTS part very repetitive and the game is at its worst when it remember it is also supposedly to be a RTS.

However, Spellforce 1 despite having some great stuff, the boring fantasy schlock story with the questionable filler content made me bored of it, Spellforce 2 is even worse, Spellforce 3 is alot more enjoyable to play because the content is much better, the art style of the game is miles ahead of the budget warcraft art style of 1 and 2, the music is excellent, the pacing is much better (no more walking around on turtle speed on huge maps killing trash mobs for hours and hours), the voice acting is very good, and the writing is a massive improvement over the previous games.

The motivations of the characters now make sense and the beginning of the story is very grounded more focused on the backstory of your character and the consequences of having your name, misunderstandings, injustice, prejudice, the relationship of people with magic, your companions are properly presented to you and are interesting, the pacing of the story is great, the conflict is interesting, it gradually moves into more generic fantasy than I might like but even later it is still an enjoyable romp. This game was made by the same people who made Enderal and it shows, the writing is really good. It is a pity that for being a RPG, it offers zero choice on this main storyline.

I had fun with it but, at least the main campaign is just a good for what it is RPG lite game with some shitty RTS sections with a nice story to play through. I heard the expansions improve it alot, gonna play them on the future.

 

[Abu Antar]

I've been playing Biomutant and Suikoden III these past two weeks. I managed to get the corona virus, which means that I haven't had much will to sit in front of the computer. I've mostly been lying on the couch, playing console games, or lying in my bed, listening to podcasts.

Biomutant is a game you should only play if you're looking for an open world game. I'm having more fun with this than I had with Skyrim, but that might not say much for codexers. There are plenty of things to find or fight. I'm enjoying the combat. I'm mixing up all three types for some variety, melee, ranged and psi powers. When it comes to dialog, I read the text and then just skip whatever is said from VAs. The world looks great, and feels rather big. I'm about 25 hours in. Fought four clans, and I'm on my way to fight the second world eater. It's a mindless action rpg, with lots of loot/crafting, and exploration. Nothing groundbreaking, but it scratches my open world itch. I play one of these every two or three years.

Suikoden III is a solid JRPG. Looks like ass, the visuals have not aged well. Other than that, I'm having lots of fun. The different view points the game is structured around could have felt too repetitive, but it feels well done to me. The combat feels good, and I like the skill system. I'm not too thrilled that some runes seem to have been weakened in this, compared to the two first games. I'm not sure about many of the characters either. Way too many kids, but I suppose that I like the major players of the game. So far, I have over half of the Stars of Destiny recruited. This is a 100% recruitment run. When I have done this, I will have gotten all stars in all mainline games.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

I've been playing Biomutant and Suikoden III these past two weeks. I managed to get the corona virus, which means that I haven't had much will to sit in front of the computer. I've mostly been lying on the couch, playing console games, or lying in my bed, listening to podcasts.

Biomutant is a game you should only play if you're looking for an open world game. I'm having more fun with this than I had with Skyrim, but that might not say much for codexers. There are plenty of things to find or fight. I'm enjoying the combat. I'm mixing up all three types for some variety, melee, ranged and psi powers. When it comes to dialog, I read the text and then just skip whatever is said from VAs. The world looks great, and feels rather big. I'm about 25 hours in. Fought four clans, and I'm on my way to fight the second world eater. It's a mindless action rpg, with lots of loot/crafting, and exploration. Nothing groundbreaking, but it scratches my open world itch. I play one of these every two or three years.

Suikoden III is a solid JRPG. Looks like ass, the visuals have not aged well. Other than that, I'm having lots of fun. The different view points the game is structured around could have felt too repetitive, but it feels well done to me. The combat feels good, and I like the skill system. I'm not too thrilled that some runes seem to have been weakened in this, compared to the two first games. I'm not sure about many of the characters either. Way too many kids, but I suppose that I like the major players of the game. So far, I have over half of the Stars of Destiny recruited. This is a 100% recruitment run. When I have done this, I will have gotten all stars in all mainline games.

Get well soon hermano.

 

[DeepOcean]

I've been playing Biomutant and Suikoden III these past two weeks. I managed to get the corona virus, which means that I haven't had much will to sit in front of the computer. I've mostly been lying on the couch, playing console games, or lying in my bed, listening to podcasts.

Wish you well and that you recover good.

 

[Azalin]

Finished Steets of Rage 4 with Axel and Blaze.Quite good,graphics are great,the moveset and the combos are good,enemies are nice althoug they recycled bosses more than I like.Recommended

 

[rusty_shackleford]

I've been playing Biomutant and Suikoden III these past two weeks. I managed to get the corona virus, which means that I haven't had much will to sit in front of the computer. I've mostly been lying on the couch, playing console games, or lying in my bed, listening to podcasts.

Biomutant is a game you should only play if you're looking for an open world game. I'm having more fun with this than I had with Skyrim, but that might not say much for codexers. There are plenty of things to find or fight. I'm enjoying the combat. I'm mixing up all three types for some variety, melee, ranged and psi powers. When it comes to dialog, I read the text and then just skip whatever is said from VAs. The world looks great, and feels rather big. I'm about 25 hours in. Fought four clans, and I'm on my way to fight the second world eater. It's a mindless action rpg, with lots of loot/crafting, and exploration. Nothing groundbreaking, but it scratches my open world itch. I play one of these every two or three years.

Suikoden III is a solid JRPG. Looks like ass, the visuals have not aged well. Other than that, I'm having lots of fun. The different view points the game is structured around could have felt too repetitive, but it feels well done to me. The combat feels good, and I like the skill system. I'm not too thrilled that some runes seem to have been weakened in this, compared to the two first games. I'm not sure about many of the characters either. Way too many kids, but I suppose that I like the major players of the game. So far, I have over half of the Stars of Destiny recruited. This is a 100% recruitment run. When I have done this, I will have gotten all stars in all mainline games.

disclaimer:
this user owns large amounts of stock in the publisher of Biomutant

 

[baud]

Started playing Diablo 2. Never played it before, went with a barbarian and I'm having fun exploding monsters, I've finished act 1. While having played more recent hack&slashs, I'm missing some QoL improvements to the formula added by more recent games (no endurance, stackable potions, bigger inventory, no ammunition management, being able to change gems in sockets, more detailled stats...), Diablo really shines by its ambience; also the limited illumination in dungeons is appropriately claustrophobia-inducing.

On a more popamole note, I'm also playing Blades of Time, an action-adventure game. The combat's fun enough, but not very deep and is often obscured by particle effects (as in I'm not seeing the character I'm controlling). There's a time rewind mechanic, a bit like in the Ubisoft games, except you can't use it when dying ! That's the whole point of being able to rewind time!
Instead the devs opted that when you rewind, you go back in time and find yourself alongside the past self of your character: it can be used in combat (there's a few enemies that can only be defeated that way) and in a few puzzles that mostly mean using your past version to stand on switch. The game would be almost pretty if the (bright) colors weren't horribly washed out by the lighting, but it get better in the later levels. Though to be honest it helps that the main character is strutting around in a bikini top and hot pants.

And the last game from Wormwood studio, a very nice adventure game, very stylish if you're into that style, not too hard (except one puzzle that seems to trip everyone, including me). I'm replaying with the commentary and trying to find alternate solution to puzzles. Listening to MRY listing his inspirations make me feel like an uncultured dunce, but it's interesting to see all that went into the game.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Diablo 2. Never played it before, went with a barbarian

Good man

 

[Billi205]

I mainly play turn-based games so started playing Dungeon of Naheulbeuk. It sounds like a solid game from other thread and it happens to be on Steam sale.

So far so good. I find the humour decent, great voice acting and the combat is quite challenging. Looking forward to unlocking more skills. All chars are at level 4 atm.

 

[amb]

Playing a lot of Minesweeper lately, got a sub two minute expert clear a couple of days ago, it's good fun - aiming for sub 100s next.



Other than that: I'm about to finish Wizardry VI pretty soon, I think. Made it past River Styx and Temple of Ramm yesterday.