Author Topic: What are you playing?  (Read 3558561 times)

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Don Rumata

  • Hard To Be A John
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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #33840 on: December 08, 2019, 01:38:49 PM »
Rufus was right. ReCore wanted me to grind out a bunch of shit and it's not interesting enough for all that so :nope

So instead I'm going back to grinding in Division 2 :lol
I also reinstalled Div2, sunno if i'll grind, but i heard they implemented some fixes to the loot, nd i want to see.

demi

  • cooler than willco
  • Administrator
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #33841 on: December 08, 2019, 01:44:18 PM »
Division 2 is all but dead at this point. What's there to grind for? But as long as you're having fun I suppose

Borderlands 3 DLC is coming soon, Destiny 2 new season this week. Division 2 has.... permadeath mode? Ok? Lmao
fat

nachobro

  • Live Más
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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #33842 on: December 08, 2019, 01:50:38 PM »
i never actually finished the story so i'll do that and the raid or w/e is after. also it's kinda cool to go back to games i played earlier this year with the new pc setup and see what they look like on max at 120 fps :D

also when i logged in div2 made a big deal about them adding "classified missions" whatever those are

demi

  • cooler than willco
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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #33843 on: December 08, 2019, 02:00:19 PM »
Classified Missions are for suckers who bought the Year 1 Pass afaik. Otherwise they're inaccessible to you. You could play the added "story missions" but they're basic and don't really amount to much or give any relevant loot.
fat

chronovore

  • relapsed dev
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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #33844 on: December 09, 2019, 12:20:07 AM »
Wanted to try that free Monster Energy racing game that comes with PS+ while Titanfall was loading - a biking game, why not? The video looks okay  :doge  30 seconds to a minute wasted on logos, another 30 seconds to get to the starting menu. Then another minute of loading. Then a stuttering mess of a game and getting it de-installed  :doge
Thanks for the heads-up. I am always a fan of giving stuff a try, but that sounds like anti-fun.

Freyj

  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #33845 on: December 09, 2019, 11:49:52 AM »
Bouncing around a few games before the end of the year:

Pathologic 2: this is a pretty dense experience that probably deserves more focus than I’m going to have time for right now, playing this is kind of an anxiety inducing nightmare and I’m pretty sure that’s the intended effect so :ussrcry

SaGa Scarlet Grace: seems to be a gateway drug into the amazing world of Kawazu games, but the extremely small budget and early linearity is pushing me off a bit, it skirts awful close to mobage outside of combat

Remnant: From The Ashes: hits the Souls feels well enough, but seems like another case of a game balanced for solo play as an afterthought, had to reroll the campaign from Hard to Normal after a few hours because the trash mob swarms were just a little too irritating at 200% damage, still liking it and will probably stick with it more than the above games

Freyj

  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #33846 on: December 09, 2019, 02:41:55 PM »

I think you probably know this but rerolling the game world on an existing character always puts the game in a "NG+" mode meaning the game world is rerolled at your current character level +1. If you reroll again the same happens etc.

It is actually worth *not* upgrading your weapons/ armor as long as you can because the enemies scale to your equipment level (not trait level).

Pay attention to the OFFENSIVE/ DEFENSIVE stats in the lower left of stats screen - this shows the difficulty of the "world" vs your current equipment; it can be easier, same level, or harder; of course it is not easier the whole time - when you reach a new "world area" it is upscaled anyway ("world areas" have minimum level).

If you need any more tips just ask :) I can help with some answers.

So was rerolling a bad idea? I wasn’t too leveled up yet as far as traits went because I didn’t know what to spend them on yet.

Freyj

  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #33847 on: December 09, 2019, 03:27:13 PM »
Hm, wouldn’t that only matter for Earth as I haven’t entered any other zone yet on the original Hard playthrough anyhow?

That said I’ve been upgrading shit as soon as I could so maybe it wouldn’t hurt to restart and avoid doing that anyhow. At least there’s a skip tutorial option.

edit: after a lot of digging around the remnant subreddit it seems like the ideal upgrading is to the level of the world boss of that zone after seeding the zone with the minimum level: so for Earth seeding it at level 1 and then not upgrading any weapons or armor such that your average gear score level exceeds 5 which is the minimum level of the world boss of Earth, then seeing the next area at 5 before repeating the process

There should be an RPG developers Bible with a chapter called “level scaling” that just contains the words “don’t do it”. Every time this crops up in an RPG it’s a mess to figure out that leads to weird restrictions to follow the “intended route” of the game. It creates solutions that are worse than the problem it was trying to solve to begin with.

I play Morrowind every few years but can’t bring myself to replay Oblivion because of the horrid level scaling there. And it bleeds over into the mods that try to “fix” it and fuck the experience in other ways. Just don’t do it, it’s a mess.
« Last Edit: December 09, 2019, 04:13:44 PM by Freyj »

demi

  • cooler than willco
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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #33848 on: December 09, 2019, 05:35:55 PM »
What a confusing gameplay system. I guess that's a pass from me
fat

Freyj

  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #33849 on: December 09, 2019, 06:23:10 PM »
I’m sure if you just pick Normal and play the game none of this matters but not having a basic understanding of how this shit works in an RPG drives me crazy.

FatalT

  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #33850 on: December 10, 2019, 01:31:22 AM »
What system are you all playing Remnant on? I have it on PS4 but no one I know owns it and I'd love to co-op through it with someone.

Freyj

  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #33851 on: December 10, 2019, 01:46:43 AM »
Playing on Steam.

Caught back up to my first save in about half the time and rolled a different boss (Shroud / Gorefist) so it worked out anyhow.

Freyj

  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #33852 on: December 11, 2019, 01:57:36 AM »
Had a good session of Remnant tonight but rolled Riphide / Leto’s Lab and man fuck that boss. Whoever designed that didn’t give a fuck about solo players.

nachobro

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #33853 on: December 11, 2019, 08:44:15 AM »
Classified Missions are for suckers who bought the Year 1 Pass afaik. Otherwise they're inaccessible to you. You could play the added "story missions" but they're basic and don't really amount to much or give any relevant loot.
so i have these missions and i got 4 lootbox keys for the dumb holiday event...but i didn't buy the year one pass. i guess whatever key i got for this game from cdkeys was one that included the pass? seems like a score, but also upon looking at what you get for the year 1 pass, it's not impressive. :lol

no idea how they convinced people to pay $40 for this thing. :lol at least it's only $15 now

Freyj

  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #33854 on: December 11, 2019, 01:47:19 PM »
I’ll get to Ashen soon but I still have Code Vein to get through for 2019 Souls-likes first.

I’ve bought way way too many games lately  :-\

Great Rumbler

  • Dab on the sinners
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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #33855 on: December 11, 2019, 01:54:56 PM »
Code Vein's not too long, fortunately, only a little over 20 hours.
dog

Tuckers Law

  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #33856 on: December 11, 2019, 03:43:15 PM »
Started up the Ys series and am currently midway through Ys 2.  The music in these games  :lawd

tiesto

  • ルカルカ★ナイトフィーバー
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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #33857 on: December 11, 2019, 04:49:09 PM »
Started up the Ys series and am currently midway through Ys 2.  The music in these games  :lawd

Which versions are you playing?
^_^

Tuckers Law

  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #33858 on: December 11, 2019, 05:01:06 PM »
On Steam, I think they were part of some chronicles+ pack or similar.  After doing a little research I settled on the older remake visuals with the newest music arrangement for sound.  I wasn’t really jiving with the “newer” art style they offer for character portraits, and like how the older remake style reminds me of how Sega CD rpgs looked.

I’ve been debating modding Ys 2 to use the TG-16 soundtrack since that seems to be a popular choice, but I don’t have that music and some of the tutorials on it seem to suggest sketchy 3rd party software.

Freyj

  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #33859 on: December 11, 2019, 05:25:25 PM »
Add Xanadu Next to the list around Ys 3 / Oath in Felghana as well. It’s a slightly different take on the formula that I wish they’d done more with instead of making waifu Persona clones as with Tokyo Xanadu.

Tuckers Law

  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #33860 on: December 11, 2019, 05:28:31 PM »
Thanks, will do.

Bebpo

  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #33861 on: December 11, 2019, 07:25:44 PM »
Initially Shovel Knight King of Cards campaign seems fun but I haven't messed with the card stuff yet. SK series has never really clicked with me despite huge acclaim. Always was fine but just felt like a 2nd rate Megaman game for me and the levels felt too long with checkpoints too far apart.

King's mechanics are really fun and clicking with me more than the other 3. I like bouncing around on things and the levels are shorter which is nice. I hear the card stuff mucks it up a bit though. Will see when I get further into it.

Freyj

  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #33862 on: December 11, 2019, 09:06:20 PM »
I liked Shovel Knight / Plague Knight enough (haven't played the others), but I don't think I wanted a modern interpretation of the difficulty of old Mega Man games like others did. Like you said a little shorter levels and more checkpointing would've improved my thoughts on it.

bluemax

  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #33863 on: December 11, 2019, 11:38:22 PM »
The levels are identical in length to old MM levels. They just did a big set of interviews and BTS stuff with some website where they go into all their level design process and how they researched the length and rhythm of old MM games. I think the check pointing is generally better than MM.

I beat Shovel Knight's campaign but I'm not sure I finished any of the others, mostly due to getting sidetracked I think. Kind of wish I owned the game on something other than PC because I hate playing games on the PC at this point in my life. Still, I'll check out the new stuff soon.

I also interviewed with YCG for a job once (and applied there a few other times)... so I'm probably kinda biased.
NO

Freyj

  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #33864 on: December 12, 2019, 12:15:26 AM »
Rolled The Ent for the first World Boss of Remnant. 1 Death compared to like 25 for the 2 Lizs encounter immediately before. Wish some of the dungeon encounters were better tuned to solo play. Bosses are fine, but as soon as there are 5-10 things attacking you at once you’re moderately fucked.

The Sceneman

  • Did my wife send you?
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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #33865 on: December 12, 2019, 03:38:32 AM »
picked up Tembo The Badass Elephant during a sale because someone wrote about it here. Seems like it's bog standard platforming, whose entire reason for existing is that elephants are cute.

couldve been me lol. Game isnt special but I enjoyed it enough

#1

Rufus

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #33866 on: December 12, 2019, 06:58:35 AM »
Anno 1800
The free trial is a week long, which is extremely generous, but I was done after only 2 hours.
I had just reached the stage where the 'new world' unlocked, but I knew I wasn't going to play it again to explore it or even satisfy the needs of the tier 3 citizens. They've made nice quality of life changes since 1402 (the last one I had played extensively, I skipped 2070), and industrialization is a great theme, but I'm well and truly over it. Gorgeous as ever, lush with detail and everything is just mismatched enough that it's fun to make everything fit right, etc.
Nothing wrong with the game (that I could tell), I'm just over it.

Mr. Nobody

  • Groovy.
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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #33867 on: December 12, 2019, 11:50:24 PM »
Finally playing Persona 2: Eternal Punishment.

It's kind of wild how this was released in the states without Innocent Sin given the many callbacks to it. Anyway, it's pretty much more of the same as far as gameplay so I'm kind of glad I didn't start this immediately after Innocent Sin or else I'd be completely burned out by now. That being said...I'm reminded of just how archaic the older games were in comparison to 3/4/and especially 5. The Tarot/Contact system can kick rocks. Variable rumors with random results? Fusion spell rumors that are much more trouble than their worth by the time you get all of the information you need? Special contacts you'd have 0 idea about unless you were playing with a guide?  :donot

But I have to say, it's rather refreshing playing as a group of working adults in a JRPG.

Bebpo

  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #33868 on: December 13, 2019, 12:20:39 AM »
Picked up Control on the epic store since it was finally on sale (just 20% off, but I'll take what I can get). Started playing it and man I miss Remedy's environmental destruction and debris. They do it so good. Loving the fast & fluid controls too.

Started in DX12 with max raytracing but couldn't tell the difference? Lighting looked ok, image was kinda soft even with film grain off. Gonna boot it in DX11 w/o raytracing next to compare but didn't see anything special with it on compared to other games.

Bebpo

  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #33869 on: December 13, 2019, 01:51:01 AM »
Was digging Control until I got to the first real boss fight and spent 20 mins retrying the same 3-4 min fight a half dozen times and realized the game doesn't have any difficulty settings, so people who are bad at shooters and bad at aiming are just fucked :|
I feel like unless you're From Soft, not having difficulty settings in 2019 takes a certain amount of hubris that's lame af. I don't play FPS and am bad at TPS because I suck at aiming quickly and accurately.

Time to try to go find a goddamn trainer that doesn't have malware and shit just to get past this fight where the dude is flying around throwing shit at me and I can barely aim at him while dudes on my sides keep spawning and shooting at me.

Rufus

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #33870 on: December 13, 2019, 04:30:24 AM »
Picked up Control on the epic store since it was finally on sale (just 20% off, but I'll take what I can get). Started playing it and man I miss Remedy's environmental destruction and debris. They do it so good. Loving the fast & fluid controls too.

Started in DX12 with max raytracing but couldn't tell the difference? Lighting looked ok, image was kinda soft even with film grain off. Gonna boot it in DX11 w/o raytracing next to compare but didn't see anything special with it on compared to other games.
Reflections is where it's most apparent. Everything else is faked well enough with existing techniques.

Prey is as addictive as I expected it to be. I'm scouring every room, as usual. Love to hate Mimics.
There's really strong auto-tracking on the wrench when you swing at them. No wonder. :lol
« Last Edit: December 13, 2019, 04:35:27 AM by Rufus »

Bebpo

  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #33871 on: December 13, 2019, 04:51:32 AM »
Yeah, went back and forth and dx11 definitely looks more flat compared to ray-tracing. Some spots look really nice and yeah looking at reflections is impressive.

But also like you said Devs these days are so good at faking lighting that for the most part it's not a big noticeable leap in visuals. Heck, for a lot of it the more realistic natural look with ray tracing actually looks less striking than the faked dramatic lighting.

Coax

  • Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #33872 on: December 13, 2019, 05:04:11 AM »
The Messenger. Liking it so far apart from jumping/landings which can feel a bit hit or miss (I found that migrating to a DS4 rather than a KB helped in general though).

Left it following this room but I've give it a few more tries next time. The death mechanic is very forgiving in comparison to similar games.


Bebpo

  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #33873 on: December 14, 2019, 01:57:41 AM »
Liking Control a good deal. Pretty cool game. I like that you get Japanese action game style movement options like air dash and stuff. Some of the areas definitely look real nice with ray-tracing.

Even at 1440p ray-tracing pretty much kills framerate. Only hitting about 45-60fps (which is ok with gsync) with medium ray-tracing and no 2x AA. With high ray-tracing it's pretty much a 30fps game @ 1440p. At 1080p can do 60fps with ray-tracing even on high but because the game is really soft it looks pretty blurry at 1080p so trying to render at 1440p at least. Medium quality ray-tracing is good enough. But yeah, even 2080ti still ain't enough for 60fps full ray-tracing at 1440p these days.

*edit* turned on the fps counter. With ray-tracing on medium, get about 60-70 fps, with ray-tracing on high get between 35-50 fps with average around 45fps. All the other options, including MSAA don't seem to do more than 1-3fps difference so pretty much just ray-tracing and resolution are the fps determination.
« Last Edit: December 14, 2019, 03:06:02 AM by Bebpo »

Mr Gilhaney

  • Gay and suicidal
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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #33874 on: December 14, 2019, 10:16:52 AM »
I cant disagree with the frame rate drop being a pretty huge deal atm, and probably not worth it for most. But raytracing itself is a game changer for the look of games imo, even if the hardware isnt fully there yet. It's all the little things in the reflections and lightning that makes a big difference in the end, and makes everything look so much more natural and believable. My first education involved 3d graphics, so I am probably more sensitive to this stuff than most as well, but in the end, I don't understand how people who sees a game like Control running with ray tracing on and then off right next to them, won't spot the big bump in quality. It's something I never even thought would be possible in games in my life time, judging by how many fucking days if not weeks rendering something with ray tracing on could take.

In other words, cant wait to get that 3080 TI  :yeshrug

Rufus

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #33875 on: December 14, 2019, 11:55:25 AM »
The best and worst thing that you can say about ray-tracing is that it is the future.

Don Rumata

  • Hard To Be A John
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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #33876 on: December 14, 2019, 12:43:30 PM »
The best and worst thing that you can say about ray-tracing is that it is the future.
With the new consoles using it (apparently that Godfall game had it, and the Hellblade one, too, FWIW) i think it's more of a certainty that it is already here to stay.
I'd take it over native 4K personally (1440p is good enough for me) but it'll be interesting to see what corners they can cut to have it run on consoles, especially if various SKUs are confirmed.

Rufus

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #33877 on: December 14, 2019, 12:57:36 PM »
Alright, the very near future.

I was in love with the aphorism, OK. :doge

I'd take it over native 4K personally (1440p is good enough for me) but it'll be interesting to see what corners they can cut to have it run on consoles, especially if various SKUs are confirmed.
30fps and reconstructive scaling of course. :fbm

Mr Gilhaney

  • Gay and suicidal
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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #33878 on: December 14, 2019, 01:33:29 PM »
VR with ray tracing is the true future  :brain

Nintex

  • Finish the Fight
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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #33879 on: December 14, 2019, 01:45:04 PM »
VR with ray tracing is the true future  :brain


"The Geforce BRX 9000 will simply download your brain into the cloud and for the first time resync it with your body after you've been downloaded"

"We're very sorry for those early adopters of the RTX 9080Ti Super BRAINFORCE who are forever downloaded in a virtual space not compatible with the BRX 9000 CLOUD BRAIN SYNC SERVICE or CBSS."
🤴

Potato

  • Senior's Member
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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #33880 on: December 14, 2019, 02:26:53 PM »
Tried out Siegecraft Commander on Switch.

Weird little RTS where you expand and build your base by catapulting out buildings.

Not really feeling it, but I'll give it another chance before I ditch it.
Spud

Bebpo

  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #33881 on: December 14, 2019, 04:07:12 PM »
Got back to The Messenger and finished the 8-bit part. Wasn't feeling the 16-bit levels at first since they played identical and the only difference was the graphics/music but then got to the metroidvania part and appreciate that it's different. Not sure where to go so just re-running through the areas but it's still fun for now. Some great boss fights up to this point and good platforming.

Bebpo

  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #33882 on: December 14, 2019, 07:43:13 PM »
Ended up playing The Messenger most of the day. Think I'm pretty far. 3 or 4 notes left and just 1 of the little guys to rescue (in the fire area).

The second half of this game has been some real bullshit. Lots of good clever platforming sections, but a lot of frustrating bullshit too and this is some of the worst backtracking I've ever seen. Also some areas aren't really made to go backwards direction and there was one bit where I got stuck with a non-warp save in a really difficult green power seal room and every time I died in the next bunch of screens in the map I'd have to restart and redo the power seal room over and over and it'd take me like 5-10 attempts just to make it through the room to get back to the map. Ended up saying fuck it and when I did get out, spent 5 mins backtracking to the nearest save just to change my save point.

Also no bosses in the 2nd half so far and the bosses were some of the best parts of the 1st half  :-\
Not much writing either and that's another one of the game's strengths missing.

A lot of the backtracking is also because the game's second half doesn't guide you at all so you end up going through a level only to find you need an item from another level so time to do it again after you get that item. I guess if you use a guide telling you which order to go it'd be better, but oh well.

The map layout is pretty tedious and fast travel points aren't great. There's been spots where I've considered just bailing on the game, but then there's been great sections here and there that keep me in...just barely. I think I should be able to wrap up the rest of the notes next play session.

Anyone know if the Spring Panic DLC is linear w/bosses like the first half or this 2nd half style? Will determine whether I play it.

Bebpo

  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #33883 on: December 14, 2019, 07:48:57 PM »
Also the checkpointing, while frequent, still isn't great. I didn't realize until the 2nd half that parts of the game were gonna turn into a Super Meat Boy platformer where everything 1 hit kills you pits and spikes. I'm fine with that in games like SMB or Celeste because they checkpoint every room. Here sometimes you get to a tough green power seal room and there's no checkpoint and the last one is 3 screens ago so every time you die you have to go through the same screens again and again. Other times power seal rooms have checkpoints. It's just weird and uneven.

Coax

  • Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #33884 on: December 14, 2019, 10:52:53 PM »
Made it to the demon general boss in The Messenger. The fire bit of the fight messes me up since I can't vertical slash it to get any height to make the jumps so I'm usually dying to that alone. Have only tried the fight like three times though so I'll probably improve.

Edit: turns out you get an extra jump after vertically slashing an object which is also what that blue graphic beneath the character has apparently represented all this time.
« Last Edit: December 14, 2019, 11:22:57 PM by Coax »

Tripon

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #33885 on: December 14, 2019, 11:22:58 PM »
Made it to the demon general boss in The Messenger. The fire bit of the fight messes me up since I can't vertical slash it to get any height to make the jumps so I'm usually dying to that alone. Have only tried the fight like three times though so I'll probably improve.

I liked the Messenger, but that's where I stopped to. By the time I picked up the game again to try to beat that boss, I realized that I lost the timing and there's no way to basically back track and get the rhythm of playing the game again. That save spot in front of the demon general boss is at a bad place.

BIONIC

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #33886 on: December 15, 2019, 12:43:43 AM »
Going through the Witcher 1 at the moment since I refuse to play 3 without going through the previous games first.

Had to pull out my old Asus laptop to play since my Surface Pro 3 can barely run the darn thing :-\

I gotta say, this has been fairly fun so far. World and characters are really interesting. Main plot hasn’t really kicked-in yet, but the Chapter 1 village storyline has been cool.

Combat is complete non-sense even by 2007 standards, but it’s easy enough to wrap your head around. Inventory management is fucking ass. Can only store things with an inn-keeper (who gets fucking killed off towards the end of chapter 1), and vendors only buy items that are their specialty. At least you can drop items if needed. Other than that, things are generally good.

Oh and the sex cards thing is hilariously dumb (but hot :rash).
Margs

Akala

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #33887 on: December 15, 2019, 02:56:55 AM »
Going through the Witcher 1 at the moment since I refuse to play 3 without going through the previous games first.

I really liked the bit I played of W1 but my save corrupted like halfway through and I never went back. Need to go back one day...although I never have gone through Blood and Wine in W3 so maybe that first.  :lol


Coax

  • Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #33888 on: December 15, 2019, 03:01:06 AM »
I'm surprised you missed that as that's the game's main hook.

It was occurring prior for sure but I hadn't realized that the indication was an extra jump that was 'stored' and could be used at any time following. Before I knew about the cloudjump but thought it required execution immediately following a slash to a stone as a button sequence (also noticed this for the ghosts in the 16-bit mode area), which is why I had the impression of it feeling hit or miss earlier as it felt unclear when it would work and not.

Currently got my first note. I don't mind the backtracking so far although I did go through a couple spots a few times after trying to figure out how to cross some pit in an alternate mode (couldn't find a way so far to get there in what I'm guessing is the correct mode).

Bebpo

  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #33889 on: December 15, 2019, 03:06:36 AM »
Yeah, I have no idea how you made it through some of the complicated platforming segments in the later areas without the double jump. I'm having to mix up double jumps -> grapples -> double jumps -> glides -> grapples -> etc... on some of these sections like the final optional section in the cloud level. I feel like the controls are a little finicky, especially the horizontal jumping slash to jump and hold into glide down slash, so I probably have like 500 deaths Super Meat Boy/Celeste style but a lot of them don't feel deserved unlike those games.

That being said, I'm surprised 2 of you guys had trouble on the fire demon general? I struggled on some of the bosses for a bit but thought he was one of the easier ones. I mean his moveset is:

-Standstill for a very long time whirling up and then dashing and standing still - You get a shitton of slashes in and then jump up as he dashes and then a ton of slashes after
-Jumping to the ceiling and back over and over - literally can just dodge by moving left or right and then getting some slashes in
-Hanging in a corner while whack a mole demons fill the screen with fire below - you can basically just mash jump + slash over and over while heading in the direction of him and then hit him a bunch and change sides and repeat

I think he had one other easy free hits move too maybe? Don't remember.

I had a tougher time on the mushroom whip gal, the dragon and the temple of time final boss. But once I figured out each of their patterns they were all pretty easy to beat almost no-hit. Like the boss of temple of time felt like it took foreeeeever since I could only get a few hits in when the hands moved horizontal across at the bottom since the rest of the time he's covered by a circle of light.

...then I figured out when he claps his hands you can glide and land on his raised hands and you get to dodge the run left/right jumping through balls phase AND now the upper hands while doing that left/right become platforms leading you right to the boss to hit him a bunch. Once I figured that out instead of being a 10 min endurance fight that was tough was like a 2 min easy fight. So far I feel like all the bosses have good patterns that once it clicks they're pretty easy and it's fun figuring the patterns out.

I'm surprised you missed that as that's the game's main hook.

It was occurring prior for sure but I hadn't realized that the indication was an extra jump that was 'stored' and could be used at any time following. Before I knew about the cloudjump but thought it required execution immediately following a slash to a stone as a button sequence (also noticed this for the ghosts in the 16-bit mode area), which is why I had the impression of it feeling hit or miss earlier as it felt unclear when it would work and not.

Currently got my first note. I don't mind the backtracking so far although I did go through a couple spots a few times after trying to figure out how to cross some pit in an alternate mode (couldn't find a way so far to get there in what I'm guessing is the correct mode).

Ah, yeah I didn't realize about the way it was stored until some of the complex platforming bits later on. On the fire general whack a mole bit though didn't need to store it, I just mashed jump and slash to hop from one to another.

Bebpo

  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #33890 on: December 15, 2019, 03:38:48 AM »
Sorry, meant Tripon and Coax.

HardcoreRetro

  • Punk Mushi no Onna
  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #33891 on: December 15, 2019, 04:59:25 AM »
Are you even enjoying these souls games the way you are playing? It sounds like an absolutely horrendous time. I guess it gives you an amazing adrenaline high or something.

I thought the final two bosses in Ashen were so terrible I can't even recommend the game anymore.

Rufus

  • 🙈🙉🙊
  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #33892 on: December 15, 2019, 05:56:39 AM »
Prey is amazing. :bow2

UWP, language settings, and AA implementation annoyed me, but I have no complaints about the actual game whatsoever. I've been mainlining it and even dreamed about mimics and phantoms when I dozed off.

I do wonder if the phantoms were inspired by the silouhettes people see during sleep paralysis. 🤔

spoiler (click to show/hide)



so so fast the sailing ships / the outer rim the innocence / the lovely air / the wind it breathes / it comes
 

Fighting phantoms to this was a lot of fun. :lol The male version of the song though. :kobeyuck
[close]
« Last Edit: December 15, 2019, 06:11:57 AM by Rufus »

Coax

  • Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #33893 on: December 15, 2019, 06:22:29 AM »
So far I feel like all the bosses have good patterns that once it clicks they're pretty easy and it's fun figuring the patterns out.

Yeah I've enjoyed them for the same reasons. The patterns become learnable fairly quickly and then it's just a matter of nailing the movements, which I think is also true of some of the more challenging platforming. They also got the length of the fights right so far in that I haven't had any 'oh god, another part/form' moments :P

Btw if anyone is looking to play another platformer, with a good quality from beginning to end, I'd recommend Momodora: Reverie Under the Moonlight. Not a particularly long game (from memory, been a couple years) but has quality pixel art/animations, of an easier but still rewarding challenge, and has a general charm to it.
« Last Edit: December 15, 2019, 06:39:08 AM by Coax »

chronovore

  • relapsed dev
  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #33894 on: December 15, 2019, 07:39:02 AM »
Started playing Massive Chalice during lunch at work. It's fun; it scratches an itch along the lines of Bungie's Myth. It's also clear Muir really enjoyed Game of Thrones at the time they made this. It's got some fun writing, and for as much of a barebones story as has been revealed so far, it's nice they're keeping a lot of details sketched out, letting the player fill in the story gaps.

At home I'm still enjoying RAD, been postponing starting RDR2 or Spider-Man because I want to make sure I get at least one ending in RAD first.

chronovore

  • relapsed dev
  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #33895 on: December 15, 2019, 07:39:59 AM »
Liking Control a good deal. Pretty cool game. I like that you get Japanese action game style movement options like air dash and stuff. Some of the areas definitely look real nice with ray-tracing.

Even at 1440p ray-tracing pretty much kills framerate. Only hitting about 45-60fps (which is ok with gsync) with medium ray-tracing and no 2x AA. With high ray-tracing it's pretty much a 30fps game @ 1440p. At 1080p can do 60fps with ray-tracing even on high but because the game is really soft it looks pretty blurry at 1080p so trying to render at 1440p at least. Medium quality ray-tracing is good enough. But yeah, even 2080ti still ain't enough for 60fps full ray-tracing at 1440p these days.

*edit* turned on the fps counter. With ray-tracing on medium, get about 60-70 fps, with ray-tracing on high get between 35-50 fps with average around 45fps. All the other options, including MSAA don't seem to do more than 1-3fps difference so pretty much just ray-tracing and resolution are the fps determination.

If you even look up a little bit about what ray-tracing is doing, you'll see why it's costing so much. It's gorgeous and so utterly superfluous for actually enjoying a game.

paprikastaude

  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #33896 on: December 15, 2019, 11:00:51 AM »
Downloaded the new King DLC for Shovelknight, since it's free for every (previously purchased) version. The new gameplay seems fine, not as fun as the last DLC though, which was kind of like Ninja Gaiden. But even the last DLC already felt tired, because technically it's still mostly the same levels, aesthetics, music, etc. of the original game. That's why I almost didn't even download it, despite it being free. I don't care about kickstarter goals, they really ran Shovelknight into the ground with these character DLCs for like what, 3 to 5 years? Should've moved on to a brandnew game a long time ago.

FatalT

  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #33897 on: December 15, 2019, 11:14:59 AM »
I’ll get to Ashen soon but I still have Code Vein to get through for 2019 Souls-likes first.

I’ve bought way way too many games lately  :-\

Code Vein's not too long, fortunately, only a little over 20 hours.

HNNGHHHH Code Vein is so good and has the best co-op mechanic ever. I've been playing for about 45 hours or so and am pretty much at the last area before the final area (that only has bosses) but I've spent a lot of time helping other people fight bosses in co-op and also running through the whole game in co-op with my girlfriend. I love how even if I'm level 121 and she's 40 or so it scales me down to match her power level so it makes it fair and we can still play together. I wish more Souls-like games had that feature and I wish more Souls-like games were as easy to co-op through as this one. Like with Dark Souls 1 and 2 or Bloodborne, I wouldn't be able to power through the game and then use the same character to co-op with someone who's way behind me and doesn't play as much. I believe Dark Souls 3 is WAY more lenient with the password system and they fixed it so it doesn't matter what soul level the person you're summoning is as long as you're using a password, so maybe we'll try that one next. I'm afraid to have her try Remnant because it's hella hard.

Bebpo

  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #33898 on: December 15, 2019, 03:03:57 PM »
Yuck, can't beat The Messenger. On the last ass note and there's a long lava run in Underworld where you have to hold RB to run on the lava and my controller (even plugged in) seems to have a latency issue where every minute or so it drops the RB holding for a millisecond and I fall in the lava and die. Been on this for 30-40 mins now and gonna try to do it with the keyboard but haven't used kb the whole game and this is a tricky platforming bit. Really annoying.

Bebpo

  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #33899 on: December 15, 2019, 06:28:02 PM »
Well, I beat The Messenger
And then beat Picnic Panic

The Messenger main game is like great 1st half, about 3 hours of backtracking kinda filler grumble grumble, and then mostly good/great 2nd half when there's new levels. Pretty much all the "new" levels in the 2nd half are as good as the levels in the first half and even have bosses (except Sunken Shrine for some reason).

If they had gotten rid of the non-linear bit and just used the new levels for the 2nd half so there'd be about 8-12 stages with bosses and that's it, it'd be a great game. As is, it's still pretty good but there's definitely a long section of backtracking padding when you're opening up the new levels in the second half. I beat it at 9 hours and I'd say it was 3 hours for the first half, 3 hours for the new stages in the 2nd half and about 3 hours running around getting items and figuring out where to go in the middle.

When I started the game I thought it was gonna be a Ninja Gaiden style action/platformer which is what the first half seemed like. Didn't realize the 2nd half was gonna drop most of the action and just go turn into a balls to the wall hardcore platformer. Was fun, but some of the stages towards the end really made my hands sweat and definitely some bits were super frustrating. Had about 250 deaths in the end when the counter came up. Overall good game.


Now Picnic Panic - Meh. It's basically post-game extra challenge expansion and it's generally good but it feels like they throw in a lot more cheap/frustrating bits just to amp it up. Like the main game is pretty leinent even in the endgame stuff with switch timers but Picnic Panic is all about that. Was all doable, and I didn't even mind the challenge run stages at the end even if it was a little frustrating. But the point where this expansion lost me was the Totem Pole Boss in the middle. Imo that boss is a bad design. It has like 3-4x the HP of all the other bosses including the main game's final boss and has some patterns that are a bit random (like the lightning) and can fuck you. It's an endurance fight that goes on for minutes and it's also hard as hell. Felt like some games ultra super final true ending boss and I guess it was since the fights after are kinda a joke in comparison so it's the hardest boss in the main game + dlc by a lot. But Nightmare King Grimm it isn't, it's just a long tedious af fight and it probably took me 30-45 mins. When I finally beat it, wasn't really satisfied, just felt like I wanted to get the DLC done and didn't have a lot of faith in the rest if that's what they thought was good design. Glad I stuck with it and finished it, but definitely could've skipped this DLC and not missed out on much since it didn't bring much new to the table.