Author Topic: What are you playing?  (Read 3558184 times)

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Bebpo

  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36180 on: January 02, 2021, 11:55:39 PM »
Talking about grinding, Divinity OS2's level scaling is way too harsh. Basically if you're 1 level off it's gonna be real hard, 2 levels below you're probably fucked and maybe impossible if more than a couple guys. Whenever I was hitting hard stuff I looked it up and every comment is "make sure you're at level x and all your gear is level x.

I actually had to look at the level colored maps to figure out what order I should do the remaining sections of the map since everywhere I went I was 1-2 levels under and I'm doing like every quest. I'm heading to a lvl.13 section next which should finish a ton of quests, but even then having done like 95% of the stuff in the game I'm only like 60% through lvl.12, so I'll be lvl.12 vs lvl.13 enemies there at first and then hit lvl.13 while I'm there. Feels really tight.

Also reading a lot of the comments on OS2 I'm pretty torn on splitting the armor between physical & magical before dipping into base HP and having status effects just 100% blocked while you still have armor. I like it on the receiving side because it's not walking through all this element status stuff without worry because my magic armor block the statuses, but on the offensive side it definitely makes it where if an enemies have 700 Phys armor / 700 magic armor / 700 HP, your gonna want to hit only on physical or magical because otherwise the enemy has 2,100 hp instead of 1,400 hp. This bleeds into the build setups too.  If you have all physical damage or all magical damage character, sometimes they have jack shit to do on their turn if everyone is hitting the opposite. I usually use them to buff the others in those cases.

The Divinity Unleashed mod which is supposed to be a really good full overhaul gets rid of the split and changes how status effects work. I'm tempted to try it, but I also kinda want to stick to the base way since that's how these fights were designed to be. I read that OS1 is single armor. I might play OS1 after OS2 for more questing/exploration/combat since I'm pretty into this even if I have a laundry list of annoyances.

Bebpo

  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36181 on: January 03, 2021, 12:09:51 AM »
Also Divinity OS2 is like wiki the game. The solutions to some of these quests (or even finding some) are so obscure that it feels like an adventure game where you have to look up the puzzle solutions because WTF. Except that since you need the xp and encounters are limited since there's no random encounter, you basically need to get all these minor obscure quests done. Wiki it is!

Bebpo

  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36182 on: January 03, 2021, 03:56:06 AM »
I think the reason I only play a couple crpgs a year is I get unhealthily addicted. For the last week I've had to force myself to bed every night playing Divinity OS2. Just want to do one more quest, or check out one more area or cave and then it's 1:30am and I haven't even put my laundry away or started getting ready to sleep.

It's like I was gonna play an hour and check out one more section and then got caught in a battle that started small and enemies kept joining and the fight literally took 90 mins and I won by the seat of my pants with only 2 party members alive and the npc I was protecting about one hit from dying. Was intense, but these fights can be super fucking long if you wind up in one when you should stop playing in 5 mins.

At 45 hours since I started it monday. Maybe halfway through. Should clear Act II ~60ish hours in. Game is gonna take me 90-100 hours for sure.

Then no more crpgs for a while. I don't get this addicted to jrpgs or 3d crpgs. With jrpgs it's all the story stuff makes it easy to find places to stop for the session. With 3d crpgs I think it's just all the walking distance. Moving around takes so much longer than IE/isometric crpgs and I find them kinda boring and easier to take breaks. But isometric dense crpgs are just my jam of constant brain endorphins.

MMaRsu

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  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36183 on: January 03, 2021, 05:54:51 AM »
Why play the 3DS remakes when you can emulate the PS2 versions?

Because piracy is illegal and the 3DS versions are the best

What piracy? I own the ps2 versions too

Im asking why are the 3ds remakes the best? What makes them better? Aside from not being able to play on a tv and with a comfortable controller?

I have 8 on both 3ds and ps2
What

Nintex

  • Finish the Fight
  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36184 on: January 03, 2021, 01:00:43 PM »
Wanted to try out PC GamePass on my TV. I must say that the experience has improved a lot since last I rented about all the difficulties I had on my other PC.
I can defintely tell that my new motherboard just plays nicer with hooking up different devices. I no longer need to constantly reboot to detect new displays/audio devices etc. . It also automatically scales better.
I no longer have weird issues where icons are very small and buttons very big.
Had a few things I needed to fix. I got the new Blue Xbox Controller, very cool even the LED is blue instead of green. Anyway, connected it with bluetooth and it worked ok but the range was lousy.
Apparently the WiFi antenna that I hadn't connected doubles as a bluetooth antenna, hooked that up and now I can detect all devices in the street lol. I could connect to like 20 different TV's and phones.

What doesn't work yet is the Xbox Share Button and I can't map it to Nvidia shadowplay either. That's sort of a letdown. I guess I can do that through the Xbox Gamebar but that is not as smooth.
None of the key mapping third party apps like antimicro support the Share Button yet.
If I could just map the Share Button to Shadow Play it would be much easier. Another thing is changing the primary screen for the games Windows + Shift + Left/Right is an easy enough button combo for a wireless keyboard.
But even so I would like to be able to adjust that in GamePass settings somewhere.

Also because this motherboard has a soundchip that supports DTS and pretty much all other formats I can finally retire my soundcard and no longer need a second optical cable for PC (surround) sound on my home cinema.
The last thing I need to fix is HDR from PC to TV, I can now turn the switch to on but it automatically disables again. I think that might be the cable.

Streets of Rage 4
Now for the game I tried. Had great fun with this one, retro-vibe works well. Soundtrack is a bit meh compared to the visuals though.
I'm not really sure how long this game is, but it is certainly challenging. Playing as Blaze I got as far as Stage 4 in the story mode until I called it a day.
The art is gorgeous and the combo system seems more elaborate the more you play. Definitely a game to check out if you like those 2D beat em ups.
🤴

demi

  • cooler than willco
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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36185 on: January 03, 2021, 02:35:58 PM »
Why play the 3DS remakes when you can emulate the PS2 versions?

Because piracy is illegal and the 3DS versions are the best

What piracy? I own the ps2 versions too

Im asking why are the 3ds remakes the best? What makes them better? Aside from not being able to play on a tv and with a comfortable controller?

I have 8 on both 3ds and ps2

You can find this information yourself.

Here, quick google

-New story content to expand on Hero's past and Dhoulmagus
-New Monster Arena rank (SS). Also some new recruitable monsters for it.
-New Costumes for Yangus, Angelo, Red, and Morrie (Only Jessica and Hero had alternate clothes in the original)
-Two new playable party members. (Morrie and Red)
-New option to marry Jessica at the end.
-New equipment.
-Photo mode
-On field enemy encounters replace random battles (like DQ11)
-Some tweaks and rebalancing, including Angelo and Eight getting more skillpoints earlier, some skills getting nerfed and some bosses with new spells.
-Some alchemy improvements including some new recipes, instant alchemy from the start and the ability to cook up to 99 items at once.
-Classic DQ-like menu (like the one in VII-3DS rather than the one in VIII-PS2)
-Quick buttons in the lower screen, like for Zoom or Baumren's Bell (the sabrecat to speed up overworld movement).
-Option to speed up battles
- Not forced to use skill points on level up (like DQ11)


Cons:

- Downgraded graphics, as expected
- Music is changed so its not fully orchestra, as expected
- Jessica's outfits altered to not be as sexy/risque
- Jessica VA changed (original VA retired, uses Jessica from DQ Heroes games)
- Some scenes altered (Marcello does not stab his arm, servant does not eat dog food for master)


3DS is clearly superior

Content > Graphics
« Last Edit: January 03, 2021, 02:41:57 PM by demi »
fat

Don Rumata

  • Hard To Be A John
  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36186 on: January 04, 2021, 12:33:46 AM »
Started playing Man of Medan on Gamepass, played maybe 2 and half hours of it, but this it's absolutely abysmal in my opinion.

The scares are just cheesy jumpscares (lliterally faces popping in and screaming in your face) which ironically all failed to make me jump, but once.
The characters are all annoying clichès, but unlike Until Dawn they don't really work off of each other (also an annoying teen is more understandable than an annoying adult).
The graphics are glitched, lighting popping, texture loading late, uncanny faces and odd fucking expressions.
Finally, probably worst of all, the writing, directing, and editing of scenes is truly bad, not even funny bad, i mean flat out confusing.
Also the pace seems to be slow as shit for a game in this genre (which i usually enjoy) making you walk through dark empty corridors for 40 minutes, wtf.

And yes, multiple people told me not to play it, but i'm boneheaded and it was on gamepass, so no biggie.
If it doesn't get significantly better, i'll probably drop it though.

Clockwork5

  • Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36187 on: January 04, 2021, 09:15:51 AM »
Streets of Rage 4 is really good. I thought while the game was certainly challenging, it was balanced well and required that old-school planning around health pick ups. Making it to the boss the first time with low health and getting your ass handed to you requires a level of health pick up rationing on your next run that evokes the vintage era of gaming almost as much as sliding quarters in a machine does. Clearing an entire screen of enemies before picking up that health item because a little sliver of its healing properties might go to waste or finding that full health item on your 4th run through a level that changes the balance of the level, making it a bit less difficult is as “Streets of Rage” as the music, art or jump kicks.

I know the balance of health up pick-ups is a weird thing to get excited about but that is such a definitive element of “Streets of Rage” that it was “the thing” that made it feel like a true sequel and not some spiritual successor.

Fifstar

  • Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36188 on: January 04, 2021, 11:41:47 AM »
I basically can't imagine DQXI without stronger monsters on, the early hours of the game were basically carried by the gameplay for me. I liked the characters well enough, but compared to the last DQ game I played (7) the gameplay makes the big monsters plaguing the towns actually able to harm me instead of waiting dozens of hours, and it helped my engagement a lot. I hadn't played a DQ that much since VIII.

I don't know - turning that modifier on turned the game into a grindfest for me, which I found not fun at all - doesn't help that I barely have the time to play a big ass rpg like DQ XIS in the first place.
However now the game is too easy. Like Bebpo said, you have to underlevel yourself to have some resemblance of challenge.

IMO the game is just badly balanced. DQ XIII wasn't hard per se, but if you just casually played the game there were definetly some dungeons/bosses that you just barely beat on your first try. Grinding was only needed at a couple of difficulty spots. Game was rewarding to play without needing to purposely underlevel yourself or grinding every couple of hours just you can progress through standard areas.
Gulp

Thirty-Ought-Six

  • Junior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36189 on: January 04, 2021, 12:43:15 PM »
Late in the game there were two really fun, challenging fights playing without modifiers.
spoiler (click to show/hide)
Crystalotl and Malicious Auroral Serpent in act 3 are great if you are around 45-55. And I prefer to be lower level anyway because the high level powers (like magic burst+elixir and divide+doubledown) don't feel right to me and can make other characters weak in comparison.
[close]

But yeah, it is a badly balanced game, and making it so you can't switch difficulties was super dumb.


Joe Molotov

  • I'm much more humble than you would understand.
  • Administrator
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36190 on: January 04, 2021, 01:04:26 PM »
Decided to play Immortals Fenyx Wright Rising, the third and least iconic of Ubisoft's trio of open-world checklist-a-thons released in Q4 2020. First impressions are that it certainly is Assassin's Creed: Breath of Wild. Second impressions are but at least it's better than Watch Dog3s. Traversing the terrain is fun, climbing up walls and then gliding around like in BotW. I also like how when you summon your mount, Feynx jumps into their air and then your mount appears directly underneath you, very QoL. The puzzle tombs are the best part so far. I haven't seen anything too challenging so far, but they feel satisfying to do.
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Don Rumata

  • Hard To Be A John
  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36191 on: January 04, 2021, 01:51:25 PM »
Decided to play Immortals Fenyx Wright Rising, the third and least iconic of Ubisoft's trio of open-world checklist-a-thons released in Q4 2020. First impressions are that it certainly is Assassin's Creed: Breath of Wild. Second impressions are but at least it's better than Watch Dog3s. Traversing the terrain is fun, climbing up walls and then gliding around like in BotW. I also like how when you summon your mount, Feynx jumps into their air and then your mount appears directly underneath you, very QoL. The puzzle tombs are the best part so far. I haven't seen anything too challenging so far, but they feel satisfying to do.
That's in Darksiders too.
How can you stand that horrid art direction tho?

Bebpo

  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36192 on: January 04, 2021, 01:52:41 PM »
Started playing Man of Medan on Gamepass, played maybe 2 and half hours of it, but this it's absolutely abysmal in my opinion.

The scares are just cheesy jumpscares (lliterally faces popping in and screaming in your face) which ironically all failed to make me jump, but once.
The characters are all annoying clichès, but unlike Until Dawn they don't really work off of each other (also an annoying teen is more understandable than an annoying adult).
The graphics are glitched, lighting popping, texture loading late, uncanny faces and odd fucking expressions.
Finally, probably worst of all, the writing, directing, and editing of scenes is truly bad, not even funny bad, i mean flat out confusing.
Also the pace seems to be slow as shit for a game in this genre (which i usually enjoy) making you walk through dark empty corridors for 40 minutes, wtf.

And yes, multiple people told me not to play it, but i'm boneheaded and it was on gamepass, so no biggie.
If it doesn't get significantly better, i'll probably drop it though.

I mean, the best part of the game is the small boat for the first hour. If you're not enjoying the characters, cutscene direction, writing, choices by that point you should bail out.

Bebpo

  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36193 on: January 04, 2021, 01:55:32 PM »
I basically can't imagine DQXI without stronger monsters on, the early hours of the game were basically carried by the gameplay for me. I liked the characters well enough, but compared to the last DQ game I played (7) the gameplay makes the big monsters plaguing the towns actually able to harm me instead of waiting dozens of hours, and it helped my engagement a lot. I hadn't played a DQ that much since VIII.

I don't know - turning that modifier on turned the game into a grindfest for me, which I found not fun at all - doesn't help that I barely have the time to play a big ass rpg like DQ XIS in the first place.
However now the game is too easy. Like Bebpo said, you have to underlevel yourself to have some resemblance of challenge.

IMO the game is just badly balanced. DQ XIII wasn't hard per se, but if you just casually played the game there were definetly some dungeons/bosses that you just barely beat on your first try. Grinding was only needed at a couple of difficulty spots. Game was rewarding to play without needing to purposely underlevel yourself or grinding every couple of hours just you can progress through standard areas.

Late in the game there were two really fun, challenging fights playing without modifiers.
spoiler (click to show/hide)
Crystalotl and Malicious Auroral Serpent in act 3 are great if you are around 45-55. And I prefer to be lower level anyway because the high level powers (like magic burst+elixir and divide+doubledown) don't feel right to me and can make other characters weak in comparison.
[close]

But yeah, it is a badly balanced game, and making it so you can't switch difficulties was super dumb.

It's definitely weird. I've played most of the DQ games and I've felt they were a decent challenge with some real challenging bosses (even worse because there are no save points before bosses!) I remember having to grind and create strategies and have some luck for some bosses to win. DQXI feels a lot easier for sure. Guess they were trying to have more mainstream appeal worldwide?

But yeah, hopefully DQXII has selectable difficulty levels.

tiesto

  • ルカルカ★ナイトフィーバー
  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36194 on: January 04, 2021, 01:58:54 PM »
CS4 - Just about all done with the final chapter sidequests, now to just go for the final dungeon. Knowing CS games, the finale is gonna be another dragged-out, 10 hour long affair with tons of super long boss fights and cutscenes...
^_^

paprikastaude

  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36195 on: January 04, 2021, 07:03:33 PM »
Rayman 3 on GBA - who knew, this is actually a decent sidescrolling version of Rayman 2 :leon

Don Rumata

  • Hard To Be A John
  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36196 on: January 05, 2021, 08:25:08 AM »
Started playing Man of Medan on Gamepass, played maybe 2 and half hours of it, but this it's absolutely abysmal in my opinion.

The scares are just cheesy jumpscares (lliterally faces popping in and screaming in your face) which ironically all failed to make me jump, but once.
The characters are all annoying clichès, but unlike Until Dawn they don't really work off of each other (also an annoying teen is more understandable than an annoying adult).
The graphics are glitched, lighting popping, texture loading late, uncanny faces and odd fucking expressions.
Finally, probably worst of all, the writing, directing, and editing of scenes is truly bad, not even funny bad, i mean flat out confusing.
Also the pace seems to be slow as shit for a game in this genre (which i usually enjoy) making you walk through dark empty corridors for 40 minutes, wtf.

And yes, multiple people told me not to play it, but i'm boneheaded and it was on gamepass, so no biggie.
If it doesn't get significantly better, i'll probably drop it though.

I mean, the best part of the game is the small boat for the first hour. If you're not enjoying the characters, cutscene direction, writing, choices by that point you should bail out.
Yeah i uninstalled, may try Greedfall instead.

Joe Molotov

  • I'm much more humble than you would understand.
  • Administrator
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36197 on: January 05, 2021, 10:38:37 AM »
Decided to play Immortals Fenyx Wright Rising, the third and least iconic of Ubisoft's trio of open-world checklist-a-thons released in Q4 2020. First impressions are that it certainly is Assassin's Creed: Breath of Wild. Second impressions are but at least it's better than Watch Dog3s. Traversing the terrain is fun, climbing up walls and then gliding around like in BotW. I also like how when you summon your mount, Feynx jumps into their air and then your mount appears directly underneath you, very QoL. The puzzle tombs are the best part so far. I haven't seen anything too challenging so far, but they feel satisfying to do.
That's in Darksiders too.
How can you stand that horrid art direction tho?

I don’t really have a problem with the art style. My biggest annoyance so far is that there’s no indication of whether you’re appropriately leveled for various side quests. You can be breezing along, following the main quest line, and stop off to open a guarded chest along the way, and get nearly one-shotted by some cyclops. I went to Achilles’ Vault as soon as it was available, and after clearing the toughest dungeon so far, Achilles just fucks my shit up and after nearly two hours of retrying and failing to get him below half health, I finally just had to leave. Then I went and did Aphrodite’s Vault and it was easy.

I feel like it discourages you from doing anything off the main quest line.
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I'm a Puppy!

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  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36198 on: January 05, 2021, 11:45:04 AM »
I really can't stomach the Fenyx artstyle. Being a father that survived the Skylanders trend I have PTSD from that kind of art style. Also it's a perplexing decision for me.  Just who is that supposed to appeal to?

On my end finished FFVII: Remake. The last 3 chapters were excellent. I know it's not realistic that the whole game could keep that up, but still, it's odd that a game that had such a problem with excessive and meaningless padding would have such a great climax.  Really I'm finding that a lot of games just have meaningless padding. Nothing of real value given, no further insights into the story just "Oh yay! you collected all the <kids, cats, chocobos, item parts> aren't you great?!" I can enjoy a good side quest but these aren't that. And it's been since DQXI that I've felt a company got a side quest right.

Speaking of meaningless padding. Started Death Stranding. Finished the prologue and first chapter last night. I am totally prepared for a walking simulator. So no issue there. But I have the feeling that I'm not going to get any answers to all the questions that Kojima is putting out there. And I do have to say playing it late a night with the wife and our first encounter with BT was pretty fun since we had no choice but to run. Though I can see if I had a way to fight back, it really wouldn't be nearly as intense. But it really makes me hold out hope that Kojima finally get the Silent Hill license or does some kind of horror game. I think if he could get over himself he could make an amazing survival horror game.
que

paprikastaude

  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36199 on: January 05, 2021, 05:48:45 PM »
Rayman 3 on GBA - who knew, this is actually a decent sidescrolling version of Rayman 2 :leon

Now the levels are getting too long :snore Still fine though. Feels bad the IP is dead.

The Sceneman

  • Did my wife send you?
  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36200 on: January 05, 2021, 08:43:25 PM »
Back from holidays and I've been binging Control pretty hard.

Good stuff:
- Impeccable world building. Really fascinating premise and I'm reading all the collectibles/files etc as I get them as the lore really is quite enticing.
- Trippy story and content, kinda like Christopher Nolan x David Lynch with a little Suda 51 as well.
- Cool use of real actors and facial tech again (altho I have to admit I preferred Quantum Break for this as it had more star-power).
- Action is slick and and the explosions are awesome. Neat powers. The levitation especially is very well realised.
- Wicked sound design, great ambient music and I really like the chanting/murmuring througout the game. I find it quite soothing and relaxing for some reason.
- Beautifully realised environments, I really dig the brutalist architecture and the 1960s CIA vibe.
- The puppet show clips are proper nightmare fuel and are totally awesome
- Easy achievements

Bad stuff:
- Performance is quite assy on my poverty base model Xbone. Long load times, texure pop-in, menus take awhile to open, had a couple hard crashes.
- The gameplay is repetitive and the enemies are mostly pretty boring.
- Just isnt as fun as it should be as it blends two of my favourite genres: TPS and Metroidvania - but beacause of the complexity of the environments its hard to be sure you've checked everywhere. Just doesnt quite scratch the itch.
- Most of the loot is shit


Anyhow the game good but not great. Biggest issue is the lack of variation in the gameplay. It would've benefitted from aping Nier or something and tossing in some bullet hell hacking subgames or something. I'll play the DLC and I look forward to what Remedy does next
#1

Bebpo

  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36201 on: January 05, 2021, 10:25:17 PM »
I like Control a lot and think most of the issues are just that it's a mid-tier budget game (that looks high budget because of tech & good art/models). More enemy types and locations and things to add variety would be great but that stuff costs more money, so it's understandable.

Bebpo

  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36202 on: January 05, 2021, 10:34:14 PM »
Around two nights ago I started keeping a text file while playing Divinity OS2 where I would just write down every thing that pissed me off, caused me to reload, lost me time, glitched out, or was jank that I consider bad design, so that when I'm done instead of writing a bunch I can just post a list of jank items that I hope as many as possible are not in BG3.

It's getting long...

But out of curiosity I tried playing with a controller. I was like psssshhh playing an IE-style crpg on a controller? Where I'm moving around inventory and clicking on things constantly?? But I wondered with all the awful inventory & UI & even battle clicking on the right damn fucking thing management in OS2 might be because the game was made with a controller and console in mind.

And holy shit the interface is fucking great on a controller. I'm amazed at how nice and polished it feels on console/controller. The UI and direct movement. It all works excellent. I can see why on consoles people would really enjoy this.

...though on consoles you don't get mods and OS2 needs mods, at least just stuff like sprinting. You can get that with a controller on PC, sure. But the controller UI is made to only support 4 party members, so my team of all 6 story characters...I can't access 2 of them on a controller  :lol and you can't just use your mouse & controller because the interface is completely different on a load you can only play console controller mode or KB+M PC mode. So I'm stuck with KB+M PC mode at this point.

But if I played a fresh game on OS2 with a 4 person party I'd probably play it on a controller with the controller interface, but on PC with mods like sprint mods and better unique loot and odinblade's class fixes (though I'm only using the necromancer rebalance, but as my main MC is a necromancer it feels GOOD. I looked up the changes and odinblade changes are real good. Makes me tempted to try the odinblade rebalance for the other classes I'm using).

I'm a Puppy!

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  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36203 on: January 06, 2021, 12:16:21 AM »
I loved the concept of control. But really I was sorta "meh" I felt the gun play was OK, but a lot of the enemies turned into bullet sponges and a lot of the powers were under-used/not that useful.
I figured with someone with those kinds of power a gun would be an after thought instead it was 80% shoot-shoot-shoot-cover-reload-20% powers instead of 'crush that guy- push that guy into the wall - shoot that guy - make that guy implode.'

Also, I felt like they sorta ran out of runway with the story. It felt more like it ended not because they told the story but because they were done.
que

Don Rumata

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36204 on: January 06, 2021, 12:38:57 AM »
I agree with the enemy variety lacking, but i was very mobile and used most of the powers a lot, tbh, i didn't have that experience.
It's probably the most fun i've had with a 3rd person shooter since Binary Domain, especially after you get "levitate".
I think bosses in particular were really underwhelming, if they ever do a sequel, that's definitely the area they should spend most time.

Bebpo

  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36205 on: January 06, 2021, 03:30:48 AM »
Spent two hours sorting inventory, gear and skills on my party members in Divinity OS2. My level 15 party is in top-form now & pretty strategic. I honestly wrote off my archer Ifan pretty early initially, but at this point he just destroys enemies along with Sebille as a rogue backstabber. Archer can teleport somewhere high and then all the bonus damages added for height & distance really kick in for crazy damage.

At bloodmoon island at the top of Reaper's Coast map. Last section of Act II to explore and then on to Act III. ~57 hours now. ^^; At least Acts III/IV are shorter/smaller in scope, which should be more manageable. Act II is essentially the world map of an entire rpg. You could do intro -> Reaper's Coast -> final dungeon and it'd feel pretty normal length. Game is long.



Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36206 on: January 06, 2021, 03:58:45 AM »
Yeah, I remember my archer character did crazy damage from high points. It's nice that you can get so many teleport/invis spells from cross classing. For easier management and stuff, I found running only a party of 2 was a lot less annoying. Plus you can get the lone wolf skill which gives you 2 extra AP a turn and basically doubles your stats.

Bebpo

  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36207 on: January 06, 2021, 04:04:42 AM »
Yeah, everything I read seems to say Lone Wolf is broken. But for me a big part of rpgs are having a talking cast with their own sidestories, so I wanted to run the six MCs. I'm enjoying the characters.

The cross-classing is probably the best part of the builds. If I use a skill a lot with one character I give it to almost everyone. Like adrenaline gives 2 extra AP and I pretty much use that on everyone round 1 to dps as much as possible right away and clear out an enemy or two. Likewise the polymorph flight skill to move pretty far for 2ap was useful to get on most characters though for my Necromancer MC I rain blood & teleport into it.

I don't bother unchaining the team and pre-positioning most fights, so the toughest part is just getting in range turn 1. Luckily between movement teleports, flying and teleporting enemies there's lots of options to re-position quickly. Also summons to add more party members at spots.

The Sceneman

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36208 on: January 06, 2021, 06:42:07 PM »
I agree with the enemy variety lacking, but i was very mobile and used most of the powers a lot, tbh, i didn't have that experience.
It's probably the most fun i've had with a 3rd person shooter since Binary Domain, especially after you get "levitate".
I think bosses in particular were really underwhelming, if they ever do a sequel, that's definitely the area they should spend most time.

Is Binary Domain still the acme of the TPS genre? Can't think of any better examples.
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Bebpo

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36209 on: January 06, 2021, 08:29:46 PM »
Uh, Vanquish?

BIONIC

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36210 on: January 07, 2021, 01:40:41 AM »
Top-tier TPSs:
Resident Evil 4
Vanquish
Gears of War 1/2
Binary Domain
Max Payne 3
Uncharted 4 (the parts where you don’t just hold up and press X)

Could’ve been legit with a proper budget, but still fun:
Devil’s Third

It is law.
Margs

Don Rumata

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36211 on: January 07, 2021, 03:52:46 AM »
Yeah i don't think there's just one TPS to rule them all, it's more about areas of interest.
Binary Domain wasn't particularly great in many respects, for example, but the way the enemies fell apart, made it really satisfying to shoot them (kind of like RE2 remake).
Same with Uncharted, the shooting isn't perfect, and the enemies are kind of spongy, but the way it mixes it with the ability to move and jump around, is quite fun (especially in the latter ones, with the rope and more verticality) at lower difficulties.
So on and so forth.

MMaRsu

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36212 on: January 07, 2021, 07:46:02 AM »
I agree with the enemy variety lacking, but i was very mobile and used most of the powers a lot, tbh, i didn't have that experience.
It's probably the most fun i've had with a 3rd person shooter since Binary Domain, especially after you get "levitate".
I think bosses in particular were really underwhelming, if they ever do a sequel, that's definitely the area they should spend most time.

Is Binary Domain still the acme of the TPS genre? Can't think of any better examples.

Have not played BD but aside from BIG BOOOO

It never looked that interesting
What

MMaRsu

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36213 on: January 07, 2021, 07:46:53 AM »
How you can list Max Payne 3 with its unskippable shitty cutscenes and bad Dialogue but then not list Max Payne 2 is beyond me
What

Pissy F Benny

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36214 on: January 07, 2021, 07:48:14 AM »
Cuz the shooting was better? :yeshrug
(ice)

Pissy F Benny

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36215 on: January 07, 2021, 07:50:38 AM »
I wouldn’t list uncharted 4 tbh but I have a burning hatred for that game and will concede that shooting at the bullet sponges for 5 mins or so every once in a while was a welcome change from pressing forward and x for what seemed like hours at a time :trumps
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I'm a Puppy!

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36216 on: January 07, 2021, 10:38:59 AM »
Me trying to read Death Stranding's text 20 feet away from the TV  :whatisthis

Found my PS4 wasn't connecting to the network so I didn't get the patch that allows me to change the size. That should've downloaded last night. Hopefully that works.
que

Don Rumata

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36217 on: January 07, 2021, 12:24:09 PM »
I wouldn’t list uncharted 4 tbh but I have a burning hatred for that game and will concede that shooting at the bullet sponges for 5 mins or so every once in a while was a welcome change from pressing forward and x for what seemed like hours at a time :trumps
Lost Legacy has more polished gameplay and a better pace.  :yeshrug

Pissy F Benny

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36218 on: January 07, 2021, 12:26:25 PM »
i hated uncharted 4 so much that i will never play a naughty dog game again :rage
(ice)

Rman

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36219 on: January 07, 2021, 02:21:34 PM »
what do u guys thing about demon's souls ps5?

it's cool, but i don't like the art direction. the original had a more stylized feel.

The Sceneman

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36220 on: January 07, 2021, 04:39:16 PM »
Uh, Vanquish?

is it really better than BD tho  :doge
#1

Bebpo

  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36221 on: January 07, 2021, 05:01:09 PM »
In gameplay? Absolutely. One of the smoothest and most polished feeling TPS ever.

In stylish cutscenes? Probably. BD cutscenes are good in a Yakuza way. Vanquish is just stylish action stuff.

In music? Yeah.

In story/characters? lol no

Bebpo

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36222 on: January 07, 2021, 05:03:31 PM »
what do u guys thing about demon's souls ps5?

it's cool, but i don't like the art direction. the original had a more stylized feel.

I think the art direction is fine. I also think their SoTC looks fine even if Wanderer is slightly goofy looking up close. I'll agree that no question their character model art is worse than the originals and until they hire better character designer/model designers they should try to stick more to the originals, but it's so minor in the scope of the overall visuals and their environmental art direction is phenomenal that I can't care. When I'm slashing 3 undead zombies with a greatsword slice I don't really care how "good ugly" they look.

Also I'll give Bluepoint that the human NPCs in the Nexus and that you meet in the world look pretty good and are an improvement from the original. So that kinda counterbalances their uglier enemy re-designs.

The Sceneman

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36223 on: January 07, 2021, 05:14:51 PM »
In gameplay? Absolutely. One of the smoothest and most polished feeling TPS ever.

In stylish cutscenes? Probably. BD cutscenes are good in a Yakuza way. Vanquish is just stylish action stuff.

In music? Yeah.

In story/characters? lol no

TBH I always thought of Vanquish as more of an action game as opposed to TPS. IDK. Been ages since I played it
#1

Bebpo

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36224 on: January 07, 2021, 07:36:59 PM »
Yay, finished up Act II in Divinity OS2 around 63 hours. Seems to be following pace with the estimate I saw that Act I is 20%, Act II 40%, Act III 10%, Act IV 30% of the game since Act I took about 20 hours and Act II a bit over 40 hours. Both Act I & II have been great so far, with Act II being huge and fun and reminding me of Baldur's Gate I a lot (except without a big city like BG yet).

Though not sure if that estimate was the original release. I was reading up on the Definitive Edition changes/improvements which is what I'm playing and the devs said Act III is the most reworked and estimated 30 hours of content now, so maybe it'll be longer.

Liking the game a lot at this point. When I play crpgs I tend to look up a lot of quests after finishing them (or during them if I get stuck) to see how they branched in design for the other options I didn't take. Questing is definitely pretty solid & fun here. Failed a few quests but generally have done everything so far in the game. Enjoying the story & cast.

And the music is pretty great.

And honestly this game has VA that's way above its paygrade. Tons of characters & VA work and it's all really, really well done. While the writing doesn't beat Obsidian crpgs, I'm tempted to say this is just about the best VA in a crpg I've played. Adds a ton of character to what otherwise might be kind of generic characters.

Also speaking of the DE, with the 4 armor set quests they added. I've gotten 2 full sets now (and failed 1 quest because I missed a piece) and these sets are insanely good especially with leveling up equipment mods/potions/gift bag option. The first outfit I got was the pirate one in Act I and it has a charm radius that works a lot on enemies that surround you. Strategically this would work really well on your tank to taunt enemies to aggro and then charm physical ones that get close, but the outfit is a finesse/rogue stat outfit so I have it on my rogue, but still comes in helpful a lot. Haven't given her any other armor since Act I outside belts/accessories.

And I got the vulture armor set and being able to always fly every turn without losing an AP point to sprout wings or cooldown + added movement is great and enough to take the loss of any stat bonuses. Right now I have it on my Necromancer MC just because she's kind my lead character and I like having good movement, but might give it to someone else. Still super good set.

benjipwns

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36225 on: January 08, 2021, 02:22:30 AM »
Call of Duty: World at War

Backtracking slightly to do the "first" game of the original Black Ops trilogy. This was most things bad about Call of Duty, very linear, very unclear checkpoints and objectives, lots of waves of enemies and invisible line triggers. Got stymied a few times from simply not knowing what to do without simply dying. Bad voiceovers that play no matter what is happening in the game. Some nice vistas and lighting effects for when this came out. Possibly the least essential and worst of the PC Call of Duties I have played to date. The multiplayer is not that bad though, I played it in the past, but you can still find servers for it and get into a game pretty easily since it's dedicated servers and stuff. I kinda regret not going straight to Black Ops though, the story points I doubt will be more than a few references and callbacks.

5.5 on the Game Informer scale (they gave it an 8.75)

I also played some Battleborn before the servers shut down for good this month. Lifeless, poor mission design, poor hero design, poor enemy and encounter design, who or what is this game even for? It doesn't even seem like co-op could have saved it as it is so segmented and unbalanced. I played through the first two missions and tried a third before getting stymied by encounter design that was "die repeatedly to knock down the health enough" on a boss and gave up since there was nothing to the game but these dull missions to begin with. The continuous overall progression of Borderlands was quite needed here rather than starting from scratch each time. Even the graphics and art design were just okay, and the quips did get pretty annoying when you heard them every 30 seconds too, though I didn't mind the trite writing as much as expected though apparently none of that story stuff even goes anywhere so there's no purpose to it. I'll say a 4.25 on the GI scale. But I did not finish the game, not even close probably.
« Last Edit: January 08, 2021, 02:26:41 AM by benjipwns »

paprikastaude

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36226 on: January 08, 2021, 09:02:17 AM »
Rayman Advance was on my copy of Rayman 3 too. Man, you can't see shit when it comes to upcoming obstacles. I imagine it wasn't like this on PS1.

brawndolicious

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36227 on: January 08, 2021, 05:30:28 PM »
A bit late to the party but I finally finished RDR2. Easily a top 10 game. John being all sweet to Abigail in the penultimate mission was so adorable.

Also I just realized that the land across the river from Beecher's Hope is actually explorable if you find the bridge. It's huge wtf, is this Mexico? The South/Southwest third of the map is all greyed out for me. Now I have to ride around and explore for a few hours more.

I think next on my list is Tell Me Why and Ace Combat 7. I wanna take a break from 60 hour adventure games, they take months for me to finish.

Don Rumata

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36228 on: January 08, 2021, 10:08:27 PM »
A bit late to the party but I finally finished RDR2. Easily a top 10 game. John being all sweet to Abigail in the penultimate mission was so adorable.

Also I just realized that the land across the river from Beecher's Hope is actually explorable if you find the bridge. It's huge wtf, is this Mexico? The South/Southwest third of the map is all greyed out for me. Now I have to ride around and explore for a few hours more.

I think next on my list is Tell Me Why and Ace Combat 7. I wanna take a break from 60 hour adventure games, they take months for me to finish.
??? You mean New Austin and that area? That's (half of) RDR1's map, basically without the Mexico half.
There's a couple of nice easter eggs and side missions to do, not much else unfortunately.

Bebpo

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36229 on: January 09, 2021, 11:48:18 PM »
Kind of a weird take but I'm kinda feeling over Picross. That's weird, because that's like disliking crossword puzzles or math or something.

Playing S1 on Switch, I felt like for the first 20-40 puzzles there wasn't much/any guessing involved and if you process of elimination ran the numbers in the rows it'd all come together and was pretty satisfying. Like if you've got a 7 you don't know where those 7 are exactly, but you know the middle 4 blocks have to be solid either way so you can fill them in and work from them to figure out other lines.

But now I'm like 60 or 80 in and it feels like the difficulty has ramped up so even doing all that process of elimination stuff you're left with a ton where you have no idea where anything is. So for me it comes down to just randomly guessing where a row is that only has maybe 2-3 choices so the guess is 50% or 33% likely correct and then working the rest of the puzzle from there. Only most of the time I get to the end and it doesn't work, so my initial guess was wrong and I gotta try shifting things around and I just kinda give up and check for errors to finish it up.

Maybe I need to read some guides on how to be good at Picross, because maybe the way I'm doing it just isn't the most efficient and I need to git gud. Because right now it's just not very satisfying. Also all the pictures suck. I miss Picross 3DS with the cool 3d pixel art.

Bebpo

  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36230 on: January 10, 2021, 01:27:34 AM »
Finished act 3 in Divinity OS2 and got to the final act in Baldur's G~~~errr Arx City.

Yeah, I dunno what the developers were smoking when they said they expanded Act 3 with the DE and there's like 30 hours of content. I did everything on the Nameless Isle and I was out of there in about 9 hours. Still staying in-sync with the 20%/40%/10%/30% breakdown I saw of the acts, so sounds like the final act should be a nice meaty 30 hours of city questing. Would be curious to look up the DE changes for that act to see how much shorter it was even in the original release.

Act 3 was ok. Definitely an oddball section in this game. For a game that's all about questing/dialogue & combat, there were barely any quests on the island, very few people to talk to and almost no combat scenarios. Was just like a lot of walking around and puzzle solving and teleporting puzzles mostly. I get what they were going for with a deserted ancient jungle island to explore, but it just doesn't play to the strengths of the game.

Glad to be back in an area with lots of people to talk to and hopefully quests to take on. Guess I'll finish this in the next 1-2 weeks at this rate.

The Sceneman

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36231 on: January 10, 2021, 01:35:11 AM »
finally got aorund to checking out Dead Cells. Seems really cool so far, lovely graphics, animation and music. Gameplay loop and hooks seem solid.
#1

BIONIC

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36232 on: January 10, 2021, 03:06:21 AM »
So after being fatigued from a massive RPG that takes me a month+ to get through with ‘77, I obviously decided to go ahead and buy and start playing Persona 5 Royale with Cheese. I’ve been waiting a while for them to announce a Switch version. Knowing my luck, they’ll announce one in 2 months (year after original release).

I had a pretty good time with P4G a couple of years back, and this feels like a more refined version of that. Biggest improvements is having actual human-designed dungeons with actual level-design instead of the randomly generated dogshit from 4. Improvements to the combat system, and exploration are really cool too.

I’m 11 hours in, and about 70% through the first palace. The railroading is kinda ridiculous so far though, but I’m guessing the game opens up after I’m done with this “tutorial” palace.
Margs

MMaRsu

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36233 on: January 10, 2021, 06:09:50 AM »
finally got aorund to checking out Dead Cells. Seems really cool so far, lovely graphics, animation and music. Gameplay loop and hooks seem solid.

If ur on pc get the castlevania ost mod
What

Potato

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36234 on: January 10, 2021, 07:09:40 AM »
Kind of a weird take but I'm kinda feeling over Picross. That's weird, because that's like disliking crossword puzzles or math or something.

Playing S1 on Switch, I felt like for the first 20-40 puzzles there wasn't much/any guessing involved and if you process of elimination ran the numbers in the rows it'd all come together and was pretty satisfying. Like if you've got a 7 you don't know where those 7 are exactly, but you know the middle 4 blocks have to be solid either way so you can fill them in and work from them to figure out other lines.

But now I'm like 60 or 80 in and it feels like the difficulty has ramped up so even doing all that process of elimination stuff you're left with a ton where you have no idea where anything is. So for me it comes down to just randomly guessing where a row is that only has maybe 2-3 choices so the guess is 50% or 33% likely correct and then working the rest of the puzzle from there. Only most of the time I get to the end and it doesn't work, so my initial guess was wrong and I gotta try shifting things around and I just kinda give up and check for errors to finish it up.

Maybe I need to read some guides on how to be good at Picross, because maybe the way I'm doing it just isn't the most efficient and I need to git gud. Because right now it's just not very satisfying. Also all the pictures suck. I miss Picross 3DS with the cool 3d pixel art.
If you're after a change of pace, try Slither Loop on Switch. It's another logic game. Kind of a cross between Minesweeper and something else which I can't put my finger on right now.
Spud

archnemesis

  • Senior Member
Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36235 on: January 10, 2021, 07:23:02 AM »
Kind of a weird take but I'm kinda feeling over Picross. That's weird, because that's like disliking crossword puzzles or math or something.
It's not that weird. I recently finished most puzzles in S5 and even though I still enjoy the series I like them less for each release. I'd prefer fewer releases and more innovation.

tiesto

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36236 on: January 10, 2021, 11:55:47 PM »
After almost 175 hours, I'm finally up to the final boss of CS4. Will beat sometime this week... shit, this is perhaps the longest RPG I've ever played...
^_^

Thirty-Ought-Six

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36237 on: January 11, 2021, 01:36:56 PM »
Star Renegades

I wasn't sure about this at first, but I've played 16 hours now and beaten it twice. The battle system is awesome (a timeline system based on interrupts and combos). The items are well-designed, characters can play very differently based on what you find. The leveling system is great at letting you customize too, experience is a shared resource so you might decide to level equally or to leave someone behind to get max level elsewhere. My only real complaint is how long each run takes, which goes against the idea of truly playing it like a roguelike. But if you think of it as a short rpg it's worth it just to beat it once.

I'm a Puppy!

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36238 on: January 11, 2021, 09:28:05 PM »
Almost gave up on death stranding that beginning if AWFUL. But I stuck it out and it's starting to "click" a bit. You gotta play it for helping others, not so much for yourself. That makes it bearable and honestly a little intriguing.

But I actually totally see why it would be so hated. If you're wanting an Assassin's Creed, or God of War or even Metal Gear Solid, this is nowhere even close to any of those.

Still Kojima needs a "George Lucas's Wife". Someone there to tell him "No. Are you crazy? No." Someone really should have been "Do you REALLY need the grenades to be of poop?"
que

Bebpo

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Re: What are you playing?
« Reply #36239 on: January 12, 2021, 03:45:49 AM »
Star Renegades

I wasn't sure about this at first, but I've played 16 hours now and beaten it twice. The battle system is awesome (a timeline system based on interrupts and combos). The items are well-designed, characters can play very differently based on what you find. The leveling system is great at letting you customize too, experience is a shared resource so you might decide to level equally or to leave someone behind to get max level elsewhere. My only real complaint is how long each run takes, which goes against the idea of truly playing it like a roguelike. But if you think of it as a short rpg it's worth it just to beat it once.

How long is a run? And can you save mid-run?