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Rhom

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Surprise expansion for Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun coming in late 2021. Excellent news.

1 hour ago, Rhom said:

Funny... seeing the universal love for HZD as an alternative to W3; you’d think the universal game of the year acknowledgement would be flipped.

Yeah, HZD was never going to beat Breath of the Wild, whilst Witcher 3 had much weaker competition. It's only real competition was Bloodborne and the relative inaccessibility of FROM's games was always going to tell against it.

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I'm on team Witcher 3.  I think it's probably the greatest open world RPG yet made, and one of the best games of all time.  

Horizon is a great game, but it's not all time great like Witcher 3.

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Amusingly, this talk about Assassin's Creed caused me yesterday to jump back into Origins for an hour given that I had it still installed. Jumping back into a save file after this long a time is always crazy.

Me: Okay, let's see where I am. Ah, just outside Alexandria. How do I do things again?

*struggles to climb over a knee high brick wall, looks up that ALT is climbing up; c is climbing down; then climbs up a nearby grain silo to synchronize with the area*

Me: So now I just need to find the jump button to get down to the conveniently placed hay wagon...

*pushes the c and proceeds to slowly climb back down the same way I went up*

Me: Sheesh, that wasn't it apparently. I need to figure that out soon. Anyway, there is a quest giver just down the road. Who are you?

Apollinaris: I'm Apollinaris and I don't trust you.

Me: Fair enough. Your name rings a bell, I probably should look up what you did historically, but then again I have a feeling it won't matter.

Apollinaris: I need you to go to that shipyard over there and murder all the guards to prove that you are a trustworthy fellow.

Me: Yeah, sure, makes sense, Mr. mineral water.

*tries to sneak into the camp, takes out one guard, gets immediately spotted*

Me: Super sneaky as usual.

*effortlessly murders the guards rushing at me, but because I'm essentially just wildly swinging my sword around, somehow ends up smashing a red vase that blows up and kills me*

Me: Alright. That didn't go well. I don't remember the combat being this yanky.

*another attempt, takes out two guards stealthily, then gets spotted again. Proceeds to move behind a tent and just stab everybody running into my view until every guard is dealt with*

Me: So much for that.

Apollinaris: Good job. Now I know I can trust you. Accompany me to meet Kleopatra.

Me: Oh yes, I hadn't met her yet. I wonder whether they will go for the complex methodical ruler instead of the usual hypersexual enchantress stuff made up by the Roman propaganda machine.

Kleopatra: EVERYONE CAN HAVE SEX WITH ME! (Literally her first words, I'm not even joking)

Me: Ah, figures.

Kleopatra: I need you to kill these five people now.

Me and Bayek: Wait, what? Why?

Kleopatra: You may have succeeded in killing those who killed your son, but these dudes belong to a larger conspiracy, so you need to kill all of them.

Me: Wait is, that right?

*looks up targets in the menu*

Me and Bayek: Indeed, I already avenged my son. Why should I bother?

Kleopatra and Aya: Because they are baaaaaaaaaaaad guys. Now go, do your stabby stabby thing.

Me: Riiiight.

*gets dropped outside the mansion, but turns around immediately and steals all the shit in the yard, then heads off to do some sidequest marker*

Farmer: A rampage of hippos killed my family. Please collect the four bodies over there and drop them here so that I can bury them.

Me: Alright, the usual totally forgettable side quest.

*gets run over by three enemy chariots on the way to the fields*

Me: What the hell?!?

*does a murder spree that ends with Bayek standing knee deep in dead guards and bored horses, never manages to catch the damn chariots who just race away*

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Enjoying MechWarrior 5 a lot. Picked up a lucky full-mech salvage early on so I have 4 mechs bombing around when I think you're really only supposed to have 3. Granted, it's 1 Medium and 3 Lights, but in the early missions where you're only fighting tanks, helicopters and the odd Light, and a Medium only shows up as a "boss", that's more than enough (especially with the spawn mod installed to stop the enemy just materialising in front of you).

One weakness is the lack of an in-game battle map to make commanding other mechs easier. Getting a damaged allied mech to fall back before an enemy cores it is a pain in the backside. But in terms of stompy goodness, the game is excellent, and a terrific companion to the 2018 BattleTech (which is probably marginally the better game for allowing much more tactical play, targeting enemy mech limbs etc).

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18 minutes ago, Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II said:

Debating on whether to get Horizon Zero Dawn. Is the writing and quests on par with The Witcher 3, Skyrim and the older Bioware games? 

Judging by the reaction in this thread from everyone who's played it, I think you'll be happy. The backstory is awesome.

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3 hours ago, Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II said:

Debating on whether to get Horizon Zero Dawn. Is the writing and quests on par with The Witcher 3, Skyrim and the older Bioware games? 

Well, it wipes the floor with Skyrim (writing is not a strong point of Bethesda games). I wouldn't quite say it's on a par with the rest but not far off.

The best thing about Horizon and something I don't remember seeing a game do as well in the integration of the backstory and worldbuilding with the main storyline. Usually they're separate things but here the main story unfolds and explores the backstory as well in a really interesting manner.

Also:

Spoiler

Lance mfing Reddick as Aloy's incredibly reluctant "guy in the van" is absolutely brilliant casting.

 

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RPS attempts a Crusader Kings 3 playthrough with a character with every single stat maxed out. "Gigaknight Excelsior", the Maximum King, swiftly brings Europe to its knees, as you'd expect.

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Given that every single bodily and facial variable was cranked up to 11, Gigaknight’s appearance was no surprise - he looked as if Rowan Atkinson’s DNA had been injected into the developing zygote of a polar bear, which had then been raised entirely on a diet of coins and wine. He was so big he barely fit in the game’s event windows, and had a physique that made Into The Spider-verse’s Kingpin look like Smeagol.

 
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21 hours ago, Werthead said:

Enjoying MechWarrior 5 a lot. Picked up a lucky full-mech salvage early on so I have 4 mechs bombing around when I think you're really only supposed to have 3. Granted, it's 1 Medium and 3 Lights, but in the early missions where you're only fighting tanks, helicopters and the odd Light, and a Medium only shows up as a "boss", that's more than enough (especially with the spawn mod installed to stop the enemy just materialising in front of you).

The game doesn't really care about how many 'Mechs you bring, but every mission has a hard limit on total mass. This quickly feels very restrictive as you will constantly have to shelve a large number of your heaviest machines because you can't use them all at once. Combined with the fact that the mission difficulty is built around attrition, with the game throwing an ungodly amount of crap at you to wear you down, I grew pretty annoyed that I couldn't field the tankiest walking tanks I had available all the time. Basically your strategic success of getting more and better 'Mechs doesn't confer any advantages at the tactical level.

I still enjoyed the game (and I at some point installed a mod that removes drop limits, but never got around to actually trying the campaign with that), but a better mission design (as well as a better story...) would have been much appreciated.

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Crazy going ons in CK3.

Turns out the grandson I wanted to kill the White Wolf already had major problems. He was sleeping with his married sister. He got her pregnant and they had a son. Two months later her husband found out and imprisoned her and the child. She died after two month in the cells. 
 

Since I took over I’ve now disinherited my son/nephew in favor of the newborn son I’ve had with my wife.

Good luck firstborn son/nephew. You’re on your own.

Edit: And he dies. 19% chance of that hart killing him. And he dies. 

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14 hours ago, Jon AS said:

The game doesn't really care about how many 'Mechs you bring, but every mission has a hard limit on total mass. This quickly feels very restrictive as you will constantly have to shelve a large number of your heaviest machines because you can't use them all at once. Combined with the fact that the mission difficulty is built around attrition, with the game throwing an ungodly amount of crap at you to wear you down, I grew pretty annoyed that I couldn't field the tankiest walking tanks I had available all the time. Basically your strategic success of getting more and better 'Mechs doesn't confer any advantages at the tactical level.

I still enjoyed the game (and I at some point installed a mod that removes drop limits, but never got around to actually trying the campaign with that), but a better mission design (as well as a better story...) would have been much appreciated.

Yeah, I did hear that gets annoying later on. Removing the tonnage limit makes sense. If you can fit four Assaults in your dropship, why the hell not use them?

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I enjoyed MW5, but did find it got very grindy and repetitive towards the end. Or maybe that was just me wanting to max things out. And oh god, yes the story was... not great to say the least.

I replayed Doom 2 (1994) over the Christmas break for shits and giggles, not sure I ever finished that game as a teenager. When the old Bethesda games dropped on to Xbox game pass I decided to give Doom 1 (1993) a play through too. I gotta say I think Doom is the better game. Much tighter level design and a better sense of progression at least. Though both still hold up reasonably well. And its great being able to get through a game in less than 10hrs.

Currently playing through Baldur's Gate 1. Bought the enhanced edition when it came out years ago and never got around to playing it. BG2 was one of my favorite games back in the early 2000s, but I never finished BG1. I'm actually enjoying it a lot right now. The brutality of the D&D 2nd edition rule set never gets old. 

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1 hour ago, Impmk2 said:

I enjoyed MW5, but did find it got very grindy and repetitive towards the end. Or maybe that was just me wanting to max things out. And oh god, yes the story was... not great to say the least.

Yeah, I'm really enjoying it but the mods have really saved the day on it (just added the Max Tonnage mod). Otherwise it would have done my nut in, especially how spawning works in the base game. How the hell does that get through QA? Now enemy mechs land via drop ship, you can see them coming in and set your defences accordingly.

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I replayed Doom 2 (1994) over the Christmas break for shits and giggles, not sure I ever finished that game as a teenager. When the old Bethesda games dropped on to Xbox game pass I decided to give Doom 1 (1993) a play through too. I gotta say I think Doom is the better game. Much tighter level design and a better sense of progression at least. Though both still hold up reasonably well. And its great being able to get through a game in less than 10hrs.

There was a design difference between the games, so Doom had everyone collaborating on the same maps and offering feedback and ideas, and Doom II had people designing maps individually. I think that created an issue where Doom II would have an insane all-out blasting Romero map followed by a more flowing map about progression with enemies at tight chokepoints from one of the other designers etc. Doom II I think was also created and put out a lot faster.

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Currently playing through Baldur's Gate 1. Bought the enhanced edition when it came out years ago and never got around to playing it. BG2 was one of my favorite games back in the early 2000s, but I never finished BG1. I'm actually enjoying it a lot right now. The brutality of the D&D 2nd edition rule set never gets old. 

BG1 holds up really well. That reminds me that I need to play Siege of Dragonspear and then do my Baldur's Gate II replay.

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9 hours ago, Werthead said:

BG1 holds up really well. That reminds me that I need to play Siege of Dragonspear and then do my Baldur's Gate II replay.

Dragonspear is honestly a lot of fun. Particularly if you enjoy exploring maps and just...looking at stuff. It's just good, AD&D 2E fun. And a lovely bit of effort by a team of ex-Bioware staff who wanted to make a loving bit of connective tissue between BG1 and BG2. 

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On 3/27/2021 at 12:31 PM, Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II said:

Debating on whether to get Horizon Zero Dawn. Is the writing and quests on par with The Witcher 3, Skyrim and the older Bioware games? 

It is decidedly not an RPG, so I don't think you should be comparing them.  It's an open world action/adventure game with a few role playing elements, stealth elements, a great story, and a surprisingly deep combat system.  It's one of my favorite games I've ever played, but it isn't anything like the games you mentioned.  I personally think it's a better overall game than either of those 2, but if you're going in expecting anything like one of those huge open world RPGs that are just littered with filler content, you will probably be disappointed.

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1 hour ago, aceluby said:

like one of those huge open world RPGs that are just littered with filler content, you will probably be disappointed.

As far as I'm concerned, the whole point of Elder Scrolls games is to have a huge open world province / world you can explore and do stuff in, most of it fully unrelated with the main quest, with plenty of remote dungeons and places that aren't even tied to any quest. Basically, what a MMO like WOW Vanilla or LOTRO Vanilla was.

At times, I struggle with myself, forcing me to be sensible and not to install TESO (or at the time, the Conan MMO). I'd really love to try them, but I already the above ones casually (say, 2 months a year split between both), so it would be the end of me and my single-player gaming.

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13 minutes ago, Clueless Northman said:

As far as I'm concerned, the whole point of Elder Scrolls games is to have a huge open world province / world you can explore and do stuff in, most of it fully unrelated with the main quest, with plenty of remote dungeons and places that aren't even tied to any quest. Basically, what a MMO like WOW Vanilla or LOTRO Vanilla was.

At times, I struggle with myself, forcing me to be sensible and not to install TESO (or at the time, the Conan MMO). I'd really love to try them, but I already the above ones casually (say, 2 months a year split between both), so it would be the end of me and my single-player gaming.

Yep, and while HZD does have some of those elements, it is very different.  The area to explore is smaller, the number of quests are fewer, pretty much everything ties back to the main quest, combat and stealth are very much the focus of missions, and it's much shorter in general.  I did every quest on my playthrough, and there's no way I'd have enough time to come close to finishing every quest in W3 or Skyrim.

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MechWarrior 5 picking up since I upgraded to 3 Medium Mechs and one single Light (although that's working well as a fast-moving PPC platform), and modded the game to upgrade the tonnage limit to 400 tons (which is effectively infinite, since Assault mechs are usually around 100 tons, and the Superheavy class is not in the game).

One thing that is annoying is the story progression system. So you have a reputation system and for each level you gain, you trigger a story mission. But levelling reputation is tough, and falls off the higher reputation you have. So if you're Reputation 6 and in a Reputation 5 zone, you'll get jack shit Reputation XP for completing missions (you'll need to complete ~20 missions to level up), but if you're Reputation 6 and in a Reputation 7 zone, you'll be curb stomped into fine powder (but if you grind out a victory, you'll get a lot more Reputation XP). The difficulty margins are really fine in the game.

The way around this is to follow special "Quest" missions which give you a lot more XP (maybe 20% of a single level in one go), but they're usually located a long way from your current area, which is both time-consuming and astronomically expensive, and if you just follow them around it becomes very expensive very quickly.

The slow-grinding out of Reputation does have a bonus though, that you get astronomical bonuses to mission completion rewards if you do all the jobs for the same faction, which soon has you drowning in cash, loot and able to buy new, cool mechs as soon as they appear. I'm currently on about 15 million C-Bills and rocketing up all the time.

6 hours ago, aceluby said:

It is decidedly not an RPG, so I don't think you should be comparing them.  It's an open world action/adventure game with a few role playing elements, stealth elements, a great story, and a surprisingly deep combat system.  It's one of my favorite games I've ever played, but it isn't anything like the games you mentioned.  I personally think it's a better overall game than either of those 2, but if you're going in expecting anything like one of those huge open world RPGs that are just littered with filler content, you will probably be disappointed.

I think it compares well to The Witcher 3, except that Horizon comes at it from an action-adventure angle and The Witcher 3 from an RPG angle and they're both meeting kind of in the middle (The Witcher 3, of course, gets a lot of shit about "not being a real RPG"). And both games actually eschew the Ubisoft style of jank filler content whilst having enough content to be impressively long (both over 60 hours).

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