Videogames: The Sequeling

[Argonath Diver]

I think you guys will have a lot of fun. A lot of us that are hardcore ARPG players freely hate on D3 for the heaps and heaps of mistakes Blizzard made with it - mostly the atrocious approach to endgame content (Sets that give you 20,000% more damage to a skill... that's balanced, sure). But the actual moment to moment gameplay is really satisfying. Levelling up slowly through the campaign gives you a steady progression of new skill runes and that happy feeling when a unique drops. 

I actually never bought the Necro expansion, as it came out long after I'd become generally embittered with the game. At this point, I never will bother. I am still playing D2 (just this morning, levelling up an amazon), and am content to wait for D2R, and down the road D4 for my casual ARPG play and then eventually POE2 for my heroin-addiction, play 30 hours a week or you suck, brutal non-telegraphed one shots galore style of gameplay.

On the same level you're at, I'm considering a playthrough of Torchlight 2, which is silly fun, completely mindless but relatively satisfying for a campaign playthrough. I might even buy pirate try the demo for Torchlight 3, though it was universally panned.

[Jon AS]

So Pathfinder clearly has way too many character options for someone like me. I created about a dozen characters before finally (?) settling on a Sage Sorceror.

I like how the game starts out in a deliberately clichéd way, with the starting party meeting up because of a literal call to adventure.

On the other hand I'm not a fan of timers in a game that throws you into a massive, fairly open world to explore immediately after the prologue. I could also do without the food (and cooking?!) mechanics, though so far it hasn't seriously impacted the fun.

[Fez]

14 minutes ago, Jon AS said:

So Pathfinder clearly has way too many character options for someone like me. I created about a dozen characters before finally (?) settling on a Sage Sorceror.

I like how the game starts out in a deliberately clichéd way, with the starting party meeting up because of a literal call to adventure.

On the other hand I'm not a fan of timers in a game that throws you into a massive, fairly open world to explore immediately after the prologue. I could also do without the food (and cooking?!) mechanics, though so far it hasn't seriously impacted the fun.

I hate timers in games too. The good thing about Pathfinder is that all the timers in it are extremely generous. That first one is 90 days I think; I don't see how its possible, no matter how slow and thorough you are going, to take more than 30 days. Even if you were resting after every fight, which isn't remotely necessary, the timer shouldn't be an issue.

[Werthead]

Inevitably, the MechWarrior 5 DLC broke the mods. Some of the minor ones are being updated and should be fixed in the coming days, but surprisingly the really big one (Reloaded) is not being updated. One of the devs has broken off to do his own successor mod with a new team.

Also reports that the DLC has wiped people's cold storage files, and it's unclear if they can be recovered, so if you've been collecting hero mechs it's probably a good idea not to start a game until that's been fixed.

[kungtotte]

I kind of burned myself out on Valheim, I put 100 hours into it over the first 8-10 weeks of it hitting Early Access, playing strictly solo. Still haven't killed the last boss, I've been too busy tinkering with my base and building my longship and so on.

I'm also putting it off until the next milestone lands, while I haven't discovered everything yet it will feel better to start fresh on a new world with Home and Hearth I think than to go back and  continue my current run.

Still knee-deep in Battletech as well so that's occupying my time. I think I need to have a look around for some beefier mechs and/or better weaponry, because pushing three skull missions is just beyond my Lance's capability right now.

I've a Marauder 3D with PPCs and LL, an Archer LRM boat with 2xLRM20, a Griffin running MLs and SRM6s, and a Shadow Hawk with ML, SRM6s and an SRM4. The damage output is pretty good, but the medium mechs don't really have the staying power versus what I'm going up against. The Griffin in particular seems to be more prone to being destabilised. Might play around with swapping it for another medium, I've got tons of them.

[Werthead]

Wow. Sony are porting Uncharted 4 to PC and, according to rumour, the rest of the series in a remastered package (which will also launch on PS5). That's really giving away the keys to the kingdom.

After that, there's probably no upper limit on what games they'll port over. Bloodborne, Spider-Man, the new Last of Us remaster etc could all be on the way.

32 minutes ago, kungtotte said:

Still knee-deep in Battletech as well so that's occupying my time. I think I need to have a look around for some beefier mechs and/or better weaponry, because pushing three skull missions is just beyond my Lance's capability right now.

I've a Marauder 3D with PPCs and LL, an Archer LRM boat with 2xLRM20, a Griffin running MLs and SRM6s, and a Shadow Hawk with ML, SRM6s and an SRM4. The damage output is pretty good, but the medium mechs don't really have the staying power versus what I'm going up against. The Griffin in particular seems to be more prone to being destabilised. Might play around with swapping it for another medium, I've got tons of them.

The Griffin seems underpowered in BattleTech for some reason; you can't get a good one until the Royal Griffin variants start appearing near the end of the campaign. The Marauder 3D is good, but the 3R - or "Headshot Marauder" because of the massive headshot bonus to Precision Shot - is better. The Archer is a great LRM boat (until you can replace it with a Stalker, which can rock 4xLRM15). The Shadow Hawk is a very sturdy mech that can hold its own until surprisingly late in the game, but you are looking at probably needing to upgrade to a full Heavy Lance sooner rather than later (and be on the lookout for Assaults).

If you are getting lots of stability issues, remember that Vigilance removes all stability damage from one mech per round.

[kungtotte]

Yeah I have 2/3 Marauder 3R waiting for the third piece, several other heavies at 2/3 as well, pretty sure I have 1/3 on two assaults too. Just got to find those missing pieces.

Right now I'm running very much on a "best I can do at the moment" principle. Getting the Archer was a big jump in mission success rate, I had a Centurion with LRM 15/10/5 serving as my LRM boat prior to that and it was lacking a bit in firepower and a whole lot in survivability.

[Slurktan]

1 hour ago, Werthead said:

Wow. Sony are porting Uncharted 4 to PC and, according to rumour, the rest of the series in a remastered package (which will also launch on PS5). That's really giving away the keys to the kingdom.

After that, there's probably no upper limit on what games they'll port over. Bloodborne, Spider-Man, the new Last of Us remaster etc could all be on the way.

Bloodborne hopefully, it badly needs a remaster as the 30fps limit does not cut it on the PS5 and certainly would not on PC.  If they gave BB to the team that did the Demon's Souls Remake.......  well there is not a lot I wouldn't do for that.  BB to me is easily the best of FromSofts games (story, setting, gameplay, etc) and while I still can play it it is kinda ugly and sluggish now.

[briantw]

4 hours ago, kungtotte said:

I kind of burned myself out on Valheim, I put 100 hours into it over the first 8-10 weeks of it hitting Early Access, playing strictly solo. Still haven't killed the last boss, I've been too busy tinkering with my base and building my longship and so on.

My buddies and I got burnt out like two months ago.  We played the hell out of that game for about a straight month, built some truly cool bases and buildings, beat all the bosses, got the best armor, did some exploring of the unpopulated biomes, and then everyone just kind of quit at the same time. 

No idea if we'll be coming back to it once more updates hit.  I know my friend who bought our server saved our world data, so if we do come back we'll still have all of our bases and gear/supplies waiting for us.

[Werthead]

The first game still looks amazing, but this is some next level wizardry. The hologlider looks very cool and the robo-oliphant from LotR is epic (though maybe borderline copyright-troubling).

[Fez]

And 36 hours later I've beaten Baldur's Gate for the first time in I think 20 years. I guess 14 year old me was way better at video games, because some sort of those fights in Chapter 7 were rough and required significant cheesing. The one where you have to keep the two NPC Grand Dukes alive was particularly annoying, seemed to be pure chance whether they get wiped out immediately or not.

[Gorn]

9 hours ago, Fez said:

And 36 hours later I've beaten Baldur's Gate for the first time in I think 20 years. I guess 14 year old me was way better at video games, because some sort of those fights in Chapter 7 were rough and required significant cheesing. The one where you have to keep the two NPC Grand Dukes alive was particularly annoying, seemed to be pure chance whether they get wiped out immediately or not.

I must congratulate you, since I've never actually beaten Sarevok and his group. It would have been doable if he was alone, but his sidekicks were pretty tough too. I lost a bunch of times in a row, gotten frustrated, uninstalled the game and watched the ending on YouTube.

I also thought that the Durlag's Tower from the expansion was pure masochism, and I've never completed that either.

[Fez]

1 hour ago, Gorn said:

I must congratulate you, since I've never actually beaten Sarevok and his group. It would have been doable if he was alone, but his sidekicks were pretty tough too. I lost a bunch of times in a row, gotten frustrated, uninstalled the game and watched the ending on YouTube.

I also thought that the Durlag's Tower from the expansion was pure masochism, and I've never completed that either.

I absolutely cheesed it after getting wrecked a few times. I kept my party at the back of the room and sent Kaigan up by himself to trigger Sarevok's dialog. As soon as I was in control again I moved Kaigan to the back of the room. My hope was that Sarevok would follow by himself and his buddies up there with him would stay behind since I'm pretty sure they weren't on screen yet when the dialog triggered. 

But it worked even better than that. Sarevok didn't chase me at all, so I got to battle his other buddies that show up in the back of the room by themselves. After they were dead I was still technically in combat, so I couldn't save or rest. But no one was near me, so I healed everyone up and buffed up again and finally equipped all my rarest most expensive ammo on my ranged characters. And then charged forward, which did mean fighting the whole dais group; but that was pretty easy at this point since I wasn't getting hit from behind. I just focus fired on Sarevok, and he died pretty quick. And the game ends as soon as he's dead, so I didn't need to worry about finishing off the of his group.

I don't remember if this was my strategy way back when or what happened anymore. I'm pretty sure I had grinded to the level cap though, whereas this time I was just level 7, so that may have made a difference.

[Werthead]

4 hours ago, Gorn said:

I must congratulate you, since I've never actually beaten Sarevok and his group. It would have been doable if he was alone, but his sidekicks were pretty tough too. I lost a bunch of times in a row, gotten frustrated, uninstalled the game and watched the ending on YouTube.

I also thought that the Durlag's Tower from the expansion was pure masochism, and I've never completed that either.

I only completed the Tower in the Enhanced Edition run, because the level cap is removed (or much higher) so you can go in there after grinding each map screen and smash it.

With Sarevok I launched a flurry of fireballs before even triggering his dialogue; the first fireball triggered his dialogue but did a lot of damage to the whole group and by the time they were a threat in combat I'd already depleted their hit points.

The First Rule of the Infinity Engine games is equip everyone with missile weapons at all times and just go around wailing on everyone with missile fire and magic. Usually by the time the enemy get into melee range they're already half-dead.

[Werthead]

Far Cry 6 looks like adequate fun, after the WTF bizarrity of FC5. The weaponised Macarena CDs and alligator companion suggest they're leaning even further in the direction of Just Cause-style whacky hijinks.

[Toth]

35 minutes ago, Werthead said:

The weaponised Macarena CDs and alligator companion suggest they're leaning even further in the direction of Just Cause-style whacky hijinks.

I feel like it is so very much like Ubisoft to change their main franchises into other publisher's games to ape their success.

So Far Cry is now off-brand Just Cause.

The Crew is now off-brand Forza Horizon.

Assassin's Creed is now off-brand The Witcher.

Also Ghost Recon and The Division in addition to the above have become absurdly monetized open world games with leveling and loot systems. They have all turned into the same, somehow. XD

[kungtotte]

My Battletech campaign is progressing nicely. Got my hands on a MAD-3R, ONI-1K, STK-3F, and ARC-2R so I'm rolling heavy now.

The basic idea for the Lance is the Stalker and Archer pack LRM-15s and LRM-20s respectively, the Marauder runs AC2s and MLs, and the Orion has a mix with AC10, ML, and LRM5s.

I'm looking around for UAC2 and ERMLs for the Marauder to really turn it into a headshot bot. Most of my weapons are the plain versions, couple of ++ here and there so I'm generally looking to upgrade them across the board.

The basic idea is to walk the Orion up (max armour) to scout by tanking, knock people on their ass with the LRM boats, and then bore a hole through their skulls with the Marauder. I've run a handful of missions since getting this Lance together and it's easy as pie so far.

[Werthead]

1 hour ago, kungtotte said:

My Battletech campaign is progressing nicely. Got my hands on a MAD-3R, ONI-1K, STK-3F, and ARC-2R so I'm rolling heavy now.

The basic idea for the Lance is the Stalker and Archer pack LRM-15s and LRM-20s respectively, the Marauder runs AC2s and MLs, and the Orion has a mix with AC10, ML, and LRM5s.

I'm looking around for UAC2 and ERMLs for the Marauder to really turn it into a headshot bot. Most of my weapons are the plain versions, couple of ++ here and there so I'm generally looking to upgrade them across the board.

The basic idea is to walk the Orion up (max armour) to scout by tanking, knock people on their ass with the LRM boats, and then bore a hole through their skulls with the Marauder. I've run a handful of missions since getting this Lance together and it's easy as pie so far.

Nice. The Stalker is a very impressive missile boat. Not sure I'd run two missile boats because of the AI's love of getting up close and personal, but until you start getting more Assaults (particularly the Royal Highlander and Royal Atlas II) it's a very formidable lance.

[Werthead]

MechWarrior 5 mods update: Better Spawns is being updated and apparently should be up tomorrow, which is a relief. It's the only 100% "essential" mod I'd say. Tonnage Limit is almost as required, but you can get around it by only accepting max difficulty missions (which should be 400t anyway). 3D HUD is a while off, unfortunately, and apparently the AI mods have been integrated - more or less - into the base game.

The default HUD is functional and usable, but it's a shame because the 3D HUD is so much better.

[Luzifer's right hand]

Well I pulled the trigger on the enhanced edition of Metro Exodus. Looking really good I must say and runs pretty smoothly with RTX on a RTX 3080. I disabled DLSS though as I still find that it makes things look worse(but maybe only on a 35" 3440*1440 screen).