Videogames 2023 pt. II: Can We patreon This Man an Alienware Already?

[Spockydog]

10 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

@Ran, following up with something I asked last month, you mentioned there being a possible issue with the USB port. What if the wireless mouse/keyboard was the issue? Is that also plausible? Because the new comp also seems to be getting slowed by something while the old one is working fine, and the only thing I can thing of is the mouse because it dies randomly from time to time. The only other time I charge on my comp is my phone and that's never seemed to be an issue (also charge the pods, but same deal). 

Also, what's a good price point for a new wireless set up? I haven't had to buy one in ages. Since I bought a gaming laptop I might as well use it. 

What antivirus/malware protection are you running?

If it's Norton or Mcafee, bin it and get eset.

[Ran]

Re: wireless USB dongle acting up, yeah, not impossible. 

Get a new set, they don't cost that much. Honestly, Logitech are pretty reliable, so I'd recommend one of theirs.

[Fez]

1 hour ago, Werthead said:

Yup, that's why I wanted to play Kingmaker first because I assumed the sequel would invalidate it. Also, Kingmaker is apparently half or less the length of the sequel, and I wanted something more containable first rather than the 100+ hour second game.

TBH, the length difference of the base games (excluding DLC) isn't that big. Kingmaker is an enormous game too, probably only 10% or so shorter than Wrath.

But it's worth playing first not only because it's hard to go back, systems-wise. But because its a much more low-stakes, traditional adventure. Whereas Wrath is an epic, fate-of-the-world adventure. Also, as a minor point, there is one character who is in both games, and their story is more satisfying having the context of Kingmaker.

[Tywin et al.]

1 hour ago, Spockydog said:

What antivirus/malware protection are you running?

If it's Norton or Mcafee, bin it and get eset.

McAfee comes with basically everything. I've just always used that, crazy as the founder is. 

[Spockydog]

Bin it. It is a dogshit resource hog. 

[Ran]

29 minutes ago, Spockydog said:

Bin it. It is a dogshit resource hog. 

Yep, what He says, Tywin. Windows defender is sufficient for most.

[Corvinus85]

1 hour ago, Tywin et al. said:

McAfee comes with basically everything. I've just always used that, crazy as the founder is. 

I've been using Malware Bytes for several years. I've had no issues.

[Spockydog]

14 minutes ago, Ran said:

Yep, what He says, Tywin. Windows defender is sufficient for most.

Unless you're streaming dodgy footy streams or viewing porn. In which case you'd be advised to add at least Malwarebytes to Windows Defender (Malwarebytes is awesome, btw).

But whatever you do, get rid of McAfee. It's an awful piece of software, every bit as obnoxious as its creator.

Also, uninstall all your pre-installed bloatware.

Edited April 23, 2023 by Spockydog

[Spockydog]

3 minutes ago, Corvinus85 said:

I've been using Malware Bytes for several years. I've had no issues.

[Tywin et al.]

8 minutes ago, Corvinus85 said:

I've been using Malware Bytes for several years. I've had no issues.

I'll certainly look into it, but McAfee has never been an issue for me. The problem my last laptop was having had nothing to do with it. I've got a new wireless keyboard coming and I'll see if that was the issue. 

[Gorn]

18 hours ago, Werthead said:

I'm a hardcore fan of Baldur's Gate and its sequel and the other Infinity Engine, but the mid-2010s revival of the genre was mostly a failure: Pillars of Eternity was meh, Torment: Tides of Numenera was boring and Divinity: Original Sini had fantastic gameplay and awful writing and plot (out of that revival, only really Tyranny was a great game).

If you haven't played them, I would strongly recommend the sequels of both Pillars of Eternity and Divinity: Original Sin, both are much better games than the originals. While I agree that Pillars 1 is meh, Pillars 2 is a work of art.

[Poobah]

Foolishly got myself sucked back in to Path of Exile. The game is more-or-less the same game I stopped playing several years ago, only moreso; it's very frustrating because it's a hair away from being the perfect game for me but the developers clearly have a vision for the balancing and reward systems that is targetted at the most hardcore grind niche along with some majorly rose-tinted nostalgia goggles for an era of gaming where it was acceptable to instantly kill the player without warning and penalise them heavily. While I do think there have been a number of improvements since I last played in terms of making later game content more accessible via the excellent new atlas passive tree and several new more deterministic game systems for targetting rewards and crafting all the talk seems to be about how they used to be much better but were nerfed repeatedly after the leagues that introduced them so that's a downer. Still the few dozen hours I played before I hit endgame were fun and engaging and I have several more character concepts I'd like to try (along with dozens I'll never be able to afford to play because of the game's horrible economy fomo/grinding/shopkeeper sim elements.

[Argonath Diver]

I still have a POE stream on my second monitor very often, even though I've mostly abandoned the game after many, many hours over the last decade. I did try out this new league and am really disappointed in the specific league content - which I've completely abandoned. There's an absurd amount of other stuff to specialize in, though, so I did enjoy it well enough. Alas, I usually make my second character my real endgame pusher, but I already grew bored and have quit the league. Don't think I'll play again til the POE 2 sequel/mega-expansion.

Even with a couple thousand hours in the game and many hundreds more idly watching the game in the background, I still have generally no idea what the hell is going on. There's simply too much and 'correct' gameplay is absurdly fast. I am also very bad at keeping track of boss mechanics, my own buffs and debuffs and still dps'ing - I'm just technically a crappy ARPG player even though it's my genre of choice. I still am casually playing D2, and if I find an excellent graphics card deal in the next 6 weeks, will surely buy D4 with the rest of the world.

[Fez]

Speaking of ARPGs, has anyone played Last Epoch? It's supposedly finally getting its 1.0 release sometime this year, after being in early access since 2019. It seems interesting. But the last time I got a lesser known ARPG it was Wolcen, which was not a good game, so I'm more cautious now.

[Argonath Diver]

The newest version .9 added multiplayer - which I am uninterested in. I did, though, progress to the endgame with two characters. It's quite fun once you commit to it for a bit. The item crafting feels terrific, with nice deterministic crafting but a lot of big RNG dice rolls if you want to try to really juice up your best items. The end game needs work. Monolith grinding feels very repetitive once your character is correctly geared. Seems to me there aren't enough endgame systems to keep me playing many hours for a season the way I have with my cherished ARPGs. I will absolutely be getting 1.0, though - I really like the general pace of combat and a nice carrot-on-a-string collection of items. Hoping for more compelling bosses and a revamp of the very promising Monolith endgame.

If you want to throw in a lot of hours to an ARPG while we wait for D4, I adore Grim Dawn, which has itemization nearly as complex as POE (minus the vast crafting options). GD has slower gameplay but a superb amount of lore, a very grimdark vibe throughout, and works great for just an extended playthrough, or something to sink many hours in. I've made dozens of endgame geared chars on it over the years and still come back sometimes, even though they're not adding content. There are exceptionally few bugs left, which is an underrated feature especially if you came from the ridiculously bad Wolcen. Man oh man did I hate that game. Permanently lost character from a bug had me about as tilted as any game has gotten me since Counter Strike bad deaths.

[IlyaP]

10 hours ago, Corvinus85 said:

I've been using Malware Bytes for several years. I've had no issues.

Seconding Malwarebytes here. Having used everything available under the sun, Malwarebytes is the most reliable, least memory intensive, and least bloated. Used to be, once upon a time, that AVG was the go-to program, but that thing just got to be too bloated and overly expensive as well.

[Arakasi]

Wrath of the Righteous is a great game. Almost done my first play through and put a ton of time into it. In act five now and my main character is ludicrously overpowered. (Level 40 trickster Legend Oracle Fighter) But also at the point where the challenge is gone (turns out 9-10 attacks a round with 90+ BAB, 50% crit rate, 500dmg crits, outflank/reflexes for mass attacks of opportunities, improved cleaving finish for chain kills, 70+ persuasion for repeated aoe intimidates, +60 to all saves) is a bit OP. I just move my mount into melee range of the most amount of enemies and attack and everyone dies) and I want to finish the game and move on to a new play through. Should just power through the last 2 dungeons now.

Edited April 24, 2023 by Arakasi

[Poobah]

22 hours ago, Argonath Diver said:

I did try out this new league and am really disappointed in the specific league content - which I've completely abandoned.

Oh yeah the current league is dogshit that'll allow 0.1% or less of the playerbase to make monstrously powerful things but which largely spits out crap items if you can beat a large pack of incredibly overpowered enemies that don't drop loot after wasting a bunch of time channelling in to a thingie for no good reason.

[IlyaP]

9 hours ago, Arakasi said:

Wrath of the Righteous is a great game. Almost done my first play through and put a ton of time into it. In act five now and my main character is ludicrously overpowered.

I wnat to love this game, but I keep hitting the same wall that I hit in the first game: there's a quasi-RTS, town building component to this game, that feels like a kind of narrative interruption, as I'm suddenly derailed from RPG gameplay to....something for which my brain is not remotely wired. And I can't navigate around it. It's rather frustrating. 

[Arakasi]

Well I’m a huge fan of the heroes of might and magic games so I enjoy it. It’s really not that hard and you only have to do it in some of the acts. Town building is only on two of the acts and is pretty easy to skip by that part. I actually like the narrative around the crusade though with the decrees as some good RP comes out of it and you can change the ending quite a bit by choices you make. Also it’s cool how the crusade options reflect the choices you make in your mythic path.

Anyway I just finished the Wenduag quest line and it was great. She was my romantic interest in the game and they did it really well. A++ for sure. One of the best characters and romances I’ve had in a game. I guess I should try Camellia next but *shudder*. Of course in that fight on turn one my hero did 7500 damage and killed like 12 enemies including the boss.