Videogames: All Valves on Deck

[Corvinus85]

Releasing a game about surviving an ice age in the middle of summer. Classic.

 

[Werthead]

19 hours ago, Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II said:

Still making my way through Act 3 of Baldurs gate 3 and have put in nearly 150 hours into it by now….dunno how you guys finished it in less than 100 hours, this is a massive,massive game! On par with Witcher 3

I finished it in 102 hours, which is about 20 hours more than The Witcher 3 (and both expansions). I was relatively exhaustive but not leaving-every-stone-left-unturned exhaustive.

[Werthead]

Excellent news! Coming to PC on May 16th.

 

[Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II]

5 hours ago, Werthead said:

I finished it in 102 hours, which is about 20 hours more than The Witcher 3 (and both expansions). I was relatively exhaustive but not leaving-every-stone-left-unturned exhaustive.

Haha I finished Witcher 3 with both expansions in 210 hours….your either really good at these games and just blitzing through them or skipping a lot of side content. I take my time with RPGs, never skipping dialogue,reading everything and going for a completionist playthrough. 
 

I wish ghosts of tsushima was a RPG, I really don’t like the console-type action adventure third person open world games. Reminds me a lot of an Ubisoft game also.

 

Interesting to see how Sony of all companies has woken up to the fact that the PC exists finally,with these last few years with all these console games coming there. 

Edited March 7 by Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II

[Toth]

Okay, that was a costly bunch of turns in BSG Deadlock. I guess I just have still far too many Manticores flying around and not enough Battlestars to go out and hold the line. First I did an optional mission with one of my Helios Alpha fleets that had four Manticores and ran into a large fleet of massed Talons that focused fire and destroyed three of them, completely ignoring my Adamants.

And now I did the, admittedly, very stupid thing of playing a story mission, attacking a Cylon Fleet above Sagittaron that is responsible for a chemical attack on the planet, with a fresh fleet with a green commanding officer. My fleet only consisted of an Artemis, two Adamants and one Manticore. The enemy fleets consisted of two Revenants, two Arachnes, two Nemesis, at least one Talon... and on top of that you get attacked by Sagittarians with two Manticores and two Adamants. My first attempt was an utter disaster, with the Revenants focusing fire and destroying one Adamant in one turn, leaving me utterly crippled. I was considering loading my last save and use the Daedalos fleet with all the experienced heavy hitters, but now I thought I try it again, placing my fleet as far back as possible from the Cylons, hoping to let the Sagittarians fight the Cylons. That... didn't work too well. The Cylons made a beeline for me and the Sagittarians only managed to pick off one Talon from what I saw in the replay, then just dicked around in the background until I was finished with the Cylons. Blargh. I however this time had a lot of luck that the toasters in charge of the Revenants suffered a stroke or something and turned away from me. They were probably thinking the Sagittarian Manticores were easier pickings, however that meant they didn't fire too many salvos at my Adamants and I was free to fire at their engines. However... the Sagittarian Adamants were still utterly silly. They focused fire on my one Adamant that was already stripped from all its armor because of the battle with the Cylons, then focused fire on my other Adamant (the Manticore was already destroyed by the Cylons) and destroyed that one as well. I only had my battlestar (and the four fighter squadrons) left when they went for a pincer attack with two Manticores and I was confused why I couldn't really fire at both of them at the same time. However it forced me to go left and right constantly with the flak in order to intercept their missiles. Still one of the Manticores made a suicide run ramming into my Battlestar, causing heavy damage. In the end I somehow managed to hold out long enough to destroy the last Adamant and get the victory, but the Battlestar Jupiter had its armor on both sides stripped and only 16 hull points left.

And... just like you, @Werthead, I couldn't record the damn battle and only got a 0 Byte file out of it. Crap. Only got the battle report: https://i.imgur.com/potVqtP.png

I now have to get this Battlestar and its tough crew through the war! Destroying 5 ships and inflicting 500 damage in its second mission! But damn... I can't loose so many ships. I need to be more patient and focus on defense for a while.

[Werthead]

Excellent video on the OG Dune.

I forgot this was never released on GoG. I still have my old CD-ROM and, bizarrely, it still works fine.

 

[Derfel Cadarn]

12 hours ago, Werthead said:

Excellent video on the OG Dune.

I forgot this was never released on GoG. I still have my old CD-ROM and, bizarrely, it still works fine.

 

I loved Dune 2 (a RTS) on the Amiga. I played Harkonnen and woukd send a mass of tanks to flank the enemy base, sacrificing them to breach the enemy base defences. Then a second wave, once ready, woukd finish them off

[Toth]

Fucking Revenants. Why don't the Cylons start using Basestars instead of these damned gunships? I can take the fighters and the Basestars, but loosing your flagship Battlestar from full health to death in one turn because three Revenants bee-line towards it instantly is just no fun at all. And leveling officers is a pain. Had this happen in a story mission I attempted twice and both times with the same outcome. Still won, but got horrific casualties.

Also learned yesterday that I being constantly in max aggressive stance is pretty much always preferable because of the insane range boost it gives your ships. So far I actually played all my battles on Def+1 because I thought it increases my staying power, but given how useless repairs become when the Cylons bring in the big hitters and it's all about focusing down their gunships before they mess you up, the reach is desperately needed. I only switch my Battlestars into defensive posture in turns they have their flak up, while using the intervening intervals going ham at them. Admittedly, after spending the first five turns making frantic dives because the suckers almost always spawn far below me and Artemis classes can only fire upwards. This has made battles much easier, since I now don't have to fight everything at knife-fight range anymore and can just circle the Cylons with my flak up and my Adamants on max aggressive posture.

Unfortunately doesn't help much against those bloody Revenants. For that reason I'm experimenting with Minotaurs and Rangers. The Ranger-class seems rather situational. I always have my Artemis/Adamant stack, with the Rangers now sitting far behind and above to the side, trying to shoot rockets past the flak screen. This works when the Cylon fleets are spread out, but not when they are a massive blob going straight into my flak line. Then the Ranger just kind of sits there uselessly. Not to mention it can't help against the Revenants because they are always the vanguard doing the aggressive shit. Therefore I am starting to put more Minotaurs into my fleet, which I so far try to use in place of my Manticores, which... is not very effective... I guess they are better with broadsides from below like the Adamant than using the forward guns like the Revenants do? In that case I guess I have to use them in place of the Adamants instead...

But seriously, I just wish the Cylons would use Basestars and carriers instead. Vipers are so overpowered, in the last story mission where you defend a Basestar that wants to negotiate with the Colonials, my vipers cleared out the entire fighter complement of two Cerberus carriers and a couple of Talons in 2-3 turns. That was easy. But mostly because the Cylons only had one Revenant.

[Werthead]

It makes sense: Basestars are carriers and carriers only. They launch a ton of Raiders and then fire off missile barrages, but that's all they're good for. After that they are just big targets. It's the job of the Basestar escorts to finish you off with their big guns.

EA have released the C&C Ultimate Collection on Steam, which now means people can properly play Red Alert 2, Command & Conquer: Generals, Zero Hour and C&C3 and its expansion on modern systems, which are probably the three best C&C games. Mods aren't working at the moment though, including the widescreen and HD mods, so it might be wise to hold fire until they come back online. Hopefully not more than a few days.

Edited March 9 by Werthead

[Toth]

3 hours ago, Werthead said:

It makes sense: Basestars are carriers and carriers only. They launch a ton of Raiders and then fire off missile barrages, but that's all they're good for. After that they are just big targets. It's the job of the Basestar escorts to finish you off with their big guns.

Sure! And that's exactly why I'd want the AI to use them instead of ships that actually complement its "Attack! Attack! Attack!" strategy.^^

 

Huh. The C&C bundle is actually somewhat neat... I have most of the games in their, but am lacking the addons to C&C3 and Generals as well as Red Alert 3 and those are impossible to find separately.

[Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II]

Played the first few hours of DOS2, enjoying it so far with the Red Lizard guy being my favourite character for now. Chose Ifan as the playable origin character. I’m fine with no cinematic cutscenes but I do wish they had added in lip syncing to complement the excellent voice acting as it’s basically the same engine as BG3. When I zoom in the camera for npcs to talk it’s a bit jarring not to see their lips move. That kind of simple syncing won’t require facial capture. In fact it’s present in character creation but not in the main game weirdly enough

[IlyaP]

You may notice the music sounds a bit familiar, as Slavov created a sonic landscape for DOS2 after taking over for Kirill Pokrovsky (DOS1 composer), and many of the ideas, leitmotifs, progressions, and structures carried over from DOS2 into BG3. 

[Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II]

25 minutes ago, IlyaP said:

You may notice the music sounds a bit familiar, as Slavov created a sonic landscape for DOS2 after taking over for Kirill Pokrovsky (DOS1 composer), and many of the ideas, leitmotifs, progressions, and structures carried over from DOS2 into BG3. 

Yep the music and the visuals are top notch. The combat is also okay so far, the fact that I can heal anytime outside of combat without using supplies or going to camp is great actually. How do I progress character relations though ? Can we sleep at all in the game ?

[IlyaP]

You can't romance everyone, and the "sex scenes" are basically narrated in-game, and they are all achieved by selecting the right dialogue prompts.

And you will want to sleep to heal. Steal a few bedrolls, as they're portable health kits, basically.

[Werthead]

21 hours ago, Toth said:

Sure! And that's exactly why I'd want the AI to use them instead of ships that actually complement its "Attack! Attack! Attack!" strategy.^^

Hit some difficulty spikes in the DLC missions, mainly due to the enemy spawning a lot of Revenants and Arachnae that make the old standby tactics not as effective, so I've resorted to the "if nothing else works, cheese," approach. Namely running away from the main enemy force, so they get strung out in a line behind you, and simply use your fighters to annihilate everything whilst your capitals stay safely out of engagement range (and as your fighters expose enemy ships on the radar, your caps can lob missiles at them). It's cheap, but it works.

[Werthead]

On 3/8/2024 at 10:06 AM, Toth said:

And... just like you, @Werthead, I couldn't record the damn battle and only got a 0 Byte file out of it. Crap. Only got the battle report: https://i.imgur.com/potVqtP.png

I worked out the recorder cannot handle 4K, so I set it to "half resolution" and then it recorded fine.

[Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II]

Is final fantasy remake a good starting point for someone who’s never played JRPGs (except fire emblem and Pokémon) ? 

[IlyaP]

It's a different generation/style of JRPG. Like, it's good I guess if you want to get a feel for where they differ from a US rpg. 

A good midway point to give one a feel of the best of both worlds is Anachronox, but if you're going to dive into that world and want to get a taste of the classic games that defined the genre for many gamers and developers alike, Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy 6 ought to be at the top of your list.

[Werthead]

3 hours ago, Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II said:

Is final fantasy remake a good starting point for someone who’s never played JRPGs (except fire emblem and Pokémon) ? 

Yes, but which one is a really big question. FF15 and 16 are the newest, but they're also more action games lacking some of the classic FF gameplay. But you might find 1-9 a bit too old-fashioned. 10 and 12 are in the middle and sort of bridge the classic gameplay with the modern, but they're not the best games in the series from a story or character POV. FF7 Remake is solid enough.

15 minutes ago, IlyaP said:

It's a different generation/style of JRPG. Like, it's good I guess if you want to get a feel for where they differ from a US rpg. 

A good midway point to give one a feel of the best of both worlds is Anachronox, but if you're going to dive into that world and want to get a taste of the classic games that defined the genre for many gamers and developers alike, Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy 6 ought to be at the top of your list.

I was literally talking to someone about Anachronox. One of the most overlooked games of all time, fantastic story and characters, really funny, and I remain convinced to this day that BioWare "borrowed" a lot of Anachronoxs ideas for Knights of the Old Republic. The similarity in feel, setting and sometimes plot is a bit eyebrow-raising.

Edited March 12 by Werthead

[Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II]

Yeah i was referring to the new final fantasy trilogy that Square has been working on - Remake and Rebirth. They seem like a good starting point. Not gonna play 20+ year old games guys, i only do that for KoToR replays

Edited March 12 by Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II