Blog Your Current Game

[bomberfox]

I played project wingman in VR. I loved it.

 

[bomberfox]

Before that i played ori and the will of the wisps after beating the first game. The motion and how your character has more environmental awareness makes it an excellent platformer. When you reach a wall you dont just bump into it, Ori actually looks like he realizes theres a wall and props his hands against it, little stuff like that.

 

[jmotivator]

Another Urtuk post, this is final observations as I enter the home stretch, and observations on games in general that Urtuk left me pondering...

So what I thought was the last map was not the last map. There is a 4th map. I was both pleasantly surprised AND somewhat weary of this discovery.

I was pleased because I like the game very much, and more game isn't bad.. but I will admit to a bit of Urtuk fatigue setting in by the time I defeated the level 3 boss. THough "fatigue" might not be the right word since I was fully planning on starting a new campaign upon completion to maximize what I learned through the first play through, using different soldiers. The "fatigue" came from the fact that I had finalized my team build by about midway through map 3, and there was little chance I would be able to improve. Most of the prep for the end of map 3 was leveling up main stats to improve DPS and survivability.

So not on map 4 I'm not really improving. It is more like a victory lap. That being said, I haven't found the end boss yet, so I will know more about what I have in store when I find them. I can kind of guess, though.. everything points to an endless-waves boss which is kind of my weakness, but I'm too far along to change that now, really.

Anyway, this game would have been perfectly paced if it ended at map 3. Your team would reach the peak of power, and maximized their builds just before the Map 3 boss fight. You have seen every enemy unit (save bosses) by then, every weapon, every mutator, every everything. The only thing that map 4 adds is a higher rate at dropping end game mithril gear, which is only really useful if to want to start regearing to mithril, but so far it hasn't seemed like much of an upgrade if you already have maxed map 3 gear with the bonuses that work for your build.

But I will find the end boss, lose to endless waves, and then be resigned to re-gearing to defeat them... only THEN can I start over with a more focused, perfected squad.

 

[Grandpappy]

Call of Duty WWII on sale at Humble Bundle for $24. Picked it up tonight. 72 gig down load. Runs like butta, let Geforce Experience optimize the graphics settings. Real good graphics, the people look real. I've been killed a few times so far, but I'd do better without drinking beer. :lol:

 

[Mr Person]

How to fail:

A disease was brought home by another family member. After getting roughly 20 minutes work done in 2h, I decided to work..later. I fire up Diablo III. First time in about....3 years? 2 years? I dunno. I burnt out around GR71 a seasonal char, and never really went back.

No season is on right now. Ok. Create a normal char. But I take advantage of my stash.....after all, I've got a bunch of chars and am ~ para 830. But I fly up to lvl 33 in an hour, and it's stupid. Ok, break all that gear down, restash gems, delete the char. (Full char slots). Go to create a hardcore wizard. But I have one, lvl 61. Spend 40is min bringing up up to 64. But then I go to a rift, think nothing more is coming after clearing things out, and go get water.

Come back: he's dead, you flaming idiot. Fine. Started a new Wizard.

#Failure




At this point, the only thing I can consider maybe being interested by is seasonal or hardcore. Seasonal, because you start from scratch - it's too damn boring to start with all those gems and para points. Hardcore, because you are properly penalized for being a dumbass.

Looks like I"m gonna buy Diablo IV when it's out. I just won't get sucked in as much. I don't have the time or energy to care about being very powerful anymore.

 

[jmotivator]

On to "playing" Outrider. This game launch is, like all other game launches... rough. Servers are up and down. Pretty stable this morning so I got some time in it.

It plays a lot like The Division with magic. It scratches my looter shooter itch.

It's very difficult early on, though, until you get a lucky drop that works with your build.

Some good stuff for a looter shooter:

1) Replayable missions. Sure it breaks continuity to grind the same mission over and over, but you can if you want for better drops.
2) The map CAN level as you play it, but you can also turn that on and off as you like. Essentially, when you "level" a world, the next difficulty unlocks. If you turn off the auto switching you can stay in the difficulty you are in. If you leave it on auto the enemies and rewards will increase.
3) I like the setting, even if it looks mysteriously like a Destiny makeover.

Bad stuff:

1) Cover Shooters are always a pain with their magnetic cover that you can easily get stuck to and this game is no different.
2) So far the game has been moving from one Paint Ball arena to the next with the occasional boss fight.
3) Enemies can see through walls and bosses can cast spells on you through walls. This is mitigated a bit by the fact that you can also cast through walls.
4) They REALLY need to rework the ammo system. Some weapons are utterly worthless because they are tied to ammo caps for the weapon type.. for instance: Auto Shotguns. In theory they seem great for short range... but the "shotgun" class is limited to 24 rounds because, in shooter balancing dogma, the shotgun does a lot of damage so they limit the rounds... except that the Auto shotgun does half (or less) damage per round... so auto shotguns delete your shotgun ammo in one clip, or maybe 10 seconds.

#4 might be mitigated with some close quarters class... maybe, but all the other weapons seem to make sense with all the classes I have tried, and the auto shotgun makes no sense for any of them.

All told, so far it's fun when the servers are up.

 

[OrphanSlug]

Not long ago I bought Dyson Sphere Project from Steam from a friend recommendation for builder, manufacturing, research and advancement style game.

And it has been nothing short of spectacular. Fair to note that I am more of a FPS gamer, ARMA or Battlefield type game, but for a casual yet strategic builder this got my attention.

Even for early access it is bug free, no issues during game play or saves or all the alpha version usual suspects, graphics are amazing yet not system taxing, easy to navigate and understand UI, the works.

A few screenshots of my actual gameplay:



Solid 9.5 of 10 game before we are even at the final retail release version. I'd highly recommend to anyone who enjoys this sort of game.

 

[ASHES]

I'm about 250 hours into Pillars of Eternity. I've been to about 80% of the locations in the base game, but it feels like I'm just starting to get a clue about what's going on in the main story and who the antagonist is. The locations are varied, and fast travel is fine so I don't mind all the backtracking you have to do. I'm never bored, there's always something new and interesting to investigate. No idea how long the main quest will take me, but I do every side quest and task I come upon, and fully explore each new area before moving on. Then there's 2 expansions I think, which are included in the version I have.

 

[ASHES]

Call of Duty WWII on sale at Humble Bundle for $24. Picked it up tonight. 72 gig down load. Runs like butta, let Geforce Experience optimize the graphics settings. Real good graphics, the people look real. I've been killed a few times so far, but I'd do better without drinking beer. :lol:

The action in that one was fun, and the graphics if you could max it out, are amazing even 1080p 60fps. But I don't think they nailed the tone or reverence of the first two games of the subject matter, it felt more like completing a Band of Brothers or similar checklist of ww2. Nothing in COD has surpassed the first time I crossed the Volga, although COD 4 came close.

 

[jmotivator]

I'm playing the Pyromancer class in Outrider, and it kind of highlights how the game is kind of fundamentally broken... but not necessarily in a bad way. It's kind of fun finding unbalanced mechanics and exploiting them for fun and profit.

There is a skill that you get fairly early on that has a medium range, and sets your target on fire. If the target dies while burning they explode. So far so good...

The Base damage of the skill is like 50 HP to the target plus a tick of 5 points. It's enough to give you a nice head start on killing them, and if you do, they blowed up real good.

BUT, there is an item mod that adds damage at both ends of the spell... early levels the mod adds 100 damage to initial hit and to the explosion damage at the end. This is significant because most enemies at that level have less than the 150 HP of the initial hit, meaning that when you hit them they just blow up. You can quickly eliminate tight groups with one shot. But wait, that isn't even the broken part...

As a Pyromancer you heal based on the damage you deal with your fire skills. If you hit a target who blows up and kills another target, that is equivalent of a full heal. So massive CC, mega heal... but that isn't why it is broke either...

You see, as with most spells in the game, you don't need line of sight to cast it. You don't even need to register that a unit is there. You pound the ground, and a fire ripple traverses walls, doors, and barricades and tags the first unit it finds. You don't even need to really target it, it homes in if you fire in the general direction. You cast, and people explode, and you heal to full.

It's stupidly over powered and fun, is what I'm saying.

If they implement PvP that skill is going to get nerfed all to hell though. My current build had a buffed base damage of 500 when the average enemy is 300 HP, and they do 600-900 damage when they explode. I've defeated bossed by blowing up their henchmen. Like I said, FUN!

 

[Redress]

Not long ago I bought Dyson Sphere Project from Steam from a friend recommendation for builder, manufacturing, research and advancement style game.

And it has been nothing short of spectacular. Fair to note that I am more of a FPS gamer, ARMA or Battlefield type game, but for a casual yet strategic builder this got my attention.

Even for early access it is bug free, no issues during game play or saves or all the alpha version usual suspects, graphics are amazing yet not system taxing, easy to navigate and understand UI, the works.

A few screenshots of my actual gameplay:

View attachment 67326385View attachment 67326386

Solid 9.5 of 10 game before we are even at the final retail release version. I'd highly recommend to anyone who enjoys this sort of game.

Is that the solar panel around the equator thing? Never actually done it as by the time I need that much power, there are other solutions kinda thing, but a cool concept.

 

[OrphanSlug]

Is that the solar panel around the equator thing? Never actually done it as by the time I need that much power, there are other solutions kinda thing, but a cool concept.

It is. I saw it somewhere in the steam forums and built it... just cause. What I accidentally found by making that is every bit of coal on the planet can go towards production of something else. None needed for power at all.

In more practical terms I have found that a main bus line moving all the materials around the planet to more concentrated manufacturing locations seemed the better idea.

It just takes forever.

 

[ecofarm]

Dark Souls 3. Pvp. PS4. Feel free to send a PM if you play.

 

[Redress]

It is. I saw it somewhere in the steam forums and built it... just cause. What I accidentally found by making that is every bit of coal on the planet can go towards production of something else. None needed for power at all.

In more practical terms I have found that a main bus line moving all the materials around the planet to more concentrated manufacturing locations seemed the better idea.

It just takes forever.

I have found a mini bus(just as long as my mall) is essential. My first couple runs bogged down into tearing things apart and rebuilding it multiple times due to spaghetti.

I might briefly use one coal deposit for power, but I tend to go from wind to oil to hydrogen to ray receivers and hydrogen(just to use up hydrogen). Once you get a few thousand solar sails up(which is still early game) and ray receivers at both poles of each planet, power is mostly a nonissue.

Also, have you played Satisfactory?

 

[OrphanSlug]

I have found a mini bus(just as long as my mall) is essential. My first couple runs bogged down into tearing things apart and rebuilding it multiple times due to spaghetti.

I might briefly use one coal deposit for power, but I tend to go from wind to oil to hydrogen to ray receivers and hydrogen(just to use up hydrogen). Once you get a few thousand solar sails up(which is still early game) and ray receivers at both poles of each planet, power is mostly a nonissue.

Also, have you played Satisfactory?

I *just* purchased that yesterday. 1st person, odds animal things running around, some do not like me at all, I have a learning curve to get through.

 

[Redress]

I *just* purchased that yesterday. 1st person, odds animal things running around, some do not like me at all, I have a learning curve to get through.

I find it alot of fun though. Of course, I really like resource chain builders.

 

[jmotivator]

Played a lot of Outrider this weekend, and I am enjoying it quite a bit... but I'm not sure I should feel good about that? Let me explain...

Outriders is essentially the core of Looter Shooter with pretty much nothing else. It does all the things that you demand from a Looter Shooter, and nothing else.

You want to be able to grind high drop rate missions over and over and over before you even finish the main story? Cool, they got you.

You hate the extremely low odds loot grind and want to craft the perfect gear? Cool, they got you.

You have the perfect gear set for your play style and want to just upgrade the level of the gear as you play? Cool, they got you.

You want to be able to roll back difficulty on the fly when a mission gets too difficult? Cool, they got you.

And the story is cool, the skills are cool, and you feel like the super hero you are supposed to be in the game setting. But....

They game feels like a sort of Pokemon for Skill mods. When you find a piece of gear with a mod you need, you can deconstruct it for materials and a chance to add that skill mod to your library of mods. The mods in your library can be added to any piece of gear that will except it, with the only real caveat being that you can only make one mod slot variable (any other mod slots become locked), but you can change it out as often as you want.

End result: I was having trouble with a mission this morning until I realized that I haven't increased the level of my gear for a while, and it was about 4 levels behind the curve. I went back to the crafting bench, raised all my gear to the current enemy level, swapped out a mod that I had accidentally left for a skill I no longer used, swapped by main weapon's variable mod slot to a new mod I found that better suited my build, and then went back to the mission and destroyed everyone without breaking a sweat.

It is Min/Max made easy. I will reach a point well before the final boss where my Gear/mod combo will be perfected, at which point I will just be leveling to keep it competitive.

Will the game get boring by then? There is better than no chance that that will happen. It happened in Cyberpunk 2077 when my Smart Weapon build came together and everything just died. It's fun for a while... but the fun seems to wear off.

So I've learned something about myself... if I were ever to become Superman I would eventually get bored out of my mind.

MAJOR CAVEAT: The game tracks your ability to play the game and levels the World Tier on the fly, I just realized this morning that when you die you lose a LOT of progress towards your next world tier level.. so my gear grinding has me stuck at world tier 6 because I didn't really care about dying. In fact, dying is one of the "cheats" for gear grinding. THe cheat is you kill the level boss first, then let the minions kill you and Poof! You reload at the boss fight, ready to fight again. Doing that has left me stuck at Tier 6.... so the game WILL get harder.

 

[Redress]

Evil Genius 2: I usually hate cut scenes as I find they take me out of playing the game. If I want to watch TV, I will just watch TV. In EG2, I find myself looking forward to the cut scenes as they are both hilarious, and take me away from what is sadly a kinda boring game.

The building aspect of the game is not terrible, but everything else is just tedium. It is Dungeon Keeper, but without the fun gameplay. But the humor is fantastic. They even make fun of the tutorial:

 

[Mr Person]

Man, power creep via sets/items has gotten ridiculous in D3.

I was out of commission (at least in terms of doing any serious mental work) for several days, hence I fired up D3, hence the accidental suiciding of the hardcore characters I posted out. It just so happened that the next season was starting up the next day, so for the first time in 2-3 years, I made a new seasonal char. Demon Hunter.

I wanted to give marauder's set another go. Way, way back, I'd gotten a DH up to GR71 before getting utterly sick of the whole GR schtick (at that point in the game, the only thing it makes any sort of sense to do).

With only four parts of marauder set (demon hunter), I was already in T6. I got my next two. Bam. Fly up to T13. I was very glass cannon-y, but then a couple of other things dropped that I'd forgotten about. Zoey's secret (8.1% damage reduction across the board per active companion; marauder's gives you all companions, so 32.4% damage reduction across the board), plus Wraps of Clarity (42% damage reduction for five seconds after using a hatred generator - all you need to do is remember to fire one off ever several seconds in combat). Yang's recurve (nearly doubles multi-shot damage; meanwhile maurauders gives you 12,000% damage increase for each turret you have down. Standard is two. A passive can give you three. Do the math).

The powers in my cube are just placeholders. They help, but much better stuff will end up in there. I don't have a cubed RoRG yet, so no room for a good second set. No focus/restraint (50% increase after a hatred-generator for 5 seconds, and another 50% damage increase after a hatred-spender....dovetails perfectly with the wraps). Etc.



Without even really trying I'll probably end up in GR90...maybe 100. Eh. Hopefully D4 goes in new directions because this sort of thing can only hold my attention so long. Especially when it's bringing characters up I enjoy most. End-game grind gets pointless quickly. And the way things are now looks like they want to catapult you into that endgame.

I mean, I'm para 414 already. I do a GR around the vicinity of T13 difficulty, and I get five or six par levels just from the turn-in reward. It's stupid.

 

[jmotivator]

So I have established the pretty simple progression mechanic in Outrider, that isn't a brag... I was actually really slow on the uptake. For those interested, here is the formula for advancing in Outrider:

First, the ground rules:

*World Difficulty Levels are earned by defeating enemies in your highest unlocked world level.

*Each new world Level increases the enemy levels, as well as equipment drop level by +1 after world tier 3

*So, if you are level 20 in World Tier 7, your opponents are level 24, and the gear they drop will also be level 24

*Gear Crafting caps are the max gear level of the world tier you are crafting in.

*Power of enemies and gear increase logarithmically, not linearly. As you progress the jump in enemy power gets greater.

*You can only lose world tier progress in the highest world tier you have unlocked

Knowing all of this now, the level grind is pretty easy.

Step 1) On hitting a new World tier level, immediately drop world tier back to previous level
Step 2) Find a boss fight that you are comfortable with and farm the crap out of it for better gear, resources and mod unlocks
Step 3) Take all of your loot and set the world tier back to maximum
Step 4) Upgrade all of your gear to the max level of the latest world tier
Step 5) Grind out the new world tier with your max gear
Step 6) When you achieve the new world tier unlock, start back at Step 1.

rinse, repeat.

 

[Redress]

@jmotivator is Outrider solo playable?

 

[jmotivator]

@jmotivator is Outrider solo playable?

So far it has been. I haven't experienced end-game, or multiplayer, but it is seeming to be more like a Diablo-style multiplayer than an MMO. I would expect that the end game will have super bosses that you can't solo, but maybe not.

The one thing I have found is that the game really demands that you upgrade your gear frequently. While the game scales enemies to the player level + the world tier enemy level buff, the player power is entirely gear dependent. So at world tier 7, a level 25 player in level 22 gear will be level 22 in effectiveness while facing level 29 enemies.. which in this game is mostly a death sentence. The options are either opt to play at a lower world tier, or pay to have the level of your gear increased. The latter option isn't really all that costly but requires some grinding.

 

[Redress]

You would think Microsoft would have fast servers. I picked up MS Flight Simulator and Halo, Masterchief Collection today with stimulus. 20gigs of Halo took less time than the first 10 gigs of MSFS. Only 140G to go...

Edit: 3 hours later, 60G to go.

Edit 2: 6 hours and done downloading. Now it is decompressing files...slowly to no one's surprise. I really would like to get it fired up before I go to bed, but I am starting to doubt it happening.

 

[jmotivator]

Outriders is the kind of game that makes it pretty easy to theorycraft yourself an over powered build, and makes it easy to farm bosses to put your kit together...

And the developer People Can Fly is the kind of developer that makes you not want to tell anyone about your build or else it will get the nerf hammer. I feel for all the Techromancers out there...

I hit a point in the game where I was perfectly built for a specific boss and destroyed it in like 30 seconds, and now I can't stop farming that boss because he drops good loot.

It's such a perfect farming spot for my build that I will probably come back to it every world tier/level advancement to replace my gear.

Also, I have to applaud People Can Fly also for stepping up and actually rewarding the customers that stuck it out through the problematic launch. If you were playing the game during launch, through next Sunday, they will be giving out a legendary weapon and crafting supplies package to apologize for the rocky start. That's pretty nice. Though, with my luck, I'll get an auto-shotgun because I hate them.

Don't take that last bit as an endorsement to go spend $60 on the game. I really like it, but your miles may vary, and I have no idea how the give away will work...

 

[jmotivator]

Outriders is another in a long line of looter games where you have to choose between power and looks.

I'm level 29 (cap is 30, I think) and my character now looks like a mid 90s Marvel reject.