Blog Your Current Game

[jmotivator]

Still playing through the Outriders main story. I have settled on World Tier 11 for the rest of my play through. World Tier 12 is generally the biggest milestone in the World Tier achievements because at Tier 12 your reward is a random unique legendary weapon. I hit Tier 12 earlier today, collected my weapon, hated it, and now dont' field the pull to achieve World Tier 15 any time soon.

Legendary weapons are an interesting thing because the only thing really that makes them legendary is that they each come with a unique Level 3 mod... so other than the look of the legendaries (not a fan) to can deconstruct them for their mod and then add the mod to whatever weapon you want.

Anyway, Tier 12 really ramps up the difficulty. It's still doable, but there is a handful of elite units that can ruin your day... or at least my day with my build. My build is built around the Volcano Round skill that turns your bullets into high powered flaming death. The usual limiter on Volcanic rounds is that the power only lasts 1 magazine and then has a long cool down. I mitigated that a bit with a mod that allows you reload once without going on cool down.. and then I also adopted the Light Machinegun as my primary weapon. It hits a ton, and has a 150 round magazine. Today I had an epiphany. There is an armor mod that automatically fills 50% of your magazine if you kill and enemy that is bleeding.. so I added a mod to my main LMG that causes bleed on hit. Now with the trash mobs I have unlimited ammo and that means I can keep Volcanic ammo up for a full encounter.

THat is great until you hit the bullet sponge bosses who will eventually force a reload. A few of those bosses have a rapid interrupt ability which means they can lock me in reload forever unless you can dodge away... but I'm an old man and the reflexes ain't what they used to be.

I've gone back to the drawing board to find a weapon I can use in those fights, but the hurdles are too many to really detail here.

Anyway, I'm on what appears to be the final map of the game, and so I can say the game is really very good. It's story is OK, the acting isn't terrible, the cut scenes are worth watching for the story... and it's a good looter shooter.

There are only two real complaints:

1) The "Map" system (the way you navigate) is awful and heads should roll for it.

2) Shaman Warlord isa pain in the ass and I think he was only thrown in so the Devs could say "See what it could be like if we really wanted to **** with you?"

And a final thanks to Chrysaloid Boss on the forest map, if you weren't so stupidly easy to farm I might have quit in frustration. Instead I murdered you a million times until I had the gear I needed to continue.

 

[Redress]

First impressions(about an hours worth) of Outriders: The story is interesting so far. Not great, but I am actually watching the cutscenes(of which there is still too many). Combat is pretty basic so far, but with opening up classes(I went technomancer for this first playthrough) it should get more interesting when I get more time. First big fight was way too east; crouch behind a log, shoot whenever baddie stuck his head up from cover, then reload and wait till he stuck his head up again. Took zero damage(which is not a testiment to my skill). Biggest positive so far is the environment. Unreal Engine and really good artists make for a good looking, visually interesting world. Will play more later tonight.

 

[jmotivator]

First impressions(about an hours worth) of Outriders: The story is interesting so far. Not great, but I am actually watching the cutscenes(of which there is still too many). Combat is pretty basic so far, but with opening up classes(I went technomancer for this first playthrough) it should get more interesting when I get more time. First big fight was way too east; crouch behind a log, shoot whenever baddie stuck his head up from cover, then reload and wait till he stuck his head up again. Took zero damage(which is not a testiment to my skill). Biggest positive so far is the environment. Unreal Engine and really good artists make for a good looking, visually interesting world. Will play more later tonight.

The game will likely get harder and then way too easy again ... and then impossible-ish. If you want to play without story-breaks for farming sessions, with auto-tiering enabled, the game will definitely get more difficult since the game rewards you for dominating by graduating you to higher difficulty.

When you hit walls you either grind out better gear or lower the world tier. The Dark Souls method of trying a million times only kind of works in this game since dying sets you way back in your World Tier level grind. Most players will lower one tier and grind since you can't lose progress in a tier you already mastered. They just then bring the lower tiered gear to the higher world tier and upgrade it.

 

[PeteEU]

Finally got Europa Universalis 4 base game on sale for 10 euros and now you can subscribe 5 euros a month for access to all 250+ euros worth of DLCs including the up and coming ones...frankly a bargain. A getting my Austrian Habsburg HRE to do a world conquest... So far so good with 3 PUs and one Burgandy Inheritance and the protestant reformation has just started and is all but crushed...need to take out one center to do it...good times.

 

[jmotivator]

Decided to rework my Pyromancer build in Outriders because it was showing some weaknesses, went for the Meta DPS build to try it out.

Yes, it does a lot more damage. My only change is to skip the Ash Bullets on my LMG and go for the ramping +25% Damage per kill. It might be too DPS-y and not protection-y enough. When I get on a role I obliterate, but if I hit break my rhythm I die on World Tier 13.

Right now the bane of my existence is accidental weapon switching which sets Volcanic rounds to cool down. On lower tiers I can survive the 10 second cool down, on WT13 and above I just die most of the time.

honestly, though, the drop rates between, say, WT11 and 13 are not that high, and Titanium (the resource for upgrading relic level items) rains from the sky after about WT9... so if I find a good item in WT11 I can upgrade it to WT13 without a problem.

I'm tempted to just finish the story at WT11 or 12 at this point and then start worrying about the grind of World Tiers later.

 

[jmotivator]

Finished Outriders yesterday. It was a fun game, and the story was good. My thoughts on the story line will wait for another time since some are still playing through it.

Now that I am done I can say, though, that the game probably needs a difficulty smoothing that doesn't just mean rising and lowering world tiers. Most of the game is way too easy and then throws some fights in that would be rejected by Dark Souls as being too hard. I realize that a good chunk of the difficulty for me is my own play style and skill... probably 90% of my deaths come from pushing the wrong button and/or getting glued to cover, but there are really just three fights in the whole game that are difficult, and they seem borderline impossible playing on your max world tier.

Most of the game tests your ability to piece together a cohesive synergistic class build and manage the maco battlefield, enemy troop placement, flanking and target prioritization.... then there are three fights that are entirely "OK, now it's a game about timing and build breaking mechanics". It's a jarring transition that isn't really much fun. "Hey Jmotivator, we know you put a lot of thought into your kit... but can you git gud?" ... apparently not, I had to lower the World Tier several notches to finish those three fights.

Still really liked the game, though. I think I'll try, but probably hate the end game Expeditions... but there is a line of quests where you hunt boss monsters, and another where you hunt boss villains that you can reset after completing them, and I might do some of that. Those were probably the most fun missions in the game.

 

[jmotivator]

Back to being between games. I'm not sure what I am looking for at this point.

I tried Cryofall, and kind of got into it for a bit and then hit a progression wall and lost interest... tried Rune Knight for about 10 minutes and then laughed as I removed it from my PC. Rune Knight is E.T. levels of awful. After the stupid tutorial fight it teleports you to a "town" with no instructions on how to get back to the fight... I spotted a runic circle on the ground that I assumed must have been a portal to the next level, but it launched me in the air, into a gap between the terrain and a building and I fell through into the void...

I have to assume Rune Knight is a prank.

But hey, it's free....

A lot of highly regarded games in my Steam Inventory that I have purchased and barely played, but I can't say that I feel compelled to start any of them. The one I feel kind of guilty about is Oxygen not Included. Every time I see it in my library I have an inner conflict, telling myself "Hey, this is the exact kind of game you really like!" and the rest of me thinking "Meh".

 

[ASHES]

Back to being between games. I'm not sure what I am looking for at this point.

I tried Cryofall, and kind of got into it for a bit and then hit a progression wall and lost interest... tried Rune Knight for about 10 minutes and then laughed as I removed it from my PC. Rune Knight is E.T. levels of awful. After the stupid tutorial fight it teleports you to a "town" with no instructions on how to get back to the fight... I spotted a runic circle on the ground that I assumed must have been a portal to the next level, but it launched me in the air, into a gap between the terrain and a building and I fell through into the void...

I have to assume Rune Knight is a prank.

But hey, it's free....

A lot of highly regarded games in my Steam Inventory that I have purchased and barely played, but I can't say that I feel compelled to start any of them. The one I feel kind of guilty about is Oxygen not Included. Every time I see it in my library I have an inner conflict, telling myself "Hey, this is the exact kind of game you really like!" and the rest of me thinking "Meh".

I started Tyranny a few days ago, it's fun being super evil. I'm mostly playing that and Pillars of Eternity while I wait for the next good Battlefield.

Spoiler

I've been playing BF4 since it launched, on PS3, then PS4, then PC. I max ranked 2 different soldiers on each PlayStation, now I'm about halfway there with my first PC soldier. It's a bit tough though because I play on PC with a controller against people with KB/M.

 

[jmotivator]

I started Tyranny a few days ago, it's fun being super evil. I'm mostly playing that and Pillars of Eternity while I wait for the next good Battlefield.

Spoiler

I've been playing BF4 since it launched, on PS3, then PS4, then PC. I max ranked 2 different soldiers on each PlayStation, now I'm about halfway there with my first PC soldier. It's a bit tough though because I play on PC with a controller against people with KB/M.

Tyranny is another game that has been in my Steam library forever but never played.

 

[Redress]

Back to being between games. I'm not sure what I am looking for at this point.

I tried Cryofall, and kind of got into it for a bit and then hit a progression wall and lost interest... tried Rune Knight for about 10 minutes and then laughed as I removed it from my PC. Rune Knight is E.T. levels of awful. After the stupid tutorial fight it teleports you to a "town" with no instructions on how to get back to the fight... I spotted a runic circle on the ground that I assumed must have been a portal to the next level, but it launched me in the air, into a gap between the terrain and a building and I fell through into the void...

I have to assume Rune Knight is a prank.

But hey, it's free....

A lot of highly regarded games in my Steam Inventory that I have purchased and barely played, but I can't say that I feel compelled to start any of them. The one I feel kind of guilty about is Oxygen not Included. Every time I see it in my library I have an inner conflict, telling myself "Hey, this is the exact kind of game you really like!" and the rest of me thinking "Meh".

Oxygen Not Included is a blast to play. Factorio for engineers, but the animations are simply hilarious.

 

[Mr Person]

I, too, confess to having Tyranny but not having opened it.

I suppose I could go on a vacation from DP and waste that time on the backlog instead. I have a whole bunch that I snapped up on various sales. All sorts of RPGs, older and newer.


Planescape Torment
Divinity: Original Sin 1
Legend of Grimrock 2
Icewind Dale
Baldur's Gate 2
All sorts of Neverwinter Nights modules
Pillars of Eternity
Shadowrun: Hong Kong
Shadowrun Returns
Starcrawlers

XCOM 2
Victor Vran

I still have to finish my Wizardry VII game. I cleared about half the map...ish...I think. Maybe. I have a big ass folder with all these printed maps, notes about what I did/need to do, etc.


At this rate, I'll upgrade my computer rendering many of them unplayable before I get around to it...

 

[ASHES]

I, too, confess to having Tyranny but not having opened it.

I suppose I could go on a vacation from DP and waste that time on the backlog instead. I have a whole bunch that I snapped up on various sales. All sorts of RPGs, older and newer.


Planescape Torment
Divinity: Original Sin 1
Legend of Grimrock 2
Icewind Dale
Baldur's Gate 2
All sorts of Neverwinter Nights modules
Pillars of Eternity
Shadowrun: Hong Kong
Shadowrun Returns
Starcrawlers

XCOM 2
Victor Vran

I still have to finish my Wizardry VII game. I cleared about half the map...ish...I think. Maybe. I have a big ass folder with all these printed maps, notes about what I did/need to do, etc.


At this rate, I'll upgrade my computer rendering many of them unplayable before I get around to it...

Victor Vran was fun, but I only played for about 10 hours before I stopped. Pillars is a much longer and involved game, Tyranny is good for multiple shorter playthroughs. Didn't play any of the others besides BG2 on GameCube. I too know the pains of a very large backlog, both physical and digital.

 

[Mr Person]

Victor Vran was fun, but I only played for about 10 hours before I stopped. Pillars is a much longer and involved game, Tyranny is good for multiple shorter playthroughs. Didn't play any of the others besides BG2 on GameCube. I too know the pains of a very large backlog, both physical and digital.

Vran looked like a more simplified Diablo-like AARPG, so that doesn't surprise me. I think I picked it up for only a few bucks so ten hours would be more than worth it.

 

[ASHES]

Vran looked like a more simplified Diablo-like AARPG, so that doesn't surprise me. I think I picked it up for only a few bucks so ten hours would be more than worth it.

I got it free with Amazon Prime, if I'd paid I could have squeezed 15 or 20 from it. It helped that it supports controllers, I much prefer them for action games.

 

[jmotivator]

I, too, confess to having Tyranny but not having opened it.

I suppose I could go on a vacation from DP and waste that time on the backlog instead. I have a whole bunch that I snapped up on various sales. All sorts of RPGs, older and newer.


Planescape Torment
Divinity: Original Sin 1
Legend of Grimrock 2
Icewind Dale
Baldur's Gate 2
All sorts of Neverwinter Nights modules
Pillars of Eternity
Shadowrun: Hong Kong
Shadowrun Returns
Starcrawlers

XCOM 2
Victor Vran

I still have to finish my Wizardry VII game. I cleared about half the map...ish...I think. Maybe. I have a big ass folder with all these printed maps, notes about what I did/need to do, etc.


At this rate, I'll upgrade my computer rendering many of them unplayable before I get around to it...

Oh man, if you count the games I have half finished, the list gets absurdly long.

I finished 4 games on your list. Most of the games I half finished were either because a better game came out, or the play got too monotonous.

It's weird how with some games the burnout I get is hard coded into my psyche, while others are temporary. I fire up one game I never finished and it's fresh and fun again and I enjoy fixing all the mistakes I made in my character, then there are other games where I think "Hey, I haven't played this is a while" and a fatigue just washes over me during the opening video.

I say that because, for whatever reason, Victor Vran does that to me... I don't even remember why.

 

[PoS]

Finished Red Dead Redemption 2 and its one of the greatest games Ive ever played. But... why the downbeat ending? Even the GTA games made by Rockstar never had these kinds of endings. Rating: 10/10

Now playing Empire of Sin. Pretty neat strategy and tactical game of gangsters during Prohibition. So far so very good.

 

[Redress]

Since EU4 is currently broken(and I paid 20something bucks for them to break the game for me...), I picked up Iron Harvest since it was on sale. Neat RTS game, with the concept of being what if WW1 was fought with mechs. The designs of thee mechs is great, with a WW1 tech feeling to it. Big oil barrels with .50cal machine gun arms and stuff.

 

[jmotivator]

Played around a bit with Everspace 2 for the last few days. Setting it aside to let in bake since it's early beta.

I think the proof of concept of a starship combat Diablo clone is worth exploring, and they make a good showing, but so far the game is suffering from the "why bother" syndrome where there is little to no reward, and the difficulty can ramp up rapidly.

Hopefully they add more variety by launch time.

the one thing that I hate about the game is these stupid missions where you have to manually turn on mining charges, usually the mission has some asteroid you need to blow up, and it has 4 to 6 mining charges placed on the surface, and once ou trigger the first charge you get a count down until that bomb goes inert again if you don't trigger the next bomb, which grants you a small amount of time to trigger the next, and so on... but they give you like 4 seconds and it's stupid and I hate it.

And since these missions are all over the place, I fear it's just a matter of time before I encounter a quest mission that requires I complete one of these missions, and which point I close the game and uninstall it.

 

[PoS]

Started playing Cyberpunk 2077, and so far its... meh. It feels kinda like Dues Ex, but so far its just flat in terms of story. Right now I have no idea what I'm supposed to be doing. Everything is linear. I hope it gets better...

 

[ASHES]

Started playing Cyberpunk 2077, and so far its... meh. It feels kinda like Dues Ex, but so far its just flat in terms of story. Right now I have no idea what I'm supposed to be doing. Everything is linear. I hope it gets better...

I played for about an hour after the character creation, with the corpro intro. Neat environments, but everything seemed dead and empty. I thought the character creation was the best part. Game optimization was also not great. Maybe in a couple years after some major patches it'll be worth trying again.

 

[PoS]

I played for about an hour after the character creation, with the corpro intro. Neat environments, but everything seemed dead and empty. I thought the character creation was the best part. Game optimization was also not great. Maybe in a couple years after some major patches it'll be worth trying again.

Yeah, I agree with your points: plenty of glitz and gaudy colors, but I'm just not feeling the vibes and the characters hardly seem real to me. I think I'm gonna try and tough it out over the next week or so since I got other games to play.

 

[Redress]

Subnautica Below Zero leaves early access Friday, so I picked it up today. Has all the fun stuff from Subnautica, and more fun stuff. Much more story driven. I am not sure if that is why they made the choice, but the main character of the game will drive Gamersgaters absolutely bonkers...she is a black woman. I am having alot of fun so far, and love being able to pin recipes.

 

[PoS]

Alright, I just couldnt get into Cyberpunk 2077, so I uninstalled and got a refund. Rating: DNF

Had two play throughs of Empire of Sin. Neat little game, but once you figured out the mechanics, it was easy to win. Some of the boss special abilities are broken too but on the whole, not bad at all. The only issue is replayability because all of the missions pretty much feel the same. Rating: 7/10

Now playing Disco Elysium- Final Cut. It's a strange, sci-fi dystopian detective RPG, more on mood and atmosphere than combat. Reminds me of Planescape Torment, but much better. I'm digging it but the pace is slow and I have to be in the right mood at times.

Once this is done I'll get to the new Subnautica game.

 

[bomberfox]

Im playing Iron Harvest at the moment. Pretty good RTS game.

 

[bomberfox]

After playing Xenonauts for a few weeks, it made me realize that I was just really hankering for the game it was based on, so I got rid of it and reuploaded the real thing- the original XCOM UFO Defense game. I used Open X-Com, which is a free 64 bit shell that enables you to run the game using the newest OS (in my case Win8) without having to use DOS Box.

So Im back to playing a game that's more than 20 years old. LOL. And It's still awesome! Sure, the graphics are dated, but very few of the new games can replace the pulse pounding thrill of leading your squaddies against an unseen alien menace in the darkened city, or trying to eliminate the alien crews after you shoot one of their ships down.

Lately, I've been equipping my soldiers with stun rockets to try and capture a live alien, and it seems I keep getting killed by a 2 to 1 ratio since I'm throwing all the rookies into the downed UFOs first lol.

Did ya know you can get sharkquanauts in terror from the deep? If you do want to get that mod, theres an easy fix that i could give ya.