What are you playing?

GasBandit

Staff member
The description just says "favoured foe that is alive", not "favoured foe that is alive and on screen". Is this a bug or just the game treating Krydle as if he's being played by a particularly convincing minmaxer?
That ability is Imoen's, actually, Krydle just seemed to be benefiting from it in a way that Warduke doesn't.

There must be some other hoodoo at work, because that 3.15e04 number is apparently the base number. Every time a beast comes on screen, it went up. When the screen was cleared, it went back down to that.

Now I'm running a different mission, and on low rounds, the base shield on Warduke is 2,223. Gonna leave it running while I go to work, and see what it is when they're up in the round 400-500 range.
Well, I left it running all day, and around round 520, the ability has upgraded even more.

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I guess it just gets stronger with Imoen's level. Which is 1560 at this point.
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And so on, and so on...

So it's not Krydle that's an amazing tank... it's that Imoen makes pretty much anybody an amazing tank. She refreshes the spell every time a new area is entered, or every 8th attack she makes (and she attacks every 1.75 seconds). Add on to that that Warduke is already the best tank and the best DPS, and it just gets ridiculous.

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It should be noted that at this area level, a typical single attack against Warduke does about 1300 damage. And even if he weren't getting stoneskin, the party is healing him for ~7000 hp per sec. He is a tanking MACHINE, and only gets stronger the more he gets attacked.
 
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I've had a lot of time on my hands since having my hours cut after Christmas. I've been playing a lot of Red Dead Redemption 2. Not the story or anything, just hunting out every single thing I can in the world, which has become very comforting and relaxing for me.....except for moose.

I've run into more moose walking around rural Alberta (literally a half dozen times) in real life than I have in 20+ hours (not solely) looking for one in a God damn video game...and I need fucking 4 more of their perfect 3 star pelts. God damned swamp donkeys are everywhere here.

PS: The game does an amazing job with animals but the moose are kinda small....moose are absolutely enormous. The legendary one you hunt (the only I've been able to find since it spawns in the same spot always) is a particularly small example. Arthur was taller.
 
Wylde Flowers

This is another farming game ( I have a problem, I know) that’s similar to Stardew Valley in some ways, but your character has a secret double life.

It’s pretty cute and doesn’t have combat so I can play it in my current state :)
 
Wylde Flowers

This is another farming game ( I have a problem, I know) that’s similar to Stardew Valley in some ways, but your character has a secret double life.

It’s pretty cute and doesn’t have combat so I can play it in my current state :)
You want any pointers, you let me know. My wife has already completed the game (checks notes) nine times at ~60hrs each playthrough.
A bit of a hint: keep your saves for each playthrough. That way when they release new content, you won't have to play through the entire thing to see what they've added down each branch.

--Patrick
 
So I'm on playthrough... uh.. eight or so in Stellaris. Covid plus Lunar New Year holidays means I literally sit at home and play games all day, unless I'm napping.

I've tried quite a few different playstyles so far, some more effective than others, some more fun than others. One of the most memorable ones was when I played as a hive mind devouring swarm, which basically means I could swarm across the galaxy eating everything in my path. Every alien empire that got in my way was eaten, unless it was a lithoid empire, in which case its denizens got ground up into minerals for industrial purposes.

There was also the time I built a galaxy-ending machine that turned every single star in the whole galaxy into a black hole. As you can probably imagine, the other empires were very alarmed when they learned I was building a device that would end all life galaxy-wide, so they all attacked me at once to stop me. The final stages of the construction of the machine were basically me playing a desperate holding action, trying to stop all the other empires in the galaxy at once by finding strategic chokepoints and trying to hold them off there as long as possible, before eventually losing that chokepoint and having to retreat to a closer defensive position. I got it done in the end, though, and ended the galaxy. That one was quite a memorable experience.

Most of my playthroughs have been on the more militaristic and aggressive side. So for my latest playthrough I decided to do something different. I'm playing as a xenophilic megacorporation, in which I'm basically doing everything I can to make friends with the other empires and make as much cash as possible, with which I buy up other resources I need, which ultimately makes me pretty powerful. However, I don't know if it's an issue of preferences or if I'm doing something wrong... but this just feels a bit boring. Everyone's getting along, everyone likes me, everyone wants to trade with me, I haven't been genociding anyone... It feels like there are long stretches of the game where nothing's really happening.

So I think after I'm done with this playthrough, I'll go back to being xenophobic. It's just more fun to have conflicts. After all, there's a good reason why this is seen as the Stellaris national anthem:

 
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I'm late to the party, but Torchlight Infinite is a pretty good game. Boss fights feel fair and the gatcha part of the game is pretty unnecessary.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
70,000 gems later... I have bought my 10th familiar.

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Minsc would probably be overjoyed... if I ever actually would let him off the bench to be in the formation.
 
So I grabbed Mass Effect: Legendary Edition during the Steam winter sale and I've just finished the ME1 portion of it.

All in all I think this is a good update. There are some nice QoL improvements, such as better graphics and an improved HUD, Mako kills no longer giving reduced XP, a Mako speed boost button, etc. Some of the old janky bits are still there, for example the Mako can still be a pain to drive, and the old money exploit on the Citadel and the Paragon/Renegade exploit on Noveria are both still there (I... may have used them), but generally speaking it's an improvement overall. Although the default driving controls for the Mako are bizarre, but this can be changed in the settings.

Anyway, I'm now starting ME2, and aww yeah, this is the good stuff.
 
So I grabbed Mass Effect: Legendary Edition during the Steam winter sale and I've just finished the ME1 portion of it.

All in all I think this is a good update. There are some nice QoL improvements, such as better graphics and an improved HUD, Mako kills no longer giving reduced XP, a Mako speed boost button, etc. Some of the old janky bits are still there, for example the Mako can still be a pain to drive, and the old money exploit on the Citadel and the Paragon/Renegade exploit on Noveria are both still there (I... may have used them), but generally speaking it's an improvement overall. Although the default driving controls for the Mako are bizarre, but this can be changed in the settings.

Anyway, I'm now starting ME2, and aww yeah, this is the good stuff.
It's a shame it dives so much at the end. Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2 were two of my absolute favorite games ever, and 3 had the same effect that the last season of Game of Thrones had, it ruined everything for me.
 
Yeah I've never played ME3 before so this'll be my first foray into it. I know all the criticisms and memes, I think my expectations are suitably tempered.
 
So I grabbed Mass Effect: Legendary Edition during the Steam winter sale and I've just finished the ME1 portion of it.

All in all I think this is a good update. There are some nice QoL improvements, such as better graphics and an improved HUD, Mako kills no longer giving reduced XP, a Mako speed boost button, etc. Some of the old janky bits are still there, for example the Mako can still be a pain to drive, and the old money exploit on the Citadel and the Paragon/Renegade exploit on Noveria are both still there (I... may have used them), but generally speaking it's an improvement overall. Although the default driving controls for the Mako are bizarre, but this can be changed in the settings.

Anyway, I'm now starting ME2, and aww yeah, this is the good stuff.
But what we really want to know is who is hot and are you playing as femshep?
 
But what we really want to know is who is hot and are you playing as femshep?
No I'm using the default Mark Vanderloo Shep because I want to romance Tali.

And everyone is hot. Seriously, even the elderly Dr. Chakwas has a killer body under that skin-tight uniform.
 

Dave

Staff member
Started playing a game called Ready or Not. In it you play a policeman who has to infiltrate various areas and kill/capture bad guys while saving the poor innocent civilians. Or the drug users in the flop houses. Whatever. But it's easily the hardest game I've played like this. I've played a lot of shooters and the AI in this one is so much better than any I've played. For example, if you shoot at someone they might repeek the corner...or they might run around a hallway and flank you. Last night I completed my first mission and it only took me 7 hours.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
Started playing a game called Ready or Not. In it you play a policeman who has to infiltrate various areas and kill/capture bad guys while saving the poor innocent civilians. Or the drug users in the flop houses. Whatever. But it's easily the hardest game I've played like this. I've played a lot of shooters and the AI in this one is so much better than any I've played. For example, if you shoot at someone they might repeek the corner...or they might run around a hallway and flank you. Last night I completed my first mission and it only took me 7 hours.
Have you played GTFO, and if so, how would you compare the difficulty to Ready or Not?
 

GasBandit

Staff member
Haven’t played it.
Well, I can't really say I recommend it. The basic line behind it is "What if we made L4D, but punishingly hard by way of unlimited high HP enemies with woefully inadequate ammunition and forcing stealth gameplay without any actual decent stealth mechanics? Hope you like verbally coordinating 4 simultaneous melee headshots on sleeping targets 57 times per level and if you fuck up even once you're as good as dead!"
 
Started playing Chained Echoes on the Switch. It's really good, total nostalgia throwback to the days of SNES/Genesis RPGs like Final Fantasy, Breath of Fire, etc. but with its own personality. Solid story, gameplay's engaging, really enjoying it, although I'm not far in. I got, like, three issues:

1. The localization from the original German is a tad clumsy at times. Nothing that prevents you from understanding or that's as egregious as "All your base are belong to us", but just enough to take you out of the moment and go "that's not how you say that". Like, "that's the first time I'm seeing this thing". Really not major, just awkward.

2. I'm a fan of a lot of things in the combat system, but the Overdrive gauge is not one of them. Feels like it's making every fight, even against random mobs, into a knock-down, drag-out fight for survival that takes longer than it should. I appreciate that it adds a different layer of strategy to the proceedings, though.

3. The big one: There's no way to review tutorials. You put in a journal with quests and a bestiary, and a description for every single item in the game, but you didn't make the tutorials accessible after the fact? What?

As you can see, even the big one's a tiny complaint. This is really good if you're a fan of the genre and old enough to remember the olden days. :)
 
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GasBandit

Staff member
I am irritated by Dwarf Fortress.

In Gnomoria, if I want to build a bed somewhere, I can just say "I want a bed here." A gnome with the "hauler" job will try to fulfill that directive and install a bed at that location, automatically. If no bed can be found, he will automatically create a task for a carpenter to make a bed. A carpenter will automatically try to perform that task, as long as he can find a mattress and a bed frame. If he can't, he automatically creates tasks to make them at the carpentry and tailor stations, respectively. So then he goes about to make his own bed frame, which requires wooden planks. If he can't find enough wooden planks lying around, he will create a task at the woodcutter's sawmill to make enough planks to do the job. A woodcutter will then use the sawmill to make the planks. Meanwhile the tailor makes the mattress. The completed tasks cascade back up until finally a bed is constructed and placed into storage, where the original hauler will find it, and deliver it to the location I had specified.

Thus, with one command from the player, a bed gets made and placed.

Dwarf Fortress doesn't do that. If I say "I want a bed here" I then have to micromanage all the preceding tasks that are required to make a bed before a dwarf will bring the bed and place it where it goes.

And that drives me up the fucking wall and makes me lose interest because this game is WAY too detailed for me to be expected to micromanage every task to this degree.

Also Gnomoria gives you new immigrants once a year. Dwarf Fortress gives you new immigrants EVERY SEASON so it is a RACE to keep up with making bedrooms, which means more micromanaging.

Ain't nobody got time for that kind of tedium.
 
This is why I feel a strong sense of elitism when it comes to playing Dwarf Fortress. "Your game only requires you to enter one command to build a bed? Ha! In Dwarf Fortress I have to start by selecting the exact piece of wood the bed is going to be made from!*" It is not rational, and I actually wouldn't be surprised if it's a coping mechanism for having spent all that time learning how Dwarf Fortress works.

(*Only slightly an exaggeration. It is possible to actually select the specific piece of wood you want to make something with, but it's not required.)
 
I've been playing the new Freelancer mode in Hitman 3, which has now actually been renamed Hitman: World of Assassination, though it's still listed as Hitman 3 in my Steam library. Because apparently confusing the hell out of people over what game(s) and what version(s) to buy is a fetish for someone over there at IOI.

Anyway, there's lots to be said about this mode, but to put it simply: If you thought you were good at Hitman before, this game mode will prove you wrong. If you thought you were already bad at Hitman before, this game mode will prove to you just how incredibly bad you are. Freelancer is a roguelike game mode that pulls no punches. It's often unfair, it'll test your knowledge and skill with all the maps and items, and it'll force you to improvise solutions that are almost never elegant. It's horribly demoralizing, and yet it's tons of fun.
 
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figmentPez

Staff member
Haven Park

I found this game to be very relaxing, and it made me happy. It's not especially polished, there's no real depth to the mechanics, the writing is fine but doesn't stand out in any way, and there's some parts of the game that just don't seem to fit, but it's still cute, short, and I enjoyed my time with it. I think I spent less than 5 hours to 100% the game.

You play as a young bird taking over the care of a camping/forest type park, you talk with your grandma and she sets you off. You explore the map, finding the different campsites, collecting materials, meeting campers, finding stuff, doing fetch quests, solving some puzzles, repairing the park, and building amenities for the campers.

Nothing is very deep. There's only 5 main types of resources (coins, wood, metal, cloth, & mushrooms), and only a few dozen things that can be built. There's no color options, and no guesswork as to what to build. Each campsite will tell you what type of buildings or objects need to be constructed. If a campsite needs a place to rest you can build a bench, beach umbrella, or picnic table, and place it anywhere in the campsite, but it doesn't matter which you pick or where. 3 rest options, 5 places to sleep, 4 food stands, and I'm not sure on the counts for activities and decorations. The options are far more limited than Animal Crossing's furnishings.

Part of me wishes this were a deeper experience, with a more polished map design, a little more nuance to progression, and some more choice in building... but I'm also glad the game didn't overstay it's welcome. I think what's most missing is more wit and interest in the writing. A lot of what the campers say is very bland and expository. There are a few interesting conversations, and some funny moments, but most of it is just info dumping.

Great game to have gotten free.
 
Some more thoughts about Freelancer mode in Hitman: World of Assassination, formerly known as Hitman 3.

Like I said, this is a roguelike game mode that is really only intended for Hitman veterans. It's set after the main storyline of Hitman 3, after (spoiler alert) the ICA is, shall we say, no longer assisting Agent 47 and his handler Diana in their endeavors. Instead, 47 and Diana are now working on their own to take down international criminal syndicates, not because someone hired them to, but because they believe it's the right thing to do. Thus, where previously 47 had basically an infinite supply of resources, limited only by what he could physically carry to each assassination mission, this is no longer the case. So for example, in the main Hitman storyline 47 could've brought a bomb or a jar of poison or a one-use taser to every mission if he wanted to, and even if he used up his bomb or poison or taser, he would always have more available to bring to the next mission. Not so in Freelancer. If you use up your bomb or poison or taser, it's gone. If you drop something like a gun on the level and don't retrieve it before you exit, it's gone. If you die during a mission and respawn back at your safehouse, everything you were carrying is gone. This introduces an element of resource management that wasn't around in the main game. Do I bring my good silenced pistol to this difficult mission, but risk losing it if I die? Or do I bring the crappy unsilenced one, even though that might make the mission harder? Or maybe I shouldn't bring a pistol at all, and should just take one off a guard I kill or knock out at the mission site? This'll leave more carrying capacity for other tools and equipment I might need, like bombs or poison. But do I want to use up my remotely triggered bomb for this mission? I only have one, you know, and I might need it later...

Each Freelancer campaign consists of four "chapters", each more difficult than the last. Each chapter consists of several normal missions, culminating in a "showdown". The normal missions are fairly similar to your run-of-the-mill Hitman missions. You can use Instinct mode to see your target highlighted in red, your target will have their own routine that you could take advantage of (eg. they might drink from a glass so you can poison their drink), etc. However, you won't know who your target is until you load into the level, which means you can't always prepare specifically for them, like you would in the main storyline. This is why improvisation is a big part of Freelancer, because you will need to follow and observe your target in order to plan how best to take them out. This, in turn, means you need to know each map very well. You need to know the layouts and routes of each map, you need to know which disguises can get you into which areas, and you need to know what's the best way to obtain those disguises.

The showdown at the end of each chapter, in which you're tasked with killing a criminal syndicate leader, shakes things up a bit. You don't know who your target is, instead you have several suspects. You only have a description of your target, eg "wears a hat and glasses, wears earrings, has black hair, smoker". Then you need to observe each suspect carefully until you find the one that's your actual target, and take them out. This is actually a lot harder than it sounds, because IOI are a bunch of cruel bastards so they often make every suspect very similar, so you really need to observe them carefully. "Are those earrings? I'm just gonna stand really close to this person to look carefully. I think those might be diamond studs, but it might just be a trick of the light?" I failed my first five showdowns or so because I got too hasty and killed the wrong person, which spooks all the other suspects (including the actual target) and causes them to flee. Plus showdowns come with two other complications, lookouts and assassins. Lookouts are basically "super enforcers" and can spot you in any disguise. Assassins are basically "super guards" and can kill you with just a few shots. These guys are usually positioned around the suspects, so you need to either find a way around them or take them out first.

You also get a safehouse in Freelancer, which you can gradually unlock rooms in as you level up. Though it's kinda wacky when you think about it. "I can't access my bathroom until I kill five criminal syndicate members?" Nonetheless, gradually unlocking safehouse rooms is still a satisfying means of progression, plus each new room may offer new equipment for you to use. Unlocking the kitchen, for example, gave me access to a banana, which I can take with me on missions. What good is a banana, you ask? Well, it turns out bananas placed on the ground will cause anyone who steps on it to slip and fall and knock themselves out. Want to take out a pesky guard or lookout or assassin without alerting anyone? Have them slip on a banana peel. Seriously, the banana comes with me to every Freelancer mission.

Anyway, this is getting a bit too long already, so let me just conclude by saying I appreciate how Freelancer makes the player really play Hitman to its full potential. For most players playing the main storyline, they're funneled into a certain playstyle, such as silent assassin. This is compounded by the fact that lots of Hitman Youtubers like MrFreeze2244 will provide detailed guides on how to achieve silent assassin kills, which players then follow. Consequently, for many players, the traditional silent assassin playstyle is all they know. They'll use tools and equipment that synergize well with silent assassin playstyles, like lockpicks and coins and silenced pistols. But in Freelancer, silent assassin playstyles are often impossible because you just don't have the right gear, and silent assassin isn't really rewarded anyway. As long as your target ends up dead, that's all that matters. So players have to get out of the silent assassin mindset, and get into the Freelancer mindset: observe your target, scavenge what tools you can find in the level, and get the job done. Everything else doesn't matter.
 
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GasBandit

Staff member
Dear lord I've gotten back into Skyrim of all things. My Mod-Fu is rusty though, everything has changed. NMM is gone, now there's this Vortex shit, and apparently only dumbasses use FNIS, now everybody's using the Nemesis Behavior Engine except that shit crashes on me constantly so I fell back to using FNIS. I'm nowhere near as good now at the "fix it" part of "Mod it till it crashes, fix it, mod it more" cycle...

So that means I've started over from scratch three times in the last 3 weeks, when I discover that a mod just breaks the game too badly. I've gotten it semi-stable now, though it still does crash frequently for no reason.

But that's the price of having adventuring companions with basketball-sized breasts that wobble like helium balloons tacked to a board out in the wind. And I refuse to give that up.
 
Dear lord I've gotten back into Skyrim of all things. My Mod-Fu is rusty though, everything has changed. NMM is gone, now there's this Vortex shit, and apparently only dumbasses use FNIS, now everybody's using the Nemesis Behavior Engine except that shit crashes on me constantly so I fell back to using FNIS. I'm nowhere near as good now at the "fix it" part of "Mod it till it crashes, fix it, mod it more" cycle...

So that means I've started over from scratch three times in the last 3 weeks, when I discover that a mod just breaks the game too badly. I've gotten it semi-stable now, though it still does crash frequently for no reason.

But that's the price of having adventuring companions with basketball-sized breasts that wobble like helium balloons tacked to a board out in the wind. And I refuse to give that up.
 

Dave

Staff member
I've been hitting 7 Days to Die pretty hard. When I first played it oh so long ago it was a janky mess. But now it's only slightly janky and is a pretty fun game. The every 7 day horde mechanic is pretty interesting and the fact that any playstyle is viable is a big plus in my cap. My only bitch is that my friends got me into it and haven't been able to play too much so I'm basically playing it solo. Which means I have to spread my points around into different skills instead of concentrating on what I WANT to do.

Oh, and I suck at base building. Fun game, though.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
I've been hitting 7 Days to Die pretty hard. When I first played it oh so long ago it was a janky mess. But now it's only slightly janky and is a pretty fun game. The every 7 day horde mechanic is pretty interesting and the fact that any playstyle is viable is a big plus in my cap. My only bitch is that my friends got me into it and haven't been able to play too much so I'm basically playing it solo. Which means I have to spread my points around into different skills instead of concentrating on what I WANT to do.

Oh, and I suck at base building. Fun game, though.
Hmm, if they've fixed (most of) the Jank, I might could be convinced to give it another go...
 

Dave

Staff member
Hmm, if they've fixed (most of) the Jank, I might could be convinced to give it another go...
The question is, do you want to come in when it's day 182 or would you need a fresh start? I mean, I'd make sure you have a place to hole up in. in any event, but that's pretty much all it is is a hole. Did I mention I'm not good at base building?
 

GasBandit

Staff member
The question is, do you want to come in when it's day 182 or would you need a fresh start? I mean, I'd make sure you have a place to hole up in. in any event, but that's pretty much all it is is a hole. Did I mention I'm not good at base building?
Hah! I can probably jump in on your in-progess game. Base building is really my forte in these games, actually :D
 
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