What are you playing?

It's not necessarily the GOOD ending... it's simply the only ending in which things can ever change for the better.

The Abyss is not cleansed. It's actually expanding... it's a much bigger location in Dark Souls 2. Also... It might not kill you outright anymore, but the Abyss corrupted Artorias long after he first entered it... which makes SOME things in Dark Souls 2 all the more chilling.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
Previously, on divinity: original sin...



Okay so it wasn't a watermelon. But Dei and I ran into a group of mushrooms that were blocking the tunnel. Naturally we proceed to attack them without knowing anything about them.

Turns out, they are healed by fire damage but bleed poison.

In this game, poison is highly explosive.

Hilarity ensues the first time she shoots a damaged mushroom with a fire arrow. The mushroom is lit on fire, which causes the poison it is already bled on the floor to explode. The explosion damages the mushroom, causing it to bleed more poison but also setting it on fire again, causing it to heal itself. And then the fire sets off the new poison, and the cycle repeats.

We had to stand there too scared to move lest we get exploded for quite a while, until the glitched, constantly exploding mushroom managed to stop exploding.
 
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How are you invading people so much so early? I figure you have tops four invasions from the cracked orbs found near the Firelink Shrine.

Also, you look awesome :D. I tried invading a bit at SL58 as Darkwraith Covenant, but I keep choosing places where people tend to bring help along, like Anor Londo.

It's not necessarily the GOOD ending... it's simply the only ending in which things can ever change for the better.

The Abyss is not cleansed. It's actually expanding... it's a much bigger location in Dark Souls 2. Also... It might not kill you outright anymore, but the Abyss corrupted Artorias long after he first entered it... which makes SOME things in Dark Souls 2 all the more chilling.
I guess I'm just going to have to give Dark Souls 2 another shot. Maybe after a month of Fallout 4.
 
First impressions.

- It runs really well.

- Not sold on removing the skill system of all previous Fallouts. The massive perk tree is not done well. It's immediately even more intimidating than any previous system.

- Gunplay is improved, as are the ways enemies act.

- I'm stoked that my character is fat.
 
First impressions.

- It runs really well.

- Not sold on removing the skill system of all previous Fallouts. The massive perk tree is not done well. It's immediately even more intimidating than any previous system.

- Gunplay is improved, as are the ways enemies act.

- I'm stoked that my character is fat.
I was able to give my character red, splotchy skin. JUST LIKE ME! ... neither of us can afford a dermatologist.

Mouse and keyboard controls feel wonky as hell, though. Navigating through the pip-boy is difficult, menus technically have mouse support, but it's shitty, and the default button layout for mouse and keyboard is weird. You can tell Bethesda focused on making everything work with a controller, and then was like "Just map controller functions to random keys" and called it a day. I don't know how the hell the dialogue system is supposed to work with mouse and keyboard. It pops up little arrows like I should be able to use WASD to select my response, but nope, I have to click on those tiny icons instead. Does it expect me to use the arrow keys?
 
OH, and FUCK that Codsworth doesn't have Frank in his name list. That's horseshit. Frank is literally the name of one of the series' big bads. Who was voiced by Michael Dorn.

AND AWESOME.

 
Gamefly sent me a game for 3DS ...

Sonic Generations: :puke: Good fucking god, what the hell did I do to deserve this? People said this was a good Sonic game, like the only one that had come out in forever, and I figured that made sense since it's got old school Sonic--except NO, that's all a FUCKING LIE. This is terrible. It looks disgusting, the controls are horrendous. It's so cluttered and messy, and just ... I have Sonic 1 on this same console. I could have Sonic 2 for just $5.

I'm honestly stunned by how bad this is. I haven't played the set of games where Sonic Team tries to recapture their glory days and if this is any indication, they failed. Anyone who says this is a good Sonic game hasn't played the old ones in forever. If this is what passes for good, the bad ones like Sonic Boom and Sonic '06 must make their players contract leprosy.

I shouldn't this pissed; I should've expected this. My words above are not properly conveying how revolted I was when I turned this on expecting a good game, only to experience this shit. Fuck, just ... fuuuuucking hell, Sega. Why? WHY?
 
Gamefly sent me a game for 3DS ...

Sonic Generations: :puke: Good fucking god, what the hell did I do to deserve this? People said this was a good Sonic game, like the only one that had come out in forever, and I figured that made sense since it's got old school Sonic--except NO, that's all a FUCKING LIE. This is terrible. It looks disgusting, the controls are horrendous. It's so cluttered and messy, and just ... I have Sonic 1 on this same console. I could have Sonic 2 for just $5.

I'm honestly stunned by how bad this is. I haven't played the set of games where Sonic Team tries to recapture their glory days and if this is any indication, they failed. Anyone who says this is a good Sonic game hasn't played the old ones in forever. If this is what passes for good, the bad ones like Sonic Boom and Sonic '06 must make their players contract leprosy.

I shouldn't this pissed; I should've expected this. My words above are not properly conveying how revolted I was when I turned this on expecting a good game, only to experience this shit. Fuck, just ... fuuuuucking hell, Sega. Why? WHY?
When people said it was one of the few good sonic games, they probably weren't talking about the 3ds version. I haven't played it, but they usually make entirely separate games from console and handheld.
 
When people said it was one of the few good sonic games, they probably weren't talking about the 3ds version. I haven't played it, but they usually make entirely separate games from console and handheld.
The console version might be better, but I was looking at stuff about the 3DS version, so they were referencing the handheld specifically. They are liars and fuck them. Also, this isn't a complicated kind of game; if the 3DS can handle Wii games, it can handle a 2D/3D platformer. So if Sega made the two versions very different from each other, it was for no good reason.

I didn't even mention the level design. It's atrocious, like it was done by people who've only seen screenshots of Sonic games and slapped that stuff together without any understanding of how it all worked or why it used to be good.
 
I've been semi-obsessed with ARK: Survival Evolved, although I'm still looking for a permanent server. Halforums should have it's own ARK server
 
We could use mine if enough people have it and want to play. There is really only me and a friend on it as of now though.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
While Terrik continues to be consumed by his studies, Dei and I have continued playing co-op a whole lot in Divinity: Original Sin. Last night, I noticed that my subspec into Hydrosophistry is becoming less and less useful as we level up - since I'm mostly putting points into tanky things, the 100 point heals aren't really cutting it any more except for downtime heals when Dei is too distracted by something shiny in the next room to remember to heal the tanks after the fight is over.

So, a trip back to the Homestead at the end of time was taken, and I did a character respec. After a few trips around the world to the various man-at-arms skill vendors, and one more trip to the Secrets merchant to drop another 22k gold on extra level points, and I put everything into being tanky. 15 base str, 15 base stamina, 10 base speed, then gear gets figured in... suddenly I, the 1hand/shield melee user has twice the hit points of our other "tanky" npc (and like 4 times that of either Dei or our Water/Air mage), and yet I do more damage than the 2 hander of the second banana tank as well. Also, I'm completely immune to stun and fear, and incredibly resistant to most other forms of crowd control.

It's made me, perhaps, a tad overconfident. Every fight we see, I give my barbaric YAWP and go deck the biggest bad guy right in the schnoz. So far, it's worked pretty well.

Only downside is I couldn't find skill books for the two Area-effect attacks I had, so now I'm pretty much all single target. Ah well.
 
Who knows, we aren't playing Enhanced because our save wouldn't have carried over.

I'm sad about it because Itemization sucks in the original version.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
So do you skill lose all your bought skills to when respeccing?
Yes, in the original version we are playing at least. Respeccing removes all your points in things like hydro or pyro or man at arms, so all those skills go away (not your innate Source Hunter skills though), so the first thing you gotta do is go find skill books and buy your skills back again. It's not particularly expensive, but the merchants don't always have the ones you want. I wasn't able to find anybody selling dust devil or whirlwind, so I haven't gotten those back yet.

Unless, you meant, do you lose your bought skill POINTS, for which the answer seems to be no. Hence why I'm such a freight train now - we've bought so many body and ability mastery manuals from the secrets lady that I'm basically a level 25 in a level 20 wrapper.
 
Oooh, that sounds interesting, do you have elevated taming rates and stuff?
I think the only things I have changed at the moment are 2x harvest and 4x tame as well as some stuff to make the breeding easier. Oh and night is shorter than day until they add a way for us to have dino mounted lanterns.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
Space Engineers launched its Planets update today!

I tried it!

It's a fucking mess of shit!

I'll check up on the game again in another 6 months I guess.
 
What New Vegas did for the deathclaw (make them terrifyingly strong) Fallout 4 has done for the Sentry Bot. Those mother fuckers will END YOU. And they're fast. WAY FAST.
 
I'm having more fun with Yo-Kai Watch than I've had with a Pokemon game in years. It's becoming a Nintendo faux pas to shit on Pokemon when praising Yokai, but the comparisons are inevitable and the main difference is that with this I feel invested. I probably won't even look at this when the new Shin Megami Tensei game comes out next year, but I could see getting into this series over picking up whatever the next Pokemon game will be. It's less battling/catch 'em all and more about story and getting involved in events, which feels more like an RPG to me.

Dark Souls: Either I've gotten much better, or Quelaag's Furysword is a little OP. Maybe it's both--I haven't upgraded my vitality really, so most enemies can get me to near-zero health, but I can do the same to them. It's nice that a +2 upgraded Estus Flask can usually restore me to full health without having to chug a couple. I suppose I shouldn't say it like that until I can take on Artorias or Manus, the two bosses I've yet to conquer on my own. But the Painted World and the Duke's Archives are not the nightmares I remember from last year and early this year.
 
Space Engineers launched its Planets update today!

I tried it!

It's a fucking mess of shit!

I'll check up on the game again in another 6 months I guess.
Are you going to update your channel with a Space Engineers video full of constructive criticism?

--Patrick
 

GasBandit

Staff member
Are you going to update your channel with a Space Engineers video full of constructive criticism?

--Patrick
I briefly entertained the idea, but the main problem is massive performance issues - there are times where I go 5-10 seconds between frames. DX11 mode was not exactly solid before this, and now planets require DX11 mode to be on.[DOUBLEPOST=1447434176,1447433764][/DOUBLEPOST]In other news, Dei and I finished Divinity: Original Sin last night. Basically, HulkBandit solo tanked the dragon while everybody else dealt with the trash adds. It was kinda funny to see the massive firebreath/lightningbreath/icebreath wash over my guy for him to just kind of "meh" shrug it off and keep hacking away at the dragon's ankles with his little butcher's cleaver. At one point he even managed to knock the dragon prone. But the game didn't have an animation for that, so it basically amounted to the dragon not doing anything for 3 turns but stand there looking at us.

Dei's already talking about another playthrough in Enhanced Edition using Tactician mode, which apparently is the mode for people who didn't think certain fights had enough gimmicky bullshit to screw you over and make you reload your last save. Oh boy!

Divinity moment of the night: I was wearing a sarong with +1 intel that required 8 intel to wear. That +1 intel gave me the 8 intel I needed to wear it. I only realized this after trying on a different sarong, and deciding to go back to my previous one - but it wouldn't let me put it on because now my intel was 7. I ended up having to drink an intelligence potion to put my pants back on.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
I'm not sure how secure you are in your masculinity and all that, but a sarong's not a pair of pants, dude ;)
Eh, it covers the lower body, close enough. It's the closest thing this game has to pants. It's doesn't count as a belt, that has its own type/slot too.
 

Dave

Staff member
I've been semi-obsessed with ARK: Survival Evolved, although I'm still looking for a permanent server. Halforums should have it's own ARK server
I like ARK enough but I'm starting to sour on the whole "survival" genre. Once you reach a certain point it becomes largely self-sustaining. And the most interesting bits are right at the beginning, but you can only do that so much.

It's why I haven't been playing a lot of Minecraft lately.
 
Dei's already talking about another playthrough in Enhanced Edition using Tactician mode, which apparently is the mode for people who didn't think certain fights had enough gimmicky bullshit to screw you over and make you reload your last save. Oh boy!
Look, I don't think most enemies had bullshit tactics, we just got screwed by RNG sometimes. A lot of fights were enemies flailing around and dying because they randomly walked back and forth and ate every attack of opportunity they could.

And almost every time we got "stuck" on a fight was because we were too low level for it.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
Look, I don't think most enemies had bullshit tactics, we just got screwed by RNG sometimes. A lot of fights were enemies flailing around and dying because they randomly walked back and forth and ate every attack of opportunity they could.

And almost every time we got "stuck" on a fight was because we were too low level for it.
I dunno, that fight with Imal the Squealer was pretty BS, we basically had to OUTlevel him to make it doable. Also remember all the element bullshit with the frost king? How it expected us to run laps around the entire gigantic ass throne room to hit the element totems? I can't think of a single fight where I thought "you know what this fight really needs, more oil barrels, and enemies smart enough to shoot them. Because I'm not on fire NEARLY enough." ;)
 
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