What game are you playing?

[Tweed]

Playing Stalker: Shadow of Chernobyl right now, and it makes me appreciate the simplicity the original trilogy has; much smaller, yet the progression feels more fluid. The game has scripted CoD-like encounters, but they are over quite fast so they weren't as much of a problem as in Stalker 2, and the game feels more polished once you obtain your first AK. I'm about to reach Brain Scorcher, which is late game where they start spamming enemies at you but it should be ending soon.

Patched it feels fluid, unpatched you take your life in your hands and hope for the best.

[Shady]

Im about to start heavily modded playtrough of Fallout 4 with realistic gameplay mods and Survival difficulty. I only played the game once about a decade ago but don't remember much about the story and factions but according to the wiki i'll probably go with Brotherhood Of Steel.

[Fitz]

Been playing mostly Rogue Trader for the past month or so. The game has been shown much love and it's definitely in a much better state then when it was initially released. One thing that I can say about RT with absolute certainty is that the game has a soul. And that's pretty rare nowadays. Hopefully, Owlcat manage to build even more upon on what is already a great game with the next expansion/dlc. I'll drop my full thoughts on the title in the Rogue Trader thread once I'm finished with it, which should be later this week.

[Tinky Winky]

Playing Stalker: Shadow of Chernobyl right now, and it makes me appreciate the simplicity the original trilogy has; much smaller, yet the progression feels more fluid. The game has scripted CoD-like encounters, but they are over quite fast so they weren't as much of a problem as in Stalker 2, and the game feels more polished once you obtain your first AK. I'm about to reach Brain Scorcher, which is late game where they start spamming enemies at you but it should be ending soon.

Patched it feels fluid, unpatched you take your life in your hands and hope for the best.

I'm playing it with ZRP and I'm enjoying it so far until Red Forest which is basically late game. It can still sometimes be buggy and does feel barebone but still more polished than Stalker 2.

[Roguey]

Putting a pin in but possibly not finished with Caves of Lore.


Incredibly grindy experience. Once you're out of the introductory cave, one of the quests requires finding a key to unlock a graveyard gate, and to get it you have to fight 20 specific combat encounters in a specific area. I did 10 of them and then called it a day. I have a few other games I'd rather be playing, not all that enthused with this.

[Faceless_Sentinel]

Still alternately playing and modding stalker: Call of Pripyat.
It's a decent game, but not as good as the first two.
I'd say it has a mild case of Xbox-itis. Dumbed down and smaller.

It has some pretty serious bugs remaining, and I'm finding lots of typos and mistakes in the weapon and armor control files I've been editing as I go.
Eventually, I guess I'll post my vanilla (slightly) + files here as a mod.
Some of the things I have done so far is make all artifacts worthwhile and rationalized the upgrade trees so it's not gamified (as in bizarre either/or choices).

I can't easily fix the main balance problem, however. The economy, if not messed with, sucks.
It also sucks if messed with, but at least it's not annoying.

The issue is the carrying weight. you can't haul back much to sell, and you can only sell weapons and armor with 70% durability or higher.
But the durability is shown as a bar, so you can never be sure if that rifle you've been lugging is 69% and therefore a waste of space.
(You CAN repair stuff not too damaged for a bit less than you'll make when you sell it after repaired).
In the design of the game, you're expected to just dump 95% of the items you loot. This would be fine if the quests gave you decent rewards, but they don't.
A load of loot can sell for 4k to 10k. Most quests, and there are few, give you 1000 to about 4000. A new stalker suit can cost 8000 or more. The good stuff costs 20k to 40k.
The cost of ammo, if not scavenged (and it's kinda heavy) will cut deeply into the player's funds, but repairing weapons and armor every day can cost 1500 to 4000, depending on how valuable the items are (the repair cost is based on the base item cost).
And guns can break down quick. 100 shots from a good sniper rifle (where it takes at least two hits to kill a lightly armored enemy) will degrade the weapon to 55% or so, and it costs well over 1000 to repair it. No partial repairs either. Fix it totally or don't.
Then there's the upgrade system. It's pretty expensive as well, especially for the better weapons and armors.

So the player is constanly tring to keep enough cash on hand to repair while saving for the rare upgrade, and will rarely if ever be able to buy a special weapon or armor from the dealer.
A player playing the way the game wants him to is constantly on the verge of annoying poverty unless he gets lucky and finds an artifact that is requested and sells it. These artifacts only spawn infrequently and are randomized. And the requested ones can change between when you go out and come back.

The solution is to give the player a more generous backpack. This has some economy side effects as well.
Now the player is incentivized to follow NPCs around and loot steal. Because the mutants, bandits, and stalkers will fight each other, but only mutants are (normally) hostile to the player.
The NPCs will pick up loot, so if you don't want to kill them yourself (ruining your reputation), you just follow them until an enemy kills them, then grab all the loot and bugger off home to sell and/or repair and sell it all.
Now the player has too much money. Which is less bad because there's not a lot to buy anyway except for special items that are slightly better than the regular ones.
It saves the running back and forth to base nonsense with tiny amounts of loot/artifacts. You still do that, but not constantly.

This is a first draft and a stream of consciousness rough overview. I'll add to it and clean it up and probably make a thread when I'm done in a few weeks.

You have to go to hunt artifacts, they are much more profitable in Call of Pripyat then other games. Literally check all anomalies, collect all available artifacts, wait or sleep until emission happens, repeat, that is gameplay loop.

[Rand]

► Show Spoiler

Still alternately playing and modding stalker: Call of Pripyat.
It's a decent game, but not as good as the first two.
I'd say it has a mild case of Xbox-itis. Dumbed down and smaller.

It has some pretty serious bugs remaining, and I'm finding lots of typos and mistakes in the weapon and armor control files I've been editing as I go.
Eventually, I guess I'll post my vanilla (slightly) + files here as a mod.
Some of the things I have done so far is make all artifacts worthwhile and rationalized the upgrade trees so it's not gamified (as in bizarre either/or choices).

I can't easily fix the main balance problem, however. The economy, if not messed with, sucks.
It also sucks if messed with, but at least it's not annoying.

The issue is the carrying weight. you can't haul back much to sell, and you can only sell weapons and armor with 70% durability or higher.
But the durability is shown as a bar, so you can never be sure if that rifle you've been lugging is 69% and therefore a waste of space.
(You CAN repair stuff not too damaged for a bit less than you'll make when you sell it after repaired).
In the design of the game, you're expected to just dump 95% of the items you loot. This would be fine if the quests gave you decent rewards, but they don't.
A load of loot can sell for 4k to 10k. Most quests, and there are few, give you 1000 to about 4000. A new stalker suit can cost 8000 or more. The good stuff costs 20k to 40k.
The cost of ammo, if not scavenged (and it's kinda heavy) will cut deeply into the player's funds, but repairing weapons and armor every day can cost 1500 to 4000, depending on how valuable the items are (the repair cost is based on the base item cost).
And guns can break down quick. 100 shots from a good sniper rifle (where it takes at least two hits to kill a lightly armored enemy) will degrade the weapon to 55% or so, and it costs well over 1000 to repair it. No partial repairs either. Fix it totally or don't.
Then there's the upgrade system. It's pretty expensive as well, especially for the better weapons and armors.

So the player is constanly tring to keep enough cash on hand to repair while saving for the rare upgrade, and will rarely if ever be able to buy a special weapon or armor from the dealer.
A player playing the way the game wants him to is constantly on the verge of annoying poverty unless he gets lucky and finds an artifact that is requested and sells it. These artifacts only spawn infrequently and are randomized. And the requested ones can change between when you go out and come back.

The solution is to give the player a more generous backpack. This has some economy side effects as well.
Now the player is incentivized to follow NPCs around and loot steal. Because the mutants, bandits, and stalkers will fight each other, but only mutants are (normally) hostile to the player.
The NPCs will pick up loot, so if you don't want to kill them yourself (ruining your reputation), you just follow them until an enemy kills them, then grab all the loot and bugger off home to sell and/or repair and sell it all.
Now the player has too much money. Which is less bad because there's not a lot to buy anyway except for special items that are slightly better than the regular ones.
It saves the running back and forth to base nonsense with tiny amounts of loot/artifacts. You still do that, but not constantly.

This is a first draft and a stream of consciousness rough overview. I'll add to it and clean it up and probably make a thread when I'm done in a few weeks.

You have to go to hunt artifacts, they are much more profitable in Call of Pripyat then other games. Literally check all anomalies, collect all available artifacts, wait or sleep until emission happens, repeat, that is gameplay loop.

Yeah, I know. But they don't sell for much unless it's a special order.
Also (as one example) in Zaton, I checked every anomaly zone after two emissions on two days. 9 zones x2 = 18 total, and I got three base-level artifacts that would sell for less than 10k total.

[Faceless_Sentinel]

► Show Spoiler

Still alternately playing and modding stalker: Call of Pripyat.
It's a decent game, but not as good as the first two.
I'd say it has a mild case of Xbox-itis. Dumbed down and smaller.

It has some pretty serious bugs remaining, and I'm finding lots of typos and mistakes in the weapon and armor control files I've been editing as I go.
Eventually, I guess I'll post my vanilla (slightly) + files here as a mod.
Some of the things I have done so far is make all artifacts worthwhile and rationalized the upgrade trees so it's not gamified (as in bizarre either/or choices).

I can't easily fix the main balance problem, however. The economy, if not messed with, sucks.
It also sucks if messed with, but at least it's not annoying.

The issue is the carrying weight. you can't haul back much to sell, and you can only sell weapons and armor with 70% durability or higher.
But the durability is shown as a bar, so you can never be sure if that rifle you've been lugging is 69% and therefore a waste of space.
(You CAN repair stuff not too damaged for a bit less than you'll make when you sell it after repaired).
In the design of the game, you're expected to just dump 95% of the items you loot. This would be fine if the quests gave you decent rewards, but they don't.
A load of loot can sell for 4k to 10k. Most quests, and there are few, give you 1000 to about 4000. A new stalker suit can cost 8000 or more. The good stuff costs 20k to 40k.
The cost of ammo, if not scavenged (and it's kinda heavy) will cut deeply into the player's funds, but repairing weapons and armor every day can cost 1500 to 4000, depending on how valuable the items are (the repair cost is based on the base item cost).
And guns can break down quick. 100 shots from a good sniper rifle (where it takes at least two hits to kill a lightly armored enemy) will degrade the weapon to 55% or so, and it costs well over 1000 to repair it. No partial repairs either. Fix it totally or don't.
Then there's the upgrade system. It's pretty expensive as well, especially for the better weapons and armors.

So the player is constanly tring to keep enough cash on hand to repair while saving for the rare upgrade, and will rarely if ever be able to buy a special weapon or armor from the dealer.
A player playing the way the game wants him to is constantly on the verge of annoying poverty unless he gets lucky and finds an artifact that is requested and sells it. These artifacts only spawn infrequently and are randomized. And the requested ones can change between when you go out and come back.

The solution is to give the player a more generous backpack. This has some economy side effects as well.
Now the player is incentivized to follow NPCs around and loot steal. Because the mutants, bandits, and stalkers will fight each other, but only mutants are (normally) hostile to the player.
The NPCs will pick up loot, so if you don't want to kill them yourself (ruining your reputation), you just follow them until an enemy kills them, then grab all the loot and bugger off home to sell and/or repair and sell it all.
Now the player has too much money. Which is less bad because there's not a lot to buy anyway except for special items that are slightly better than the regular ones.
It saves the running back and forth to base nonsense with tiny amounts of loot/artifacts. You still do that, but not constantly.

This is a first draft and a stream of consciousness rough overview. I'll add to it and clean it up and probably make a thread when I'm done in a few weeks.

You have to go to hunt artifacts, they are much more profitable in Call of Pripyat then other games. Literally check all anomalies, collect all available artifacts, wait or sleep until emission happens, repeat, that is gameplay loop.

Yeah, I know. But they don't sell for much unless it's a special order.
Also (as one example) in Zaton, I checked every anomaly zone after two emissions on two days. 9 zones x2 = 18 total, and I got three base-level artifacts that would sell for less than 10k total.

No luck. You can look at the wiki with spavin chances to have clearer expectations. That is a stalker life: from raid to raid, chasing "the one" artifact that will make you millions.

[Fitz]

Been playing mostly Rogue Trader for the past month or so. The game has been shown much love and it's definitely in a much better state then when it was initially released. One thing that I can say about RT with absolute certainty is that the game has a soul. And that's pretty rare nowadays. Hopefully, Owlcat manage to build even more upon on what is already a great game with the next expansion/dlc. I'll drop my full thoughts on the title in the Rogue Trader thread once I'm finished with it, which should be later this week.

After clocking in a little over 300 hours I'm finally able to say that I've beaten Rogue Trader. Mind you this whole playtime wasn't spend on one campaign and a small part of it was accumulated while I was sleeping too. Still 300hrs is a lot of time. I haven't spend that much time on a video game in a minute. Sometimes I do this thing where I pick a cRPG and playthrough it as much as I can. Usually, the goal is to finish it on the hardest difficulty. While fun and mostly satisfying it comes at the expense of my other hobbies.

I feel like I'm done with gaming like this for awhile - for a very long while. I might play something more casually, but biting into another cRpg like this is not happening any time soon. I've tried doing this with Divinity:OS2 and PoE II, but the settings of the games just wasn't doing it for me. I'll give them another shot some time later but for now this is it. If anything I'm more excited about the Black Geyser's expansion which is supposed to come out some time later this year. I haven't played the base game, but it seem like a budget version of Pillars I and that's very much so up my alley. Other titles that I've been eyeing up are Banquet for Fools, Redemption Reapers, The Stone of Madness and a few more that are on my wishlist. However, I think the next game I'll really bite into is going to be Expeditions: Rome. There is always a period in the year where I want to read up on Rome, learn something new about the empire, or just consume media about it and I think this is the perfect fit for the job. I'm really tempted with buying it right now with it's price being slashed by 60%+. But yeah, that's not happening.

So, Rogue Trader. Good times were had, laughs occured and challenges were overcome. Overall a really good time with the game and I'm even planning on revisiting it again once the new DLC/expansion is released and patched out. Mind you I haven't played the current expansion - Void Shadows - so there is a lot more of the game that I have yet to experience. One thing I have to say is that the ending of the game didn't really left me all that satisfied. All of the plot lines came together and the ending slides were interesting enough, but I really wish my companions didn't just continue with their life like all of this cosmos ending conspiracy didn't happen. They all just drift away like the story of the game never really happened. I suppose that is the nature of 40k, but still. It made the whole ending section feel underdeveloped. I'm definitely having a moment where I appreciate the journey more than the destination. I wonder how much more I'll enjoy it if I go through it with Grim Darkness (Ironman) turned on.

[Vergil]

Im about to start heavily modded playtrough of Fallout 4 with realistic gameplay mods and Survival difficulty. I only played the game once about a decade ago but don't remember much about the story and factions but according to the wiki i'll probably go with Brotherhood Of Steel.

Whatever you do don't do the Minutemen. That ******* questline is still turbo bugged the **** out.
Personally instead of the Sisterhood of Soy I would use America Rising 2 which adds the Enclave as a faction that integrates seamlessly with the main story.

[Fitz]

Im about to start heavily modded playtrough of Fallout 4 with realistic gameplay mods and Survival difficulty. I only played the game once about a decade ago but don't remember much about the story and factions but according to the wiki i'll probably go with Brotherhood Of Steel.

Whatever you do don't do the Minutemen. That ******* questline is still turbo bugged the **** out.
Personally instead of the Sisterhood of Soy I would use America Rising 2 which adds the Enclave as a faction that integrates seamlessly with the main story.

Better yet - don't do any of the side quests that require you to use the building mechanic. One of the DLCs where you go down to some vault is based solely around it. Other than some funny dialogue, clearing out mutated bugs and doing some insipid base building you won't be missing much of value.

The Far Harbor DLC on the other hand is peak Fallout 4 and I strongly recommend people play through it.
There is a lot to enjoy on that island engulfed in mist. Both in terms of gameplay and story.

[Vergil]

I couldn't get into Far Harbor because it requires you to interact with Fallout 4 NPCs and the moment I have to do that my eyes glaze over and I start seeing random images flash into my cerebrum.
The Mechanist DLC is fine because you just shoot things for 90% of it.

[TKVNC]

I couldn't get into Far Harbor because it requires you to interact with Fallout 4 NPCs and the moment I have to do that my eyes glaze over and I start seeing random images flash into my cerebrum.
The Mechanist DLC is fine because you just shoot things for 90% of it.

The original version of FROST was good because of this. Almost no NPC's, just shooting swarthoids in the snow.

[Vergil]

I couldn't get into Far Harbor because it requires you to interact with Fallout 4 NPCs and the moment I have to do that my eyes glaze over and I start seeing random images flash into my cerebrum.
The Mechanist DLC is fine because you just shoot things for 90% of it.

The original version of FROST was good because of this. Almost no NPC's, just shooting swarthoids in the snow.

Shame it has a really weird and ******** story without a fraction of the interesting worldbuilding that DUST has. I guess that's not entirely the mod's fault since DUST has New Vegas to build off of and FROST has Fagout *****.

[Fitz]

I couldn't get into Far Harbor because it requires you to interact with Fallout 4 NPCs and the moment I have to do that my eyes glaze over and I start seeing random images flash into my cerebrum.
The Mechanist DLC is fine because you just shoot things for 90% of it.

Once you get to the islands things get better. The family that sends you out to find their daughter is annoying af, I agree with that. But the payoff later on is so good. The factions you meet on the island are pretty interesting too compared to what you have in the base game. A slow start but once it gets going it doesn't let up right up until the end.

[Vergil]

But the payoff later on is so good. The factions you meet on the island are pretty interesting too compared to what you have in the base game.

I know that the stupid "Church of Atom" shows up and that's enough for me to lost interest.

[Fitz]

Yes, but you can make them go

► Show Spoiler

boom.

[Shady]

Can you even avoid doing the settlement stuff on Survival? Besides mods for realistic damage and injuries i also got a loot reducing mod because i remember the economy being broken and being showered by items just like Skyrim, which i find ridiculously stupid in post apocalyptic scenario, where lot of usefull stuff is supposed to be gone because you're obviously not the first person ever looting the place.

[Happy Faulter]

I finished this Taiwanese indie side-scrolling psychological horror game a few days back titled "Detention" which is set in 1960s Taiwan during the time of mass arrests. Interesting setting and themes so far, but as a game, it's decent in the first half with avoiding monsters and solving puzzles. It drops the ball at the second-half where it tries to become a movie walking simulator.

[pol_345polex]

Finished Venetica, now going to finish a modded playthrough of Icewind Dale and start Penumbra: Overture.

[Tweed]

Playing Stalker: Shadow of Chernobyl right now, and it makes me appreciate the simplicity the original trilogy has; much smaller, yet the progression feels more fluid. The game has scripted CoD-like encounters, but they are over quite fast so they weren't as much of a problem as in Stalker 2, and the game feels more polished once you obtain your first AK. I'm about to reach Brain Scorcher, which is late game where they start spamming enemies at you but it should be ending soon.

Patched it feels fluid, unpatched you take your life in your hands and hope for the best.

I'm playing it with ZRP and I'm enjoying it so far until Red Forest which is basically late game. It can still sometimes be buggy and does feel barebone but still more polished than Stalker 2.

ZRP is really good, much better than being young and getting suckered into the Complete meme. Although someone did a small patch for Complete for the first game that rebalanced the awful gunplay that made it more tolerable. Still, I wouldn't recommend that **** to anyone.

[1998]

*** Creed Oddysee. Actually, my first *** Creed game ever, and it's okay so far. I am only ~10 hours in, so of course it has been fun so far, but I don't think there is a chance I will finish it. It's already getting repetitive, but eh, for 90% off, it's okay for a few hours.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

After trying out Wuthering Waves last night, I decided to try out Honkai Star Rail, also on the phone. This time with Japanese voice acting.

It is an inferior Trails clone, with the same ups and downs as Trails in combat, gameplay structure, and story.

The first positive is that - like Trails - it has leisurely turn based combat (WITH your party of characters fighting with you in battle, unlike Genshin and Wuthering Waves. Sadly they don't run with you in the overworld), with the same turn/speed system and ability to pop your S-crafts immediately. Unfortunately, so far there seems to be no indication that you can do the interesting turn manipulation stuff of Trails like the nooby delay based strategies, or using Chrono Burst and Accel Shot to take multiple turns in a row, or the elite high dodge rate and auto countera attacks after evading + slow speed + auto regen VP every turn strat to become absurdly powerful. There is no positioning in battle like in Trails, which is disappointing as the most challenging and memorable encounters in Trails relied on clever positioning of your characters on the battlefield. I saw a character do a followup attack once, so I am not sure how robust of a system that mechanic is compared to Cold Steel's link attacks where ypu had a resource and different options for followup actions.

Fiddling with the touchscreen controls to move the character and camera was just as frustrating as in Genshin and Wuthering Waves, but given that this is a turn based game, there was nowhere near as much pressure. I was not getting beaten up because I couldn't dodge in the right direction or turn the camera to see. Selecting targets in battle with the classic Final Fantasy camera framing is easy and intuitive.

I apparently got a free outfit for March 7th, which looked prettier and classier than whatever her dumb default character design is supposed to be, so I equipped that. Unfortunately, in cutscenes she reverted back to her dumb outfit.
The story is mediocre, borrowing from one of the most debilitating aspects of the Trails franchise. The game begins with you playing not as the main protagonist, but as an annoying young woman who is a know-it-all and Very Important with secret projects and involved in the underworld and such. And then she is accompanied by a horribly snarky hacker young teenage girl who is also a know it all. I hate these teen geniuses in Trails who act like they have so much life experience when they are barely 20. I also did not like the hacker girl's 4th wall breaking. We then find out that the space station is being attacked by secret armies from nowhere (not this **** again), and then get introduced to the members of what seems to be yet another Akatsuki/Ouroboros/Organization XIII clone. Yawn. The story improves a little once you find the protagonist and the two brats leave, but it's still not good. So far I don't give a hoot about any of these characters or what is going on, which is a failure.

I like the design of the robots at the beginning. The battle attack animations/ VFX, and cutscenes for both party members and enemies are solid. I am still not keen on the cartoony artstyle, though.

I keep thinking back to Trails and keep thinking about how badly the experience of these free games is mangled by the format. I would much rather just buy a $60 box and get all of the characters, rather than get a couple free characters I will probably dislike, have to waste a considerable amount of my limited free time doing awful dailies just to save up enough fake money to roll for one character I might be interested in.
So far there is no big Western styled open world filled with copypasted ruins and chests to waste my time, which is a plus.

I dislike the main character's outfit. He is wearing an oversized punky jacket and a baseball bat, which makes him look like an inept teenager rather than a cool or competent person. I was not particularly keen on the detailing of Wuthering Waves' MC's jacket, but at least he looks competent. Neither of them hold a candle to real JRPG protagonists like Zidane, Oshtor, Rean, etc. It should would be nice if these Chinese games allowed me to customize my main character! Get a haircut, drop the dumb outfits, pick up a spear, tame and fight with a pet, etc.

I am not keen on the music, but at least I can recall that it even exists, unlike WW. Maybe it will get better? I am truly baffled as to why people fangirl over Mihoyo's music. The hype duped me into wasting a day of my life listening to all of the Genshin albums and only walking away with maybe 12 songs that were good.

I might try this a bit more. I think I liked Wuthering Waves' characters a bit more, and the protagonist was more likeable (at least none of the characters were so aggravating as to diminish my enjoyment), but the cutscenes were too long winded, and ofcourse the open world and action combat are dealbreakers. Whereas this has more entertaining combat, and so far the story respects my time a little more (though could still stand to be trimmed). But overall, not really feeling the mediocre experience of these 3D Chinese mobile games, so I'll probably just uninstall.

[1998]

Finally finished AC: Odyssey. Guess it was ok for maybe 10-20h after that just rinse and repeat. Pretty sure I won't be playing any other UbiSlop game in a while.

Also, contrary to some opinions here, it's also not really close to Witcher 3. It's more like W3, but only monster nests, persons in distress etc.

[maidenhaver]

Everything without committing to anything, because none of its fun, anymore.

[Oyster Sauce]

Everything without committing to anything, because none of its fun, anymore.

Why don't you try some all-natural Video Game Enhancer?

[Vergil]

playin wit mah worm ;ppppp

[Shady]

TES V: Mod Organizer 2

[maidenhaver]

Everything without committing to anything, because none of its fun, anymore.

Why don't you try some all-natural Video Game Enhancer?

You've made a fief here for your non-white and homosexual discord friends.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

@Finarfin did you get further into Granblue Fantasy Relink? Thoughts? Likes? Dislikes?