What game are you playing?

[maidenhaver]

Tried playing The Black Parade, but my Thief Gold won't work right. It keeps turning into Thief 2 in task manager. I've never seen this before.

[rusty_shackleford]

I do not feel even a little bad for using a guide to check this stuff in advance. I'm halfway convinced it was designed this way on purpose to sell guides.

This used to be basically every game, along with 1-900 tip numbers. They were the DLC of their time.

[Vergil]

Man, I hate video games

[maidenhaver]

No you don't.

[Ryles]

Sold my soul to Overwatch, revisiting GTAV, found a comfy grind in Vampire Hunters. It's "Vampire Survivors but FPS" where you comically stack your first person fov with lotsa guns. Neat soundtrack too.

[Tweed]

Sold my soul to Overwatch, revisiting GTAV, found a comfy grind in Vampire Hunters. It's "Vampire Survivors but FPS" where you comically stack your first person fov with lotsa guns. Neat soundtrack too.

You need to be 18 to post here.

[Ryles]

****, the jannies here just make rules up? :^)

Be careful with that "unwritten" stuff, you might get actual kids who wanna talk about roblox.

[rusty_shackleford]

****, the jannies here just make rules up? :^)

Be careful with that "unwritten" stuff, you might get actual kids who wanna talk about roblox.

ucp.php?mode=terms

[…] You agree that by using this website you are at least 18 years of age. If you are under the age of 18, do not use this website.

Orange names aren't moderators, the only reason they even have special colors is I use it for scraping the logs tbh.

[edit]
To be clear, I'd have to heavily censor the website if I allowed people under 18 due to laws like COPPA. It would also make me personally liable for a bunch of stuff. Social media sites have entire teams dedicated just to handling COPPA issues.
Also, I just don't want kids on my site.

[Ratcatcher]

unwritten stuff

Some of us shoot kids for a living. This is not a joke, beware.

[Oyster Sauce]

Sold my soul to Overwatch, revisiting GTAV, found a comfy grind in Vampire Hunters. It's "Vampire Survivors but FPS" where you comically stack your first person fov with lotsa guns. Neat soundtrack too.

You need to be 18 to post here.

Great, the furry avatars are fighting now.

[WhiteShark]

I somehow got most of the gaiden chapters and rank-ups in 7 by accident. I played that one so many times, I must have found them by efficient play. I got suspicious after they introduced gaiden chapters earlier, and there inexplicably weren't any levels in the desert country.

Yeah, you can get some of them in 6 if you just play for turn count, but others have more obscure triggers. I don't mind time limits - I actually enjoy the pressure as long as not every mission becomes a race against the clock - but I don't like hidden time limits you only discover after playing carefully for an hour.

The secret shops are stupid though. Wasted mechanic having that merchant follow you, only to stock iron and steel weapons. His inventory should have included secret shop items if you scored high on your missions.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA I just found out I missed the first of exactly TWO secret shop appearances.
Well screw you too Intelligent Systems, I have the power of FEBuilder on my side. The next chapter is going to have a secret shop in the starting zone and there's nothing you can do about it.

[Tweed]

Cheater

[Oyster Sauce]

If you're going to cheat you could at least own up to it.

[Tweed]

Sold my soul to Overwatch, revisiting GTAV, found a comfy grind in Vampire Hunters. It's "Vampire Survivors but FPS" where you comically stack your first person fov with lotsa guns. Neat soundtrack too.

You need to be 18 to post here.

Great, the furry avatars are fighting now.

I have seniority and if anyone wants to dispute it I'll gladly wipe them out in DKMP.

[WhiteShark]

It's not cheating. Nobody could have found the shop except via a guide, which they expected you to buy, so it's piracy.

[Tweed]

Finished Future Shock, playing Skynet and kind of sort of playing MM8 since I never finished it (always burn out near the start after a marathon of MM 6-7). I was kind of thinking about playing the MMMerge, but I'll wait till I finish 8.

Arcomage is one of the best ideas and most entertaining minigames ever to be placed in a CRPG.

[J1M]

Replaying widescreen Warcraft III on hard. Challenge surprised me a bit after the tutorial missions. Game still holds up well.

Also like seeing the maps designed around mechanics like the undead ability to recycle buildings. Didn't like how divorced the multiplayer was for SC2. Enemy armies were missing several units, making them boring to fight.

[SiMtRy]

Recently have been playing a game Called Your Only Move Is Hustle (formerly Yomi Hustle).

Its an interesting game. its a fighting game played online, but the catch is that the game is turnbased. you have tons of move options and the turns are played out simultaneously.
It really reminds me of those stick fightt animations i used to watch in stickpage as a wee lad.
at the end of the match, the replay is played at normal speed. here's a few webms of matches i've had with people.

Theres mod support too so people are actively making custom characters and stages for the game. Its pretty cheap right now on steam, but you can also get the version on Itch.io which is free iirc.

[Roguey]

Finished Weird West. Combat is much too chaotic for my liking, and the character system is rather uninteresting, but it's a stealth action game that isn't too annoying, so I liked it well enough. It fully deserves the name Woke West of course.

[Bertram_Tung]

The only PC game I've played extensively in 2023 was Hitman Freelancer. The always online ******** sucks but other than that it's great fun. I've played it to death though, so I haven't touched it in a couple months.

[WhiteShark]

Finished FE6 a couple days ago. The difficulty waned significantly once I got everybody leveled and promoted and started only bringing the best characters. The last two chapters in the true ending were also rather anticlimactic, but up to that point the level design was solid. Now I'm debating whether to start a hard mode run. If I do, I will probably also make it a rule to use neither arenas nor secret shops. I don't think you even really need the latter if you're content promoting only your best guys.

► Story Stuff

The plot follows the typical Japanese pattern: relatively grounded political intrigue with fantasy elements turns into world-scale threat near the end. It's not as bad as some stories in that regard since the hidden threat is significantly foreshadowed, but the penultimate chapter is basically just advancing along a linear corridor while being given a giant lore dump about the true final boss by a character who was introduced only for this purpose and dies immediately after. The final chapter is even worse: it's just one room with the boss and continuously spawning enemies, but these latter don't matter at all because the boss goes down in two turns, three if you're slow.

The normal end (which you pass through on the way to the true end) is better in pretty much every way. The last two chapters are large, non-linear, full of strong enemies, and, particularly in the second to last chapter, apply continuous pressure as more enemies appear to flank you. It's also more satisfying to defeat the normal boss since he's a major part of the story for the entire game instead of a shadowy side character who only has a couple lines of dialogue and requires the whole aforementioned exposition chapter to explain.

Eventually I want to use FEBuilder to add tiles for the secret shops since, in the default game, they're completely invisible. I thought it would be really simple, and it is for the second chapter in which one appears, but the first appearance is a problem because the chapter's tileset does not contain a shop tile. "No problem," I thought, "I'll just copy-paste the shop tile from a different tileset into this one." Then I learned about palettes and the way sprites are loaded. In short, the tile must be made using only the colors in one of the four palettes available per tileset, so if it uses any other colors, you have to remake it. No easy copy-pasting.

Now I'm playing Game Boy Wars 1 (Advance Wars 1) since I'm in an Intelligent Systems mood. Playing a game with disposable units is refreshing after FE6. It's also interesting how significantly it changes the optimal tactics when damage to a unit also reduces its effectiveness. You don't want to let the enemy get the first hit if you can help it, and if you can't, you at least want to bait with a weak unit so that you don't suffer damage to something more valuable. Total opposite of FE, in which you routinely throw your strongest units on the front line because they'll likely take no damage, and even if they do, it doesn't hinder them at all and is easily healed.

The campaign is... short. There are 25 missions, but many of them only last a few minutes. While I was playing I reached a mission that was the first to have a very large number of units on both sides with a relatively complicated map and thought, "Ah, at last, a challenge!" It turned out to be the final mission. However, it seems the real meat of the campaign is in its hard mode, which you can unlock after completing it on normal. The maps themselves don't change, but the quality of enemy units is significantly upgraded. The game also offers a ranking system, so a real completionist is encouraged to strive for an S rank on each mission.

[Tweed]

Finished M&M8, p.average, not as good as 6 or 7 even if you can have dragons in your party.

[Atlantico]

Playing the Outer Worlds now. Without going very deep into anything since I have not finished it yet, the writing is sub-par, the worldbuilding makes no sense and the woke ******** is pushed in your face whether you like it or not.

Seems we've come a long way from BG Siege of Dragonspear where you actually had to talk to a character for quite some time and pushing until he revealed he was in fact a man dressed as a woman and had deep psychological issues. Now it's pushed in your face and you have to click "cancel if you don't want to partake in woke ********".

The other more than slightly disturbing tone is the fact that every single smart or capable leader is a woman and they're never presented as evil, at worst they are pragmatic. Every single man is evil or stupid or insane or all of the above.

Maybe that will change later into the game.... but... I .... sincerely ....... doubt it.

[maidenhaver]

[media]Aragami's about the least interesting game I've played in while. This was made when devs thought it was a good idea to give players a teleport past the gameplay button, because we don't want you to discover there's no sound propagation and enemy sight cones are on-off.[/media]

Wtf

[KnightoftheWind]

Been replaying Morrowind with a handful of mods, including the Tamriel Rebult and Project Tamriel stuff, as well as Morrowind Rebirth and a combat overhaul mod. The latter I feel is especially important to me now, as it completely changes the game for the better in my eyes. Instead of clicking your mouse like a madman hoping your attacks actually land, every hit now counts and the game is rebalanced to fit that. It's not perfect, but it makes the gameplay a lot closer to Oblivion and Skyrim which can only be a good thing. Combat instantly becomes more engaging and frenetic, I was shocked at the difference it made to my enjoyment level.

What I appreciate most is the world building and sense of scale, even if the themes and art design aren't my personal favorite. You feel like you're on an adventure, which is the one thing older Bethesda games (pre-Soyfield and Fallout 4) excelled at. I only wish there were more than 3 music tracks replayed on loop the entire time, that's a massive flaw that fails to accentuate the otherwise interesting world.

[WhiteShark]

The true final mission of Advance Wars 1 on Hard is one of the biggest difficulty spikes I've experienced in a while. This is how it starts:


That basically speaks for itself, but there are two further problems not apparent in that image:

• The enemy CO is Eagle, who buffs air units, of which he has an abundance from the beginning, and whose CO power is to give all his units except infantry an extra action, possibly the best power in the whole game.
• The mission has fog of war, which hampers you while the AI simply cheats and sees through it.

You have no choice but to invest heavily in anti-air to survive the initial wave of helicopters and then the onslaught of bombers a few turns later. You have two airports, but they're useless, as any air unit you build will be immediately destroyed by the enemy fighters. While you're dealing with the enemy air units, you're pressured by tanks and AA guns on both sides with little to stymie them but a wall of infantry bodies and your own AA guns, both of which are awful against tanks. Shortly after the bombers start wreaking havoc the enemy medium tanks waltz in and begin massacring what remains of your feeble resistance. If, at this point, you're still somehow holding on, hoping you're about to stabilize and start making headway, you'll then notice that the enemy has begun capturing your side properties and that there is a steady influx of new enemy air units, funded by all the previously neutral cities the enemy has been capturing in the fog while slaughtering you.

Yeah. I don't know. I got fed up with it and went online to look for advice, but the GameFAQs guide mentioned something about using your """starting tank""" and had a link to a video from the reboot, while on the Japanese strategy site I found the author admitted to not having been able to beat it and asked people to stop posting questions in the comments section because he and the regulars were tired of hearing them.

[WhiteShark]

Trying to play defensively by land is a battle of attrition at best, there’s no way to win just by playing defensively and hoping that Eagle will let up. It seems like Eagle has you completely sewn up. Just listening to all of the copters, tanks and artillery rushing after me out there in the fog was enough to make my jaw drop in disbelief. Advance Rivals took me the longest of all the campaign levels to play, and that was around 5-6 days of effort. After some failed attempts at stalling out, I realized I would have to hold off the ground invasion, bait the four fighters, and destroy the copters & bombers as they come in. It takes expert skill to know how to manipulate the computer AI, exploit it's weaknesses, and hold off enemy ground units in tight spots initially, but there's so many variables and factors to consider that it really is one of the toughest levels not only to plan out the general strategy to but also execute it with attention to the minutest detail. I can only help you so far, the rest is up to you.

Ugh, so it seems like it mainly comes down to AI manipulation and memorizing its patterns. I'll give it a few more tries, but that's not really my idea of a fun challenge.

[maidenhaver]

Go look up guides for the Famicom Wars games. A lot of maps got reused, they all look the same. The only issue is Advance Wars added magic powers, idk how you'll cope with that. Looks like turn 1 APC and rush lol pray to rngsus.

[maidenhaver]

Oh ****, you've got 2 airports. How much money do you have? Send two chinooks with guys in them to JQ and win. Duh. You stupid weeb.

Iirc AI prioritize air targets, so build a chinook and send an apc.

[Vaako]

Been replaying Morrowind with a handful of mods, including the Tamriel Rebult and Project Tamriel stuff, as well as Morrowind Rebirth and a combat overhaul mod. The latter I feel is especially important to me now, as it completely changes the game for the better in my eyes. Instead of clicking your mouse like a madman hoping your attacks actually land, every hit now counts and the game is rebalanced to fit that. It's not perfect, but it makes the gameplay a lot closer to Oblivion and Skyrim which can only be a good thing. Combat instantly becomes more engaging and frenetic, I was shocked at the difference it made to my enjoyment level.

What I appreciate most is the world building and sense of scale, even if the themes and art design aren't my personal favorite. You feel like you're on an adventure, which is the one thing older Bethesda games (pre-Soyfield and Fallout 4) excelled at. I only wish there were more than 3 music tracks replayed on loop the entire time, that's a massive flaw that fails to accentuate the otherwise interesting world.

If you invested heaviely in agility at the beginning and focused on one weapon type you also use, you usually hit pretty well in vanilla. But you probably have to min/max at the beginning the first 10 levels to get agility up to like 100. Or get some items which enhance it like that ring of the wind or the helmet of oreyn bearclaw. But those werent easy to get at low level.

And you can add some music into the right folders if you want more variety. And there should be plenty of music mods you can download from nexus.