August 2025 General Game Discussion

[Johnway]

Will definitely check this out, the reviews make it seem great.

I've used Xbox Cloud before and it was okay. Latency was an issue for sure, but manageable if you played a game that didn’t require fast reaction times. I played the entirety of Dead Island 2 this way before it was on PC Game Pass, and found it okay.

GeForce Now was recently upgraded to RTX 50 series GPUs and they also claim to have improved latency and overall performance, especially for wifi users. They have a 1 hour free trial mode that restricts it to 1080p 60fps but that's all my TV can go to lol, I'm seriously considering giving it a shot.

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View: https://youtu.be/L0Wv6kkloCU?si=D2IlPhIoNSq_CINb


This looks absolutely amazing to me. It's insane that the quality far exceeds anything Bethesda could have done with the old Fallout games. I really should redownload GZDoom.

yes i saw the doom fallout mod and very excited. of course, i'm just waiting for that C&D letter and its all going to end in tears. Fingers cross it doesn't and we get to try it.

Speaking of doom wads, still playing headless chicken and the city maps have so far been a real hit. clever, funny and more importantly, has a sort of narrative to the missions. Starts off simple enough with doom guy just hosing down the demons before stealing a demonic sub and then hijacking some demons top sports car parked in the beachside resort. Finally it ends with a crash and doom guy has to trek along highway to the railway line to take a train to space. At one point he has to ride a missile to space and then the 4 episode starts proper.

 

[Zed Clampet]

It could be more related to the starter zone, maybe they dumbed down the AI. I don't think so though, seems complicated to program. If not, you should be able to replicate this if you go to any of the small camps with one or two AI protecting it, and then hug some larger object that they can't see through or from the sides.

I've done that hundreds of times by now.

Different NPCs do have different AI. An example of this and my experience: I was riding my sandbike home when a ship spotted me and dropped people down to attack me. Obviously I was much faster on my bike, so I left them pretty far behind and went around a giant rock formation and drove into my base's garage. They were all completely out of sight. I figure it's over when suddenly I hear yelling from outside and see three of them standing in front of my door trying to get in. I just ignore them. A few minutes later, it was quieter, but there was still one feminine voice yelling something every now and then. She's not right at the house. She's maybe 30 feet away just standing there yelling at me. I walk to the door and chuck a grenade at her.

I also had someone from one of the random camps follow me home (again around the rock formation). She was so far behind me that I didn't realize she was after me. I was standing at one of my chests looking at the inventories, when suddenly I get attacked from behind. Somehow she managed to get in through our garage. Never did figure that one out.

I guess introducing players to the world first as a solo and emphasizing the loneliness of the desert is a way to go, but kind of weird. I do wonder if they might have decided on this strategy because they also did the same in Age of Conan. Kind of like if you make it more solo at first, at least players will not know the scope of just how many people are playing, and that might also make it harder to refund.

It wasn't intentional. Most people started playing at launch and have simply moved on to the deep desert and never go back to the main area because you can get everything in the deep desert.

One problem is that there are too many servers for how many people are currently buying the game. Right now they have 23000 concurrents, which isn't bad and will probably be better after the big September update. So they have players, but the way the map is divided up means that if you are in the main area, you don't see anyone.

I doubt they'll do anything to change that, but you never know.

 

[Zed Clampet]

Post 2, @Frindis

By the way, you did exactly what Guido and I did, we left the starting area too early. You should have already had your planar belt (you really do want one) and probably your shield. The dungeon to the east of the trader (testing station) almost always gives a planar belt. The guy above the testing station is the first trainer for planetology, which helps you to mine more resources and such. Did you see the jobs you could pick up posted at the trader?

But if you are going to keep playing, I recommend that you either fly back (hire the woman at the nearest trader) or wait to build the ornithopter. The let you cross that massive stretch of sand the first time so that you can get to the main area, but going back and forth is more treacherous after that.

However, if you need people around to enjoy the game, then you can just beeline to the end, but you are going to have to eventually do enough side things to get the skill points and research points. And if you don't have at least aluminum level gear when you get over there, the only thing you'll be able to do is die.

IMO, even without people it plays as a good open world adventure/shooter/RPG

 

[Frindis]

Did you see the jobs you could pick up posted at the trader?

I picked up a couple, one was for the weirding way tree, so I did that one and another one was some mineral delivery. Then I went to a big boy mountain, put down a new base on top, and went back and forth from my old base to deliver all the resources. I noticed you could also save a copy of your base; I thought that was a nice touch. I also had some type of belt, not sure the name, but I did not craft the items, I basically found a base and stole stuff, and it made some of the tasks I had updated, like the stilsuit quest that I got for free

 

[Zed Clampet]

I decided to check for seasonal events in Farm Together 2, and there actually was one active. Unfortunately, there were only 8 hours left. At first I felt determined and pulled out the tractor intent on planting 15,000 of the seasonal plant, but I had about 2000 planted and thought, maybe I should look at the prizes...So I looked at the prizes and there are about 30 of them, and they are all cat themed. I decided I didn't want them enough to spend my day planting and harvesting 15,000 plants, so I'll just hope to catch this one earlier when they run it again next year.

 

[Zed Clampet]

Ma'am, do you recall signing the Liability Waiver this morning?

 

[neogunhero]

A little more Enshrouded last night. I turned the difficulty down very slightly, increased resource gather rate and XP gain, and it's already a lot easier as a solo player. Not too easy though, things like enemy damage and Shroud time I kept at default values but decreased enemy and boss health a bit. XP gain will also help me get perks faster which will make it a bit easier too.

I also did some more exploring and picked up a bunch of side quests which I'm happy about. For the past two hours of gameplay I mostly focused on building and finding a spot to place more altars for fast travel points, not focusing on any quests. I now have a nice handful of them, so I have some things to work towards. I'm rethinking my latest altar, it would be nice to build it further up the mountain and build a launch pad for the glider.

I also got some better armor and upgraded my axe. I'm really enjoying the RPG elements to this game. I just need to get more perk points, I have like 3 perks after nearly 10 hours of gameplay.

 

[Zed Clampet]

A little more Enshrouded last night. I turned the difficulty down very slightly, increased resource gather rate and XP gain, and it's already a lot easier as a solo player. Not too easy though, things like enemy damage and Shroud time I kept at default values but decreased enemy and boss health a bit. XP gain will also help me get perks faster which will make it a bit easier too.

I also did some more exploring and picked up a bunch of side quests which I'm happy about. For the past two hours of gameplay I mostly focused on building and finding a spot to place more altars for fast travel points, not focusing on any quests. I now have a nice handful of them, so I have some things to work towards. I'm rethinking my latest altar, it would be nice to build it further up the mountain and build a launch pad for the glider.

I also got some better armor and upgraded my axe. I'm really enjoying the RPG elements to this game. I just need to get more perk points, I have like 3 perks after nearly 10 hours of gameplay.

As you get rid of more red shroud, you may end up having to inactivate and move bases a little bit. At least, there used to be a limit on how many you can build. Maybe they got rid of it, though.

 

[neogunhero]

As you get rid of more red shroud, you may end up having to inactivate and move bases a little bit. At least, there used to be a limit on how many you can build. Maybe they got rid of it, though.

I leveled up my first altar and that increased my altar limit from 2 to 4, so maybe it will continue to grow for a while. All the traveling on foot is one thing I'm not a big fan of in this game but ultimately doesn't bother me that much. I just wish there was another way to travel faster across the world, like a wyvern you can ride or some other mount. Though I am happy there is fast travel at least, you just need to be strategic with their placements as you mentioned previously.

 

[neogunhero]

Does anyone use Dynamic Lighting on Windows 11 to control RGB on their PC and peripherals? I tried to do it with my Razer Deathadder V2 and it wasn't working at all. I look up a tutorial on how to do it, and you still need to use Razer Synapse to enable the ability to control it via Windows, which is extremely lame. I hate that software so much lol. I bet if I were to do all of that then uninstall Synapse, the Windows options will not work anymore. Razer makes a good mouse but are terrible in every other department, especially software.

 

[Zed Clampet]

I leveled up my first altar and that increased my altar limit from 2 to 4, so maybe it will continue to grow for a while. All the traveling on foot is one thing I'm not a big fan of in this game but ultimately doesn't bother me that much. I just wish there was another way to travel faster across the world, like a wyvern you can ride or some other mount. Though I am happy there is fast travel at least, you just need to be strategic with their placements as you mentioned previously.

You should absolutely never play Soulmask (maybe, it's in early access, and I haven't played it since launch so there is stuff I don't know about). But this game has the most miserable travel...ever, for the games I've played. The map is large, and everywhere is an epic journey. You do get to ride llamas eventually, and there is a very limited teleportation system (we put a lot of hours in and only had 1 teleporter). Makes it easy to decide when to quit for the day when we suddenly needed to be across the map again. Break time!

On the bright side, I had a harem.

 

[neogunhero]

You should absolutely never play Soulmask (maybe, it's in early access, and I haven't played it since launch so there is stuff I don't know about). But this game has the most miserable travel...ever, for the games I've played. The map is large, and everywhere is an epic journey. You do get to ride llamas eventually, and there is a very limited teleportation system (we put a lot of hours in and only had 1 teleporter). Makes it easy to decide when to quit for the day when we suddenly needed to be across the map again. Break time!

On the bright side, I had a harem.

I usually don't have trouble with long travel times. I have over 300 hours in DayZ and probably 75% of that time was me sprinting around. Something about Enshrouded is really making me want a mount though, or to be able to pull up more on the glider so I don't descend as fast. Hopefully they introduce something like this later down the line.

 

[Zed Clampet]

No Man's Sky with a big ship building update.

It sounds amazing to me, but I'm going to have to completely start over. It's been years and years since I played. I have no idea how to play anymore, what planets I left stuff on, etc.

 

[neogunhero]

No Man's Sky with a big ship building update.

It sounds amazing to me, but I'm going to have to completely start over. It's been years and years since I played. I have no idea how to play anymore, what planets I left stuff on, etc.

I've had such a hard time getting into that game. I've tried it many times over and over, though I never stick with it. It seems like such a cool game, but my brain just does not click with it correctly.

 

[Zed Clampet]

I usually don't have trouble with long travel times. I have over 300 hours in DayZ and probably 75% of that time was me sprinting around. Something about Enshrouded is really making me want a mount though, or to be able to pull up more on the glider so I don't descend as fast. Hopefully they introduce something like this later down the line.

There is a lot of painful verticality. You think you are about to arrive somewhere, but, oops, there's a bit of a mountain in the way. Then you go into the shroud, and you get blocked off by the red. I posted one night here about how I got somewhere, which included ducking in and out of the world map and digging a tunnel through a mountain. Now that I'm remembering things, Enshrouded may be up there close to Soulmask for most pain in the arse travel. You know when I start digging a tunnel that there is BS at play.

 

[Pifanjr]

I played some more Backpack Heroes and played some runs with the last two characters. The fourth one summons pets that each have their own inventory for specific pet items, letting you specialise them for different purposes. However, for some reason the only mission I had unlocked for her gave me a weapon at the start that would hit all creatures, including my pets...

So for the first run with that character I mercilessly killed my pets (with fun little blurbs like "adoptive sister who wears your old shell") over and over, mostly picking items that just boosted the attack of that one weapon.

The second run I actually got to use my pets and immediately broke the game. I got a pet that did two attacks of 2 damage each, which is nothing, but it did mean that each item that increased its attack counted double. So I managed to boost its attack to ridiculous amounts, especially when I found a legendary item that added two more attacks.
On top of that, I got an item that allowed me to put an enemy to sleep for one turn every time I summoned a different pet, who incidentally could be summoned for free and only cost a single energy point to unsummon, allowing me to stun lock every boss.

The fifth character however is a lot more difficult. It's a robot that shoots a charge throughout its inventory that triggers anything it passes over. Which is also the only way to trigger items, so you need to set up your entire turn in advance each time and positioning of your items is a lot more important.
To add to this, the particular mission I picked gave me extremely limited inventory space that couldn't be expanded, which would be hard on any of the characters but even more so with this one. So far I've failed this mission twice, but I'm happy I finally found a challenge.

I believe I've also unlocked a new and possible final area now, so there might be more challenge there as well.

I've had such a hard time getting into that game. I've tried it many times over and over, though I never stick with it. It seems like such a cool game, but my brain just does not click with it correctly.

I gave it a try during a free to play weekend but the entire game gave me the same feeling other people get from Ubisoft games: a giant map filled with icons but devoid of interesting gameplay.

I think one of my main problems is that the game gives you a ton of stuff to do, but zero context on why you would want to do any of it. I just don't do well with games that are just a sandbox with little to no direction.