December 2023 General Discussion Thread

[Zed Clampet]

Do the "Are you sure?" messages do you any good any more? I'm so used to them, I don't even think. I just hit "yes". Sometimes I wonder what I just said "yes" to. And, yes, there was an incident where I should have said "no".

 

[Brian Boru]

Do the "Are you sure?" messages do you any good any more?

Not me, I wish there was an option to get rid of them. If I quit without saving, that's on me—won't happen often!

Probably worse for you since you play a lot of new stuff—so you get many more different UIs.

 

[Pifanjr]

I'm really getting tired of gamafication at the expense of logic (for instance the 4 eggs to create 1 boiled egg post). Now in Phasmophobia, they've added tiers of equipment, which is fine, but the starter camera can only take one photo and then there is a long cooldown. Even worse, the camera can only take pictures of things closer than 5 meters.

Please just stop.

Even worse when you have to unlock even the most basic mechanics. An example that come to mind is Far Cry 3, where you have to buy the skill to cook grenades or be able to drag bodies. But I know I've seen worse skills where it seems like the developer added mechanics that make the game worse just so you can pay to remove them or make you pay to unlock basic mechanics.

Do the "Are you sure?" messages do you any good any more? I'm so used to them, I don't even think. I just hit "yes". Sometimes I wonder what I just said "yes" to. And, yes, there was an incident where I should have said "no".

My supermarket recently started an action where you can save up points through their app to get a free box of groceries. I've already closed the popup telling me to scan the QR code in the app once just because I wasn't used to seeing it yet and unknown popups get closed without reading.

 

[WoodenSaucer]

Wordle 3
…is a lot harder than 1 or 2, its grids go up to 7x7 and some categories have plenty of words I never heard of—example from Flowers category where I had to use a bunch of hints to bloom:

I'm now in the Countries category with the self-imposed goal of not using any hint—so far so good for 11 levels. @WoodenSaucer Hey Woody, fancy trying out that hard-earned knowledge you acquired last year? 😀

How does it work? I still do a few geography games from time to time. Since last time I was around, I got all the world capitals down, too.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

I'm still playing Alan Wake 2. Its really good, really into the story and the way they are telling it. Just went through what I assume is this games Ashtray maze style segment, loads of fun.

Stellaris, Im maybe 10 hours into the game, I only have the Utopia DLC but there seems to be a fair amount of stuff I dont recall. First contact stuff is more involved, government has more options with the edicts or whatever that you can buy for Unity. Theres a lot more anomaly types to investigate and research than I remember. I picked a random civ, they prefer arctic worlds and I'm not finding many so I guess I'll try and get some robots on the go for all the low habitability planets I keep finding. Enjoying learning it again.

 

[Zed Clampet]

Even worse when you have to unlock even the most basic mechanics.

This happens sometimes with cooking in survival games. I might have raw meat and a fire, but apparently my character can't figure out what to do next until I level up.

 

[Pifanjr]

Stellaris, Im maybe 10 hours into the game, I only have the Utopia DLC but there seems to be a fair amount of stuff I dont recall. First contact stuff is more involved, government has more options with the edicts or whatever that you can buy for Unity. Theres a lot more anomaly types to investigate and research than I remember. I picked a random civ, they prefer arctic worlds and I'm not finding many so I guess I'll try and get some robots on the go for all the low habitability planets I keep finding. Enjoying learning it again.

In my previous game I found an artifact that let me almost instantly terraform a planet into a gaia planet every so often. I just relied on that for the entire game. Though my empire was eventually filled with people from every species in the galaxy, so I could have just colonized planets using a species suited for the environment.

In my new game as a machine intelligence I don't have to worry about habitability at all, nor about food or consumer goods, which is nice. I can just expand as quickly as my science vessels can survey systems.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

In my previous game I found an artifact that let me almost instantly terraform a planet into a gaia planet every so often. I just relied on that for the entire game. Though my empire was eventually filled with people from every species in the galaxy, so I could have just colonized planets using a species suited for the environment.

In my new game as a machine intelligence I don't have to worry about habitability at all, nor about food or consumer goods, which is nice. I can just expand as quickly as my science vessels can survey systems.

That would make things a bit easier, I've got relatively a lot of Science ships and probably too many construction ships because I'm having to wait on influence points to build outposts. Even then not finding much in the way of good planets yet.

Race wise my instinct is usually to just go with whatever the human equivalent is because theyll probably be balanced for beginners. Thought it might be more interesting to go random and see what I got. Theyre Xenophobic and fanatically spiritual Avians, have to see how that works out when diplomacy kicks in. Not sure if thats compatible with robot pops either, guess I'll find out.

 

[neogunhero]

Heads up everybody: Epic Games Store is doing their daily free game giveaways starting today. The first free game is Destiny 2 with a lot of expansions you’d normally have to pay for.

Keep an eye on the Free Time Limited Games thread for more updates 👍

 

[Frindis]

Played some Chivarly 2 (60% off) recently and enjoyed it. The sieges you can do are enjoyable, but what I loved most it joining a random 1vs1 arena and fighting to the death. Either you are better than the other guy or you are not. Love it!

 

[dxchase]

Heads up everybody: Epic Games Store is doing their daily free game giveaways starting today. The first free game is Destiny 2 with a lot of expansions you’d normally have to pay for.

Keep an eye on the Free Time Limited Games thread for more updates 👍

Was just spamming this in my clans discord lol. The thing is though, its A. On epic games store (a lot of destiny users dont like to use epic) and B. Its not all the old stuff. The first year or 2 are still unavailable everywhere and its a waste for bungie to not put that content out whether in a standalone application or added dlc. BUT, for new players, its absolutely a must-grab. Destiny content is rarely, if ever, been free.

 

[Johnway]

Played some Chivarly 2 (60% off) recently and enjoyed it. The sieges you can do are enjoyable, but what I loved most it joining a random 1vs1 arena and fighting to the death. Either you are better than the other guy or you are not. Love it!

Did you play the free weekend? i think the game is good and all, but i feel the smaller number of people playing it, the skill ceiling is super high. without the additional players there's rarely any good balanced matches. Either you're on a stomping team or being stomped. Annoyingly, everyone switches to attackers (especially the higher level players) and its made worse as people leave. its galling and its a real buzz kill.

 

[Brian Boru]

Epic Games Store is doing their daily free game giveaways starting today

Looked that way yesterday, but today it looks like they have different plans this year, as I posted earlier in the FG thread—next freebie in a week.

 

[Frindis]

Did you play the free weekend? i think the game is good and all, but i feel the smaller number of people playing it, the skill ceiling is super high. without the additional players there's rarely any good balanced matches. Either you're on a stomping team or being stomped. Annoyingly, everyone switches to attackers (especially the higher level players) and its made worse as people leave. its galling and its a real buzz kill.

I did and got stomped a couple of times🙂 I see that skill ceiling while doing 1 vs 1 the most because those I met can easily predict my movements. In battle though, regardless of winning or losing team, I get high on the leaderboards from just running into people and using my two-handed mace. I'm probably not the most popular on the team though because I'll throw that mace around hurting my group at times, but I see it being beneficial if I can kill two or three of the enemy doing so. I also enjoy using the horses and lance as enemies often die from brute force trauma. Go figure! Ballistas are also fun to use.

 

[Brian Boru]

How does it work?

It's all Word Search puzzles, without a word list—which is the more difficult variation.

I show an example in this post, and reviewed Wordle 1 in this one.

As you see in the example, the letters you use are removed when your choice is correct. Great, but… yep, there's a but 😀

The tricky bit is not using a letter another word needs, when you have a choice of which letter to use—eg 2 x 'T' beside each other, which do you pick? I often have to start over to change choices.

 

[Zed Clampet]

I'm dead. Daughter's dead. And Guido has no idea where he is because we teleported him into the middle of "The Mansion". This is the kind of Lethal Company mission that could lead to the end of the run.

You can't watch the monitor when you are dead, so I decided to come here and lodge a complaint instead. 🙂

 

[Zed Clampet]

Guido found the exit and somehow dodged 2 giant Dune worms and a massive, wild dog and made it back to the ship. Even his sister called it "epic" and normally she just insults him.

 

[Zed Clampet]

Heads up everybody: Epic Games Store is doing their daily free game giveaways starting today. The first free game is Destiny 2 with a lot of expansions you’d normally have to pay for.

Keep an eye on the Free Time Limited Games thread for more updates 👍

Thanks! Trying to get my kids to get it, too, but they no longer obey very well 🙂

 

[Zed Clampet]

Not only does Guido not take a weapon into Lethal Company (none of us do), but now he doesn't even take a flashlight (and at least half of the dungeon areas are pitch black). Between that and him escaping the 2 Dune worms and the giant, wild dog (all of them were right at him the whole time he was moving toward the ship), I have no idea what kind of wild, voodoo magic this boy has, but I wish I had just a tiny bit of it.

The thing is that he never panics. When he was coming toward the ship and surrounded, he just kept dropping treasure, which distracts the monsters, then circling around and picking up the treasure again, sidestepping here and there, dropping treasure again, sliding one way or the other, dropping another piece of treasure, circling and picking up the other treasure again.

Me? I would have just run, screaming toward the ship and been immediately killed.

Later in another dungeon he went back for one last piece of big treasure, no weapons or flashlights, and the place was filled with deadly monsters at this point, and watching him on the monitor, it was just baffling to me. He made it out with the treasure without working up a sweat. He was opening and shutting doors, taking circuitous routes, leading them to where he could temporarily trap them, etc.

 

[dxchase]

I'm dead. Daughter's dead. And Guido has no idea where he is because we teleported him into the middle of "The Mansion". This is the kind of Lethal Company mission that could lead to the end of the run.

You can't watch the monitor when you are dead, so I decided to come here and lodge a complaint instead. 🙂

Is Lethal Company fun ? My son wants to play it with us and says its fun and he was like "whoa!" when i told him about being alive for 39 days (he said his max has been 27-28). So was thinking about diving in.

 

[Zloth]

Do the "Are you sure?" messages do you any good any more?

They're very good for when you accidentally hit the wrong button on stuff that's hard to take back.

Being gamers that can snap our mice to an exact pixel on a 4K monitor in a 10th of a second and click without the mouse moving even one pixel over, it's hard for us to see the need for this crutch. (tries to look completely confident but fails)

 

[Pifanjr]

That would make things a bit easier, I've got relatively a lot of Science ships and probably too many construction ships because I'm having to wait on influence points to build outposts. Even then not finding much in the way of good planets yet.

Race wise my instinct is usually to just go with whatever the human equivalent is because theyll probably be balanced for beginners. Thought it might be more interesting to go random and see what I got. Theyre Xenophobic and fanatically spiritual Avians, have to see how that works out when diplomacy kicks in. Not sure if thats compatible with robot pops either, guess I'll find out.

You can check your policies to see if you allow robots. I think you should be able to allow robot workers, but fanatic spiritualists will not allow robots to have citizen rights.

Not only does Guido not take a weapon into Lethal Company (none of us do), but now he doesn't even take a flashlight (and at least half of the dungeon areas are pitch black). Between that and him escaping the 2 Dune worms and the giant, wild dog (all of them were right at him the whole time he was moving toward the ship), I have no idea what kind of wild, voodoo magic this boy has, but I wish I had just a tiny bit of it.

The thing is that he never panics. When he was coming toward the ship and surrounded, he just kept dropping treasure, which distracts the monsters, then circling around and picking up the treasure again, sidestepping here and there, dropping treasure again, sliding one way or the other, dropping another piece of treasure, circling and picking up the other treasure again.

Me? I would have just run, screaming toward the ship and been immediately killed.

Later in another dungeon he went back for one last piece of big treasure, no weapons or flashlights, and the place was filled with deadly monsters at this point, and watching him on the monitor, it was just baffling to me. He made it out with the treasure without working up a sweat. He was opening and shutting doors, taking circuitous routes, leading them to where he could temporarily trap them, etc.

Did he just crank the gamma all the way up so he can see in the dark?

 

[Frindis]

Just bought https://store.steampowered.com/app/1144200/Ready_or_Not/ Will be interesting to see how realistic/tactical it is compared to those real-life swat/police interactions I have seen on different YouTube channels.

Speaking of buying, this might be of interest as most of them got a historical low price: View: https://www.reddit.com/r/EpicGamesPC/comments/18hkc3p/holiday_sale_33_coupons_over_1499_alan_wake_2/

I'm looking at Hogwarts Legacy, Alan Wake 2, and Jedi Survivor. Spider-Man and God of War would also be cool. Choices, choices.

 

[Johnway]

I did and got stomped a couple of times🙂 I see that skill ceiling while doing 1 vs 1 the most because those I met can easily predict my movements. In battle though, regardless of winning or losing team, I get high on the leaderboards from just running into people and using my two-handed mace. I'm probably not the most popular on the team though because I'll throw that mace around hurting my group at times, but I see it being beneficial if I can kill two or three of the enemy doing so. I also enjoy using the horses and lance as enemies often die from brute force trauma. Go figure! Ballistas are also fun to use.

i'm a dane axe man myself. it just feels smooth and the weapon seems to have the right balance. i do understand the speed issue, as a knight i opted for the longsword as it has the right speed. Not really used any other weapons tbh, the greatsword is great for crowd control and the range is great, but it feels sluggish to use and in 1 vs 1 you might be in trouble as they get in your face.

Apparently even at lvl 133 its still considered newbie stage so unsurprisingly i'm not great. Sure, i can make it near the top of my team often enough, but its more like everyone has gone and left holding the bag. if i'm MVP of my team and i'm not on the winning team, you know its a bad day.

Whilst i get the idea behind feints and parries, i still haven't been able to sell them to my opponent to land attacks. Additionally my leg work could do with some work. Lastly i still indistinctly block after every attack, so i'm fodder for kicks. its a tough game of brinkmanship where i have to do the counters at the last second. As someone who hates losing and getting a -k/d this game is painful. yes, yes have fun etc not k/d but if i spend more time dead not helping my team and earning no points its not fun. I don't find the comeback reward good, its just a painful/insulting reminder that i've been on a deathstreak.

 

[BeardyHat]

Not only does Guido not take a weapon into Lethal Company (none of us do), but now he doesn't even take a flashlight (and at least half of the dungeon areas are pitch black). Between that and him escaping the 2 Dune worms and the giant, wild dog (all of them were right at him the whole time he was moving toward the ship), I have no idea what kind of wild, voodoo magic this boy has, but I wish I had just a tiny bit of it.

The thing is that he never panics. When he was coming toward the ship and surrounded, he just kept dropping treasure, which distracts the monsters, then circling around and picking up the treasure again, sidestepping here and there, dropping treasure again, sliding one way or the other, dropping another piece of treasure, circling and picking up the other treasure again.

Me? I would have just run, screaming toward the ship and been immediately killed.

Later in another dungeon he went back for one last piece of big treasure, no weapons or flashlights, and the place was filled with deadly monsters at this point, and watching him on the monitor, it was just baffling to me. He made it out with the treasure without working up a sweat. He was opening and shutting doors, taking circuitous routes, leading them to where he could temporarily trap them, etc.

I need to get on this at some point. My friend bought it for me last week or so and I had intended to jump on with him and some other buddies after the kids were in bed, but then my oldest had a migraine and that took precedence; since then, I haven't had a chance to sit down and it looks like aside from that one session, my friends haven't played anymore.

I picked-up Dredge on a whim the other night and really enjoyed myself. Ended-up putting 2.5 hours in between after dinner and bed time, which is a rarity for me, especially considering I didn't think it would stick much for me back when it initially came out earlier this year. Haven't had much of a chance to go back to it yet, but played a little bit here and there; unfortunately, I'm already beginning to feel a little overwhelmed with all the little tasks to do, all my upgrades and generally what I ought to be doing. Trying to push passed those feelings though and keep enjoying the game.