February 2024 General Gaming Discussion Thread

[Kaamos_Llama]

I get in the mood here and there for something point and click. A lot of the time when I want to play a game, but really am not looking for a skill challenge, I'll go over to Point and Click and Visual Novels (which are a new addition to my game tastes). That said, I usually prefer to play them on my Steam Deck or a handheld of some sort where I can just cozy-up on the couch and play. Pentiment really pulled me through because I found the setting just so interesting and the meditation on religion, tradition, relationships, both personal and more broadly to just be so damn interesting.

I'm hoping a lot of that will apply when it comes to Planescape Torment, but we'll see. I spent my four years of college studying Philosophy, so I often find many games speaking on the subject tend to be a little 101, if that makes sense. Nothing wrong with that, of course, especially when introducing new concepts to people, it just doesn't tickle me as it once did.

That said, as per my first paragraph, I do love that I can cozy-up with Planescape on my tablet and just read. The combat doesn't bother me too much, as no one is there for it and it goes by pretty quickly from what I've experienced so far and I've played plenty of games like it at this point, so we'll see how it goes.

I got a lot further with Pentiment than I have done with other p&c games Its one of those that I was enjoying but just stopped playing at the time while intending to go back to it. At this point I've forgotten most of the details because my memory is mostly swiss cheese, apparently I played almost 5 hours.

I was a teenager when I first played PST so it seemed incredible then, it was the first story game I played more than once through. From what I played a while ago it still seemed interesting as far as I got, but I havent studied philosophy in any depth so cant speak to how basic it is. It was probably the first video game to have any kind of philosophy behind the story, definitely the first one I played so thats probably why it still gets talked about today.

 

[Zloth]

Crafting is done by selecting an empty part of your inventory and then scrolling through a window that only shows 8 recipes at a time, which seem to be ordered semi-randomly and cannot be sorted.

Most recent at the top. There should be tabs along the top for the type, too.

There is also no search function to quickly find something in your inventory or crafting menu. Nor is there a way to quickly store resources into a container, you have to move everything manually.

I'm not so sure that would be useful. You get a LOT of containers, and you'll probably end up making some sort of filing system to keep track of what you've got where. The game won't know what goes where. I know there's a system for adding stuff you have into a vault, but I even avoided that because it wouldn't put the items into the location I wanted inside the container.

I like the idea of learning alien languages word for word, but it's a bit bothersome that you have to talk to every single NPC you find, wait for them to say something, wait for the description to appear, wait for the options to appear...

Oh my! You don't have to do that! There are little dark columns all over the place that will give you a word when you touch it for the first time. Look, here's 5 of them at once!

The game is filled with mechanics like these that just make you wait or click more than should be necessary. Out of curiosity I checked for popular mods after I was done playing and saw there were a bunch of QoL improvements, so I'll have to take a closer look at those it I ever decide to buy the game.

Remember the game's history. Patch on top of patch on top of patch, year after year, since 2016. I'm sure it would look VERY different if they took the current game's features and built it all over again from the ground up.

Usually what happens is someone starts talking and then one of my kids comes and starts asking questions!

They interrupt when somebody else is talking!? Worse yet, somebody that can't hear them! They're taking advantage of deaf NPCs!?!?

 

[Pifanjr]

I've been thinking a bit more about my experience with No Man's Sky and besides all the little things that bothered me, I think the biggest issue I had was that I just failed to get immersed in the game.

The game dropped me on a planet without any kind of introduction, giving me zero context to why I should do any of the things I could do. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it means that the developers have much less control over the first impression a player gets from their game. In my case, one of the first things I did was scan the plants and animals around me, which gave me some money (for no discernible reason), some flavour text I couldn't be bothered to read by the third scan, the option to "upload" the scan for nanites (with no context for who I'm uploading it to or why I'm getting paid in a different currency for it) and a little counter which indicated that I can probably expect every single planet to have a bunch of equally uninteresting species I can spend hours looking for to collect them all.
After just having played Subnautica, where I loved scanning everything and reading their entries in the databank, No Man's Sky implementation just immediately felt like busywork with no reason to care about it beyond the immediate reward in currency you got for it.

Similarly, where I loved exploring in Subnautica to find new blueprints or materials, in No Man's Sky you open your scanner and mark the nearest point of interest, walk to it, get a reward, then repeat that. The points of interest are liberally scattered around the surface, requiring just a little walk that provides no risk and once you reach them, typically require no real effort. Again, it just felt like busywork.

I still liked the gameplay enough to keep playing obviously, but at no point did I really feel like I was actually exploring or really felt like I was in a living world. It's just a lot of game mechanics stacked on top of each other and the effort to fit them all into a science-fiction, space-faring theme fell completely flat for me, especially since I felt a lot of the effort in adding immersion just added tedium to the game instead.

Remember the game's history. Patch on top of patch on top of patch, year after year, since 2016. I'm sure it would look VERY different if they took the current game's features and built it all over again from the ground up.

Considering the history, I do think what they've created is impressive, but I suppose I had too high expectations.

 

[Zloth]

The points of interest are liberally scattered around the surface, requiring just a little walk that provides no risk and once you reach them, typically require no real effort. Again, it just felt like busywork.

I'm not sure what a point of interest is. Just stuff you see pop up on the scanner? Or quest markers? As for danger, that depends on your settings. Storms can get very nasty.

Despite the quests, this is really more of a sandbox game. I think the quests are mostly there to teach you what you can do and how you can do them. You are supposed to make up your own ultimate goals, though. Do you want to make an impressive base? Several bases? Do you want to travel to the center of the galaxy? Play collector and amass a bunch of ships? Build up a colony? (Well, I wouldn't do that last, I don't think that feature worked out very well.) Maybe you just want to learn how the game works, then restart in one of the Expeditions they do.

Oh! I know what you want to do! Figure out portals and then go through Zloth's screenshots in the Media section that have coordinates on them and go find those places!

 

[Pifanjr]

I'm not sure what a point of interest is. Just stuff you see pop up on the scanner?

Yes, stuff like broken machinery, caches with supplies, ore veins, those monoliths that teach you a word, etc.

As for danger, that depends on your settings. Storms can get very nasty.

From what I've read from other players the survival mode is more challenging, but only until you find some good upgrades, after which it gets pretty trivial again.

Despite the quests, this is really more of a sandbox game. I think the quests are mostly there to teach you what you can do and how you can do them. You are supposed to make up your own ultimate goals, though. Do you want to make an impressive base? Several bases? Do you want to travel to the center of the galaxy? Play collector and amass a bunch of ships? Build up a colony? (Well, I wouldn't do that last, I don't think that feature worked out very well.) Maybe you just want to learn how the game works, then restart in one of the Expeditions they do.

Oh! I know what you want to do! Figure out portals and then go through Zloth's screenshots in the Media section that have coordinates on them and go find those places!

I wanted to go explore, but after reading a couple of thoughts from other players it seems that exploration is generally considered to be by far the weakest aspect of the game. Which means that my expectation for the game was wrong. I did enjoy upgrading my stuff and I could probably enjoy spending more time with the game, but I think there are games that do it better that I could play instead.

 

[Colif]

Xbox games app lets you change the default folder location but only to somewhere else on C drive... thats really stupid. It means everytime I install I have to choose another location instead of just letting it go.

Lots of people are known to shrink their C and only give windows so much space... this shoots that idea in the face. I have 483gb free on C but that isn't enough for some games.

Wonder if you can set up a symbolic link and fool it into thinking a folder on another ssd is on C...

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

I've been playing Armored Core 6, done the first few missions and having a great time with it. The combat feels really good, and its fun to get into duels with other mechs and try out different loadouts and strategies. I'm also finding the story pretty interesting, obviously theres some Battletech feel to it hinting at a world of deeper lore beyond whats happening, and I always find that helps. Combat is much faster than Mechwarrior, with rocket boosts, jumps and dodges but it seems there are different builds that might be more tanky or faster to try out as you buy more parts.

Xbox games app lets you change the default folder location but only to somewhere else on C drive... thats really stupid. It means everytime I install I have to choose another location instead of just letting it go.

Lots of people are known to shrink their C and only give windows so much space... this shoots that idea in the face. I have 483gb free on C but that isn't enough for some games.

Wonder if you can set up a symbolic link and fool it into thinking a folder on another ssd is on C...

I can select any drive from profile name>settings>Install options.

 

[Colif]

I think i clicked the change folder button in the box under where the drop down shows that lists all my current save locations. That is what gave me the error.
But if I use the drop down, it is how you show. I can set any of your drives to save my files on... its so nice of you to share like that

Really if the fields were labelled I might have been able to work out that the top line changes the drive, and second one just lets you choose a difference folder on the same drive. I think its because it opened top line as C and I tried to swap second line away from C that I got error. Same error would occur if I was on D drive and tried to make folder on E.

 

[Brian Boru]

fields were labelled

That's pretty dumb—obviously missed in user testing. You get that kind of brainless stuff from bright devs and engineers who don't appreciate our lesserness

 

[Zloth]

OK, Cyberpunk is done. Real done. Screenshots are named and sorted as well as videos. Now I've got to figure out what's next.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

I think i clicked the change folder button in the box under where the drop down shows that lists all my current save locations. That is what gave me the error.
But if I use the drop down, it is how you show. I can set any of your drives to save my files on... its so nice of you to share like that

Really if the fields were labelled I might have been able to work out that the top line changes the drive, and second one just lets you choose a difference folder on the same drive. I think its because it opened top line as C and I tried to swap second line away from C that I got error. Same error would occur if I was on D drive and tried to make folder on E.

It happens, had to check because I have a small partition for C and I knew I couldnt fit any 3D games on that part.

 

[Colif]

I knew I had games on other drives, since I was in process of uninstalling a few that had left remains on my hdd when I moved rest to ssd. I was just trying to set the default and it got me. My hdd has 1gb of files on it now. 2999gb free. I need to uninstall a program that I didn't know was running off the hdd. Probably replace it with another 4tb ssd at some stage.

 

[Colif]

More plants now, Although I have all my beta characters, they in a legacy area. I had to start from scratch... so i am still offline but I don't have much gold right now. Only one stash tab. It seems harder than beta... or could be I am not in all yellows... yet. It gives them away pretty fast

Since I have no gear, I am playing a tank whose main problem is doing any damage. Could be I put most of his early points into maintaining spin to win, but it now needs damage added to it as some fights take too long.

I will play on weekend. I just wanted to have a quick look.

 

[BeardyHat]

More plants now, Although I have all my beta characters, they in a legacy area. I had to start from scratch... so i am still offline but I don't have much gold right now. Only one stash tab. It seems harder than beta... or could be I am not in all yellows... yet. It gives them away pretty fast

Since I have no gear, I am playing a tank whose main problem is doing any damage. Could be I put most of his early points into maintaining spin to win, but it now needs damage added to it as some fights take too long.

I will play on weekend. I just wanted to have a quick look.

What am I looking at here?

Still been playing Advance Wars 2 on GBA right now, because it's just slotting perfectly into what time I have right now, though the harder missions are a little boring, I'm finding. I need to just push through.

But on the side I've been figuring out Simcity 4 for the first time. I had an inkling for a city builder lately and I really wanted some deep management to it, plus something that ran well on my laptop, so I decided to give it a go. So far, I'm at 10-hours and I'll probably keep playing, but it doesn't feel like a game that will hold my interest long term.

Also decided to dip back into System Shock Remake; only played about an hour last night, but I'm pleasantly surprised at how well it runs on my laptop. The intro sits around 30FPS, but after that the rest of the station is around 30-60. Which makes me think that I'd love to see Valve implement a frame limiter like they have on the Deck; kind of doubt it's possible given Steam being just a front end and not having hardware access, but it would be really helpful.

Lastly, I'm starting to think about Valheim again. Only problem is that I last played December of 2022, so I can't really remember much of how to play the game, which is a little funny given that I've played it for 120-hours. But not remembering what I'm doing and knowing that I made it into the very dangerous Plains last I did will probably keep me from trying to jump back in.

 

[BeardyHat]

Was looking at Pacific Drive this morning, thinking about picking it up, as I'm a car person and I love a good, interesting driving game. Unfortunately, saw some stuff in the reviews which completely killed my interest: can't save mid mission.

I wouldn't mind if maybe the missions were maybe 20 minutes a piece or even if the game ran well enough on Steam Deck that I could suspend and come back, but the fact that the missions can be one to two hours long (according to reviews) killed absolutely any interest I had in the game.

Unfortunate, because it does look pretty cool, but rarely am I able to have 30+ minutes of solid game time, so that just won't cut it. I get that maybe they want to prevent save scumming, but at the very least, a game should include a "Save & Quit" option. I've been plenty fine with a lack of saves in games as long as I can quit them and resume them exactly where I left off.

Hopefully if they get enough feedback on it they'll change it, but we'll see.

 

[neogunhero]

I’ve come back to reality. I’m finally finished with Cyberpunk and ready to move onto new games. Amazing game, one of my favorites ever, but I burned myself out on it by playing is so much and nothing else for two months straight.

I need a gamers reset. Play something entirely different; genre, setting, theme, gameplay, viewpoint wise. Maybe I’ll pick up Balatro.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

@neogunhero I'm away for a few days from tomorrow flying on my own, apparently Balatro is out on Switch, it must be fate.

 

[DXCHASE]

Been dabbling in a couple of different games recently. Ive been feeling lately that i need to play a multiple of games at once rather than just 1 for many hours a day on end to not get bored or burnt out on a game too fast.

So, i still get time in for Diablo 4 (1-2 levels a session) and Helldivers 2 (its just so fun), but ive had the pleasure of playing/trying out Last Epoch (its completely offline which is awesome) and a skateboard game (is this a sports game?) called Sessions: Skate Sim

So, Last Epoch.. its supposed to be this big "Diablo 4 Killer" but i just dont see it. Ive sunk about 10 hours or so into LE and have a lvl 30 character. I know its not far enough to give a good sense of the game, but i can see what i like and dont like over Diablo 4. I will always think Diablo 4 looks better. The dreary overtone and hell fighting is great. Last Epoch kinda looks like a mobile ARPG with its always vibrant and flashy color abilities (im not big into that). I also feel the pacing and fighting is faster and more...satisfying in Diablo 4 (nothing like 1 shotting bosses) but Last Epoch does this well too.

Another aspect that players like about LE over Diablo 4 (which i dont like too much) is that your abilities can be "focused" where you get the ability to do all these different cool things with that ability. I find this system to be too convoluted and just unneccessary. Im absolutely fine with the simplicity of Diablo 4s skill trees for each class. I also dont like that you have a series of classes to unlock with each class. So abilities as a "druid" are hidden in the "Primalist" class until you unlock it. Thats lame to me.

What i really like about Last Epoch though over Diablo 4 is, it has an overlay (duh!), has waaaayyy more stashes, allows you to travel right to objectives (diablo 4 makes you pretty much travel on horse everywhere outside of villages), gold feels more valuable and the end game map looks like a lot of fun and full of content. I can see where this is a big advantage for LE because Diablo 4's end game is pretty meh.

So, moral of the story, ill be playing Last Epoch and Diablo 4 but will ultimately wind up playing Diablo 4 more.

Sessions: Skate Sim Is a "authentic" street skateboard sim and, since i played the Tony Hawk games to death back in the day, ive always been curious about how buttons would be mapped for an "authentic" skateboarding experience. I gotta say this game does a terrible job imo at doing that. The game has a lot of good stuff going for it like the ability to walk around, reset where you start anywhere, the rag-dolling is hilarious but how they have it set up to ollie and do tricks and grinds is just too tedious and frustrating for me to sink all these hours into mastering. THPS had it down great and they couldve at least borrowed SOME mechanics of skating from it imo.

I’ve come back to reality. I’m finally finished with Cyberpunk and ready to move onto new games. Amazing game, one of my favorites ever, but I burned myself out on it by playing is so much and nothing else for two months straight.

I need a gamers reset. Play something entirely different; genre, setting, theme, gameplay, viewpoint wise. Maybe I’ll pick up Balatro.

I gotta finish that game still. I kinda burnt myself on it too because im trying to 100% the game, but then all these other gems started rolling out and it kinda fell to the side, but i def. get being burnt out on it.





Well, off to play Helldivers 2. Its the weekend so the wife and i have to do our part to SERVE MANAGED DEMOCRACY!

 

[Pifanjr]

I haven't played anything since playing the free weekend of No Man's Sky. I noticed that I could still load into my save after the free weekend supposedly ended, but I wasn't motivated to continue with it and instead just uninstalled the game.

I started Outer Wilds before playing No Man's Sky, but I haven't felt motivated to continue with that either. I like the idea of it, but I think the pacing is too slow for me right now. I had the same problem with Total War: Shogun 2 before this, which I also liked but didn't feel motivated to continue. I think I need to find a game that allows me to just jump in and start accomplishing stuff without having to deal with travel or grinding for resources or doing other tedious stuff in between.

 

[Brian Boru]

I need to find a game that allows me to just jump in and start accomplishing stuff

I don't play 'em but how about fighting or racing games?

To eliminate resource grinding in games, use a mod which supplies 100% of whatever attribute you want. I keep meaning to try one of those 100% Game Complete mods—essentially a save file if I understand—which allows you to launch NG+, that might help you.

I've been in a similar demotivated state for bigger games recently. Did a couple of weeks with Civ 4, a week with FC5 and a few days with FC Primal—nothing stuck. So I replayed Storm Tale 2, an interesting and chill Match 3 in Limited Moves mode—that's done the trick, so now I'm early on in Royal Envoy 3.

I still dip in and out of Picross Touch every day, 1,650 puzzles complete so far!

 

[Zloth]

Well, I'm going the opposite way - I got back into X4. I took a break from the game last year before starting the terraforming project for the Boron, now it's time to get back in. I spent the whole day yesterday just remembering where I had left off.

I don't play 'em but how about fighting or racing games?

They do let you get in fast but getting good means practice.

What about mo.... (looks at the current website) <ahem> what about those games named after a city in southern Alabama? They're designed for people to get in and out of quickly, aren't they?

 

[BeardyHat]

I don't play 'em but how about fighting or racing games?

To eliminate resource grinding in games, use a mod which supplies 100% of whatever attribute you want. I keep meaning to try one of those 100% Game Complete mods—essentially a save file if I understand—which allows you to launch NG+, that might help you.

I've been in a similar demotivated state for bigger games recently. Did a couple of weeks with Civ 4, a week with FC5 and a few days with FC Primal—nothing stuck. So I replayed Storm Tale 2, an interesting and chill Match 3 in Limited Moves mode—that's done the trick, so now I'm early on in Royal Envoy 3.

I still dip in and out of Picross Touch every day, 1,650 puzzles complete so far!

I'm in a generally similar mood and limited time to game, but what's been working for me is older handheld games. Been playing a lot of Advance Wars 2 on Gameboy Advance (through an emulator, anyway)

 

[Zimbaly]

Hell Divers 2 is amazing. Been playing it for the past few days, it gives me some Lost Planet 2 vibes. If I could use mechs I'd be in heaven. It's crazy, it's hilarious and hell dives are just unforgiving, yet funny as hell.

Most stupid fun I've had in a while for a game.

 

[Pifanjr]

I don't play 'em but how about fighting or racing games?

Hmm, I could try a fighting game campaign, I have a couple of them. Though as Zloth points out, they typically require a lot of practice and I'm worried I'd have to relearn the controls each time I play if I only get to play once every few days.

Today I played a bit of 20 Minutes Till Dawn, a Vampire Survivors-like. It's fun, but I already lost a run because my kid just Alt-F4'd the game when she wanted to watch something. So I could really only play it if I'm sure I have 20 minutes of uninterrupted playtime.

I think I'll start XCOM 2 instead, as I should be able to just jump in and do a single mission, but it also isn't a problem if I get interrupted or have to quit halfway through.

To eliminate resource grinding in games, use a mod which supplies 100% of whatever attribute you want. I keep meaning to try one of those 100% Game Complete mods—essentially a save file if I understand—which allows you to launch NG+, that might help you.

I typically don't like removing resource gathering entirely because it messes too much with the flow and pacing of the game.

What about mo.... (looks at the current website) <ahem> what about those games named after a city in southern Alabama? They're designed for people to get in and out of quickly, aren't they?

They're also just not very good games. At least the free ones and I can't really justify spending any money on games right now. I also don't really like the touch screen controls of most mobile games, but I'm hoping I can get a Bluetooth controller for my birthday in about 2.5 months so maybe I'll try out mobile gaming again after.

 

[Brian Boru]

games named after a city in southern Alabama

No, no—like the city, they're named after what you hang over a baby's cot. You can see how appropriate that is, right?

my kid just Alt-F4'd the game

Hang on, you're still in Holland, right? One of the defining differences between EU and US is that in EU, kids live in their parents' house. So what's up? Oh hang on, do I have a faint memory of you mentioning a US wife? Oh dear, you poor lad…

Can't Alt-F4 the kid, I suppose? No, didn't think so…