January 2024 General Game Discussion Thread

[Kaamos_Llama]

I had a bit more luck today as unlocking some of the later assassin abilities allows for extreme damage, but again, fighting boss characters just 1 level above you and their defenses make fighting them a slog. One mission i've been struggling is fighting the mythical beasts and getting my ass handed to me by it meant i'm leaving that till last or until i rack up some juiced up skills and weapons. another annoyance are the bounty hunters having a near psychic ability to track you down making things twice as annoying. Luckily paying off my bounty is easy peasy or just killing the patron. But if i want to move up in the merc world, i need to start trouble and bait them into a fight.

i still prefer origins method of progression where the levels were static and there was a sense of progression, but it did make it far too easy. once you hit lvl 50 pretty much a walk in the park and busy work.

outside of that i've encountered micro stutters and using a torch indoors made my frame rate tank, but for the latter i solved with lower shadow quality. i might turn off the uplay overlay as apparently that thing causes horrible things to happen.

Still, after nearly 20 hrs i'm still having fun. haven't turned the slider down. yet.

I want to love those games because theyre massive and I like 3d melee combat. Was really excited to start with when I played it because the parry felt good and combat was fun on the tutorial island bit. Remember coming across a bounty hunter who I could barely hurt, that got annoying as I parried the damn guy a ton and all he needed to do was hit me like twice and I died. Then I found a mythical beast as well, forget which one and I found it frustrating, which as a From fan was a bit weird. The controls feel less deliberate than a souls game, somehow more loosey goosey that didnt quite feel good in a big boss fight.

Maybe I'll try again sometime and critical path it more. Might need to just get used to it.

 

[Pifanjr]

Ain't much that can eat a sub, even if you do name it 'sandwich.' Plus, there are things they can do to fight back or scare off mean critters... I think. It's getting hard to remember.

As for getting lost - no way!! You played Descent back in the day, right? You're trained in fully 3D mazes!

The big sub couldn't go deeper without imploding, so I couldn't rely on it for exploring. The prawn suit has a drill arm that can hurt smaller predators, but I doubt it would work well on the larger ones.

I don't think I really needed the scanner room in the end, but the base was still useful to charge my Cyclops' batteries and create some water. I found the next piece of lore, then left the caverns again via a different (and much easier) way. However, I hadn't gotten any directions on where to go next, so I decided to look up a guide. Turns out there was a tunnel going deeper I should have taken instead of leaving, so I had to go all the way back again. At least it gave me the opportunity to upgrade the max depth my Cyclops could go.

I got a whole bunch more lore after and it seems I can finally leave the caves again. I didn't really like being stuck in a cavern for so long, I prefer the open sea. I suspect I'm near the end game now as I'm pretty sure I've found every type of resource, though I'm again not entirely sure where to go or what to do next. I think I might have just missed something, I had to quit before I could fully explore the last area I found.

I've really enjoyed the game so far, but I'm noticing I'm getting ready for it to end. I've crafted all the major upgrades and have enough resources to build an entire base from scratch, so my sense of progression has halted. It now feels like I'm just diving around looking for the next bit of lore.

 

[Zloth]

It now feels like I'm just diving around looking for the next bit of lore.

Did you have a chat with that voice?

 

[Pifanjr]

Did you have a chat with that voice?

Yes. I also know what I need, just not where to get it. I'm about to go poking around a bit more, but I wanted to share this screenshot before I forgot:

Those are all my wall lockers, lying on the bottom of some cave. Just a minute before this, all of those were in my Cyclops. Turns out that when you fire a repulsion cannon at your Cyclops it will pass right through, knocking everything out.

I considered reloading a save, but I hadn't saved in a bit, so I had to manually empty every locker, deconstruct them and reconstruct them inside. On the upside, I was able to fit a couple extra lockers in and my organisation is slightly better now.

 

[Pifanjr]

I guess I quit just before the next part triggered, or maybe I was just in the wrong position, but I got an answer as to what to do next. It took me maybe 1,5 hours maybe to finish the game afterwards. It helped that my oxygen, thirst and hunger meters had frozen for some reason.

According to my save the entire game took me 31,5 hours. I know there was an area I didn't get in because I couldn't find a way to open it, so I didn't explore everything, but I looked it up afterwards and I didn't miss much.

 

[Zloth]

According to my save the entire game took me 31,5 hours.

60.2 hours here, and I only really had the one base! I had to spend a few hours re-doing the first part of the game after I crashed while saving, but that's it!

Did you leave a time capsule behind?

 

[Pifanjr]

I decided to try out Dominions 5. I've been meaning to try it out for years now, but kept forgetting it existed whenever it was time to pick a new game. It has a 389 page manual, but I only made it 10% through before I decided to just jump in.

It's quite similar to Conquest of Elysium, from the same developer, so it wasn't too hard to get into. I just went for a random faction on a small map for my first game, but I think I got unlucky. My faction isn't particularly interesting, mostly relying on human units, while two of the other three factions have their citadel in the water where I can't reach them.

The magic system is different than Conquest of Elysium and the main thing I'm not sure what to do with. I should probably read the rest of the manual, at least the parts about magic.

60.2 hours here, and I only really had the one base! I had to spend a few hours re-doing the first part of the game after I crashed while saving, but that's it!

Did you leave a time capsule behind?

I did, with the one picture I took and some random crap I had in my inventory. I did not have the patience to go back and grab something better.

 

[Brian Boru]

Far Cry 5

Got an unusual harmless bug in this I haven't seen before. One of the antagonists, Faith, appears as a hallucination when you're in her region—she's the drug queen side of the baddies' operation.

I got her twice, two independently acting instances. Usual one, I did sth while she swanned around—probably combat with some baddies—and when I returned, there were two of her. I went about my biz and only one of her from there on. Anyone else get this any time?

 

[Zloth]

Anyone else get this any time?

No, nothing like two events going at once with the same character showing up twice! Wait, maybe there was one from back in Skyrim...

Louis Letrush is Legion

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Deep into Against the Storm, and although Ive had a couple of frustrations its still great. 60 odd hours in and I'm still learning stuff.

Also getting further on in Lies of P and liking it a lot. The combat has enough of its own spin to be interesting, even if the components of that are all ripped from various Fromsoft games. It has some Sekiro with the perfect blocks and posture breaks/stagger, and the health regain from attacking from Bloodborne. Its possible to just block or dodge if you prefer, or cant time the parries, but its obviously more efficient to parry, and its a bit more forgiving than Sekiro was at times. Boss fights so far have been mostly great, although probably a little easier than most From games. I'm maybe half way through in the Rosa Isobelle Street area, so that could change.

Style wise its nicely done, and the story is a bit easier to follow than a From Souls game.

I like the upgrade system for the weapons. The handles and blades are all interchangeable, with the handle changing the moveset and the blade determining the damage and speed of attacks. There's other stuff based around changing the modifiers on damage using cranks, to make them scale more or less with one skill which is a nice bonus to play with depending on what skills you level more. Theres also Legion skills which revolve around your left arm doing different forms of elemental damage. I havent really used it because they seem a bit slow to wind up, and different bosses have different elemental weaknesses. Its probably possible to build around using those a lot more than I have so far.

The level design is on DS level, with lots of nice shortcuts and surprise cut throughs to find in the interconnected levels. Fidelity wise it looks good, but coming off of Alan Wake 2 its like a very polished last gen look. Performance has been great, no glitches or stutters for me on Gamepass.

 

[BeardyHat]

I decided to try out Dominions 5. I've been meaning to try it out for years now, but kept forgetting it existed whenever it was time to pick a new game. It has a 389 page manual, but I only made it 10% through before I decided to just jump in.

It's quite similar to Conquest of Elysium, from the same developer, so it wasn't too hard to get into. I just went for a random faction on a small map for my first game, but I think I got unlucky. My faction isn't particularly interesting, mostly relying on human units, while two of the other three factions have their citadel in the water where I can't reach them.

The magic system is different than Conquest of Elysium and the main thing I'm not sure what to do with. I should probably read the rest of the manual, at least the parts about magic.



I did, with the one picture I took and some random crap I had in my inventory. I did not have the patience to go back and grab something better.

CoE is one I've been meaning to try out for years. I can't tell you how long I've owned 3 and tried a few times to get into it, but just haven't gotten past that graphics.. It's not that they're bad, it's that they're so utterly charmless, I just can't motivate to play much further than an hour.

Also getting further on in Lies of P and liking it a lot. The combat has enough of its own spin to be interesting, even if the components of that are all ripped from various Fromsoft games. It has some Sekiro with the perfect blocks and posture breaks/stagger, and the health regain from attacking from Bloodborne. Its possible to just block or dodge if you prefer, or cant time the parries, but its obviously more efficient to parry, and its a bit more forgiving than Sekiro was at times. Boss fights so far have been mostly great, although probably a little easier than most From games. I'm maybe half way through in the Rosa Isobelle Street area, so that could change.

Just recently put this one on my list to buy sooner rather than later, just waiting for something other than full price. Seems like I might actually stick with it a little further than Elden Ring, which I want to go back to, but also feel like I've petered out on.

Having a huge open world is neat, but I like the guided linearity of the Dark Souls series, so I often feel like I'm just not sure where to go or what to do.

Been having a bit of a similar problem playing Breath of the Wild on my Deck; played around 10 hours, but I'm a little lost. I very much enjoy exploring, but feel like I really need some more Hearts or better armor before I can go much further, because I feel like I keep getting my ass kicked. Haven't found enough shrines yet to really be able to access many upgrades.

In other news, I'm coming off about a 15 or so hour binge of C&C Remastered. Just been playing Skirmish, but something I've noticed, which I didn't when I was a teenager, is just how damn terrible the AI is. It just doesn't know how to handle most of the units, doesn't even build them or gets itself stuck on other units or terrain.

I actually ended up trying out OpenRA an open source port of the original C&C games and while the AI is dramatically better, the entire game is pretty much different enough that it feels like a new game with C&C assets and I ultimately ended up not really caring for it.

I've downloaded a few mods from the Workshop for Remastered, but I'm sort of feeling done with it again, so we'll see if I actually go back to it.

Kind of beginning to feel like I'm in a book reading mood, rather than gaming

 

[DXCHASE]

Currently playing Diablo 4's 3rd Season mostly, or (to most of the community) the worst season yet.

Its... not the best one and personally i feel Diablo 4 still has a long road to travel to get to a good spot and this season didnt help that but i still love the core gameplay and the grind. I dont find it boring, which is a big pain point along with many others (probably because i play other games lol) and the new seasonal mechanic (traps in dungeons that can affect your loot drop) hasnt been much of a bother to me like a lot of players and the length of this seasons campaign has been the longest by far, which is nice.

Im not holding my breath that Diablo 4 will reach great heights but other ARPGs like POE and Diablo 3 were nowhere near where they are now when they started. Hopefully when the expansion drops itll take a huge turn, but this community needed something like that now and unfortunately this season is lookin like a step back for most people.

In other news... im sort of patiently waiting for the 31st for the 4080 super drop. I saw some early benchmarks and for a card thats 600-800 usd cheaper than a 4090, it comes pretty close to it in some games, which is exciting to see, so hopefully i can cop one.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Just recently put this one on my list to buy sooner rather than later, just waiting for something other than full price. Seems like I might actually stick with it a little further than Elden Ring, which I want to go back to, but also feel like I've petered out on.

Having a huge open world is neat, but I like the guided linearity of the Dark Souls series, so I often feel like I'm just not sure where to go or what to do.

Been having a bit of a similar problem playing Breath of the Wild on my Deck; played around 10 hours, but I'm a little lost. I very much enjoy exploring, but feel like I really need some more Hearts or better armor before I can go much further, because I feel like I keep getting my ass kicked. Haven't found enough shrines yet to really be able to access many upgrades.

I felt that way about Elden Ring before release. I dont really get excited about open worlds, and the interconnected levels in Dark Souls were a big positive to me. I got over it once I found a rhythm in the game, but getting started took some time as you have to keep picking at things until you find something you can handle. The dungeons in each area scratched that itch very well, and theres quite a few of them in the game. Once I hit a certain level it just flowed again. It is a bit too long IMO the middle is a bit bloated, so if you were struggling after 40 odd hours maybe it wasnt for you.

Lies of P is great, but I wouldnt have paid 60 or 70 for it either TBH, even though its really good.

 

[BeardyHat]

I felt that way about Elden Ring before release. I dont really get excited about open worlds, and the interconnected levels in Dark Souls were a big positive to me. I got over it once I found a rhythm in the game, but getting started took some time as you have to keep picking at things until you find something you can handle. The dungeons in each area scratched that itch very well, and theres quite a few of them in the game. Once I hit a certain level it just flowed again. It is a bit too long IMO the middle is a bit bloated, so if you were struggling after 40 odd hours maybe it wasnt for you.

Lies of P is great, but I wouldnt have paid 60 or 70 for it either TBH, even though its really good.

I hit 40 hours and then opened up more of the world and then started losing interest. I think the last thing I did was the Academy, which was great for myself as a spell caster. But maybe I also need to try something different; I did a caster in Dark Souls 2 and 3, initially as a challenge to myself, but at this point I think I've got it down, so maybe I need to go in another direction.

$60 is just too much for a game for me right now. Even $40. I tend to start thinking about stuff at around $30 and then it still becomes kind of a big consideration, but I feel like Lies of P looks like one I'd rather enjoy, so $30 might be appropriate.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

I hit 40 hours and then opened up more of the world and then started losing interest. I think the last thing I did was the Academy, which was great for myself as a spell caster. But maybe I also need to try something different; I did a caster in Dark Souls 2 and 3, initially as a challenge to myself, but at this point I think I've got it down, so maybe I need to go in another direction.

$60 is just too much for a game for me right now. Even $40. I tend to start thinking about stuff at around $30 and then it still becomes kind of a big consideration, but I feel like Lies of P looks like one I'd rather enjoy, so $30 might be appropriate.

Maybe youll get back to it, Liurnia is probably my favourite area of the game.

There was a thread here a while ago and I looked back through my Steam purchase history, iirc I bought something like 5 or 6 full price games in the last 12 years. I'll do it but has to be something I'm really excited for, usually a sequel. The amount of games I've bought for a fiver and hardly played probably doesnt bear thinking about too much though.

 

[Pifanjr]

CoE is one I've been meaning to try out for years. I can't tell you how long I've owned 3 and tried a few times to get into it, but just haven't gotten past that graphics.. It's not that they're bad, it's that they're so utterly charmless, I just can't motivate to play much further than an hour.

The graphics are definitely a struggle. I don't remember how I managed to get past that when I started playing, but now I don't really notice it any more.

I bailed on Dominions 5. I got to the point where I spent every turn playing whack-a-mole with the enemy armies and moving troops from my forts to my front line. I had about half a dozen commanders I had to direct every turn to pick up some units and walk to the next province. It's a problem I often encounter in 4X games where every turn has a bunch of tedium that eventually burns me out.

I'll probably get back to it at some point to try one of the more interesting factions, but for now I'm in the mood for something more active. My daughter started playing Palworld after seeing my wife play it, but she hates having to collect resources, so I decided to try to set up a shared world for us so I can gather resources and she can have fun building a nice house.

I like the game a lot more than I thought I would. It's pretty well polished for an Early Access game, at least so far. Sadly, I haven't figured out how to get my daughter in the same guild as me so we can share a base. We can't be online at the same time because we both borrow the game from my wife's account, so we can't join each other's guild. A friend of my wife offered to join our game so we could both join his guild, but I discovered we're on CGNAT, meaning we share our IP with other clients of our ISP, which means he couldn't join my dedicated server. We could try both joining an official server, but my daughter would have no patience for dealing with any connection issues, so that's not really a good option either.

I found a tool that deserializes the save files into a readable format, so I'm going to see if I can edit them to add her to my guild, but I fear it won't be a straightforward process.

 

[Zloth]

Still cruising through Cyberpunk. I'm getting near max level, but I don't think that matters. Everything scales up with you in this game, so "no more levels" just means no more perks - and the perks I'm getting are barely used anyway.

GOG has a sale on:

Horizon Zero Dawn™ Complete Edition

EARTH IS OURS NO MORE Experience Aloy’s entire legendary quest to unravel the mysterie

www.gog.com

$12.50

GOG.COM | GOG.COM

www.gog.com

$10

Tomb Raider: Anniversary

Tomb Raider: Anniversary retraces Lara Croft's original genre-defining adventure, globe-

www.gog.com

$1.35 (with its famous tutorial! oh wait, that was last week...)

XCOM® 2

XCOM 2 is the sequel to XCOM: Enemy Unknown, the 2012 award-winning strategy game of the

www.gog.com

$3. Another $4 for War of the Chosen, but I would suggest playing the game once without WotC, then playing through again with War of the Chosen a year or two later.

Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen

Set in a huge open world, Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen presents a rewarding action combat

www.gog.com

$4.80 - prep for the second game releasing soon

World in Conflict: Complete Edition

Includes the original World In Conflict plus the expansion World In Conflict: Soviet Assa

www.gog.com

$2.50 - graphics are still holding up pretty well

Control Ultimate Edition

Control Ultimate Edition contains the main game and all previously released Expans

www.gog.com

$10

BioShock Infinite Complete Edition

BioShock Infinite Complete Edition includes the following DLC: BioShock Infinite: Bur

www.gog.com

$11 deliver the girl, wipe away the debt

Prey: Digital Deluxe Edition

Prey is a first-person sci-fi action game from Arkane Studios, the award-winning creato

www.gog.com

$10 learn to fear coffee cups

Age of Wonders: Planetfall

Emerge from the cosmic dark age of a fallen galactic empire to build a new future fo

www.gog.com

$12.50. Another $10 to get all (?) the DLC

Sword of the Stars: Complete Collection

Sword of the Stars: Complete Collection includes the original Sword of the Stars game a

www.gog.com

$2.50. Getting old but it sure was a great 4X.

 

[ZedClampet]

Read the following scenario from my Palworld game and give me your opinion on whether you think it has multiple NPC pathfinding algorithms.

One of my bases is only accessible from one side, so I built a simple maze to give me more time to respond to AI raiders. It worked so well (possibly because I force them to go in the wrong direction for awhile) that the raiders get stuck in the maze.

The interesting part is that, while in the base, i tossed down my best fighter Pal, and he had no problems navigating the maze. He killed the raiders, and then ran back, starting at the point where they had gotten stuck, and had no problems at all.

I saw this same situation in another part of the map where a huge, steep rocky area was blocking a monster that had aggro on me, but when I dropped my Pal, he immediately took off and went all the way around the hill/mountain to kill the monster before taking the same path back.

3D pathfinding is really complex, so there could have been other factors at play, but it sure feels like your own Pals have been given better pathfinding than other NPCs. It's possible that since they need to navigate people's bases that more work was done on owned Pals' pathfinding. I'd be interested in hearing other theories.

***

I'm way behind in this thread. @Pifanjr I was getting ready to warn you that you were in an end game area, but then I kept reading, and you finished the game. Congrats!

 

[D10S]

Just realized I never played any of Control expansions, decided to replay the game with both big dlcs while I'm still into Alan Wake 2 as they're both connected via FBC. Dunno why, but I had a 4eur code waiting for me at the checkout in EGS, must be those exp points for AW2 achievements.

 

[Pifanjr]

Read the following scenario from my Palworld game and give me your opinion on whether you think it has multiple NPC pathfinding algorithms.

One of my bases is only accessible from one side, so I built a simple maze to give me more time to respond to AI raiders. It worked so well (possibly because I force them to go in the wrong direction for awhile) that the raiders get stuck in the maze.

The interesting part is that, while in the base, i tossed down my best fighter Pal, and he had no problems navigating the maze. He killed the raiders, and then ran back, starting at the point where they had gotten stuck, and had no problems at all.

I saw this same situation in another part of the map where a huge, steep rocky area was blocking a monster that had aggro on me, but when I dropped my Pal, he immediately took off and went all the way around the hill/mountain to kill the monster before taking the same path back.

3D pathfinding is really complex, so there could have been other factors at play, but it sure feels like your own Pals have been given better pathfinding than other NPCs. It's possible that since they need to navigate people's bases that more work was done on owned Pals' pathfinding. I'd be interested in hearing other theories.

I think you're right. Pals would need better pathfinding to get around your base as you built more and more stuff, but everything else works well enough if it just takes the simplest path, at least for an Early Access release. Whether it'll ever get improved is a good question and there's a good chance you'll always be able to cheese the AI regardless.

I'm way behind in this thread. @Pifanjr I was getting ready to warn you that you were in an end game area, but then I kept reading, and you finished the game. Congrats!

Thank you, it's been quite a while since I actually played a game to the end.

 

[D10S]

Yeah.....

 

[ZedClampet]

Thank you, it's been quite a while since I actually played a game to the end.

When I took the sub down that vertical shaft, I had an impending sense of doom that I would never get the sub back out of there. On the way back, which felt harder than the way down, I kept getting out of the sub to be able to assess the situation better since I found it hard to see while piloting. Overall, I thought the whole thing was a great experience.

 

[Pifanjr]

When I took the sub down that vertical shaft, I had an impending sense of doom that I would never get the sub back out of there. On the way back, which felt harder than the way down, I kept getting out of the sub to be able to assess the situation better since I found it hard to see while piloting. Overall, I thought the whole thing was a great experience.

I'm happy I found another way out, even if it turned out I wasn't supposed to leave yet.

 

[Zloth]

It's possible that since they need to navigate people's bases that more work was done on owned Pals' pathfinding. I'd be interested in hearing other theories.

It sounds like there are a lot fewer Pals than enemies. Lots of enemies using lots of CPU to find good paths can be trouble for whatever server these are running on. (If the user's computer is handling them, you'll have a target for hackers.) I'm not surprised they act differently.

Whether it's another algorithm or not is really hard to tell, though. It could be just one that takes a parameter saying how far ahead to look. Typical enemies get a 3, Pals get a 7, or whatever. That way, if more CPU power becomes available later, you can make the enemies smarter simply by changing the 3 to a 4. Oh, and tell the players you're changing it. Probably. <evil grin>

P.S. When you get behind, read the thread backwards!

 

[Pifanjr]

I played a bit of Total War: Shogun 2 this evening on the recommendation of a friend of mine. I only played a few turns, but I really like it. Combat feels much faster than in Total War: Warhammer, which I guess makes sense, as battles in Warhammer probably need to last longer to give players the chance to use magic.
I also like that you don't need generals to move units and that generals aren't so ridiculously powerful. If I catch an enemy general with the cheapest spear unit I can recruit it will probably die within a minute, instead of dogpiling my entire army onto a single guy and not being guaranteed to win. It's a nice change of pace.