Steam has a new-to-me DLC hub for your games:
I just use shops to continue my hoarding ways. (I'm so glad I'm not like this in real life.)
yeah same here. i sort of use the shops i build in Fallout 4 as a way to get more currency and offload more crap. If i recall sometimes they do offer basic stock, but honestly i didn't make much use of the settlement areas apart from safe havens or as a place to build stuff. Most of the time i just built turrets and created killzones. The alleyway safehaven near the stadium was probably my most used one. it was easily defendable and stuffed with turrets and NPCs it was a decent place to camp out.
The good news is that i could travel light as it seems like workshops/containers have infinite space so i could offload most of my stuff there. Still managed to get encumbered every so often as i picked places clean and carried multiple weapons.
I played some more Fallout 4 today. I got a loading screen tip that said you find more legendary gear on higher difficulties, so I bumped it up to Hard. I found a couple of legendary pieces, though most of them aren't very useful. However, it feels wrong to just sell/salvage them, so I decided my settlers might as well become living mannequins instead, displaying the collection of cool weapons and armours I've found.
Also, I found a cat on one of the farms and the settlers need the weapons and armour to protect it. I don't care much about the humans, but that kitty needs my protection. Though I haven't actually had any attacks on settlements so far.
Also, I found a cat on one of the farms and the settlers need the weapons and armour to protect it. I don't care much about the humans, but that kitty needs my protection. Though I haven't actually had any attacks on settlements so far.
I needed something to play when I can't go on the desktop PC or to play in between working and since my job doesn't allow me to install anything on my laptop, I've turned to itch.io.
First game I tried out was FARA, which plays like a singleplayer MUD. It's pretty decent, but obviously still early in development. There's especially a lack of documentation on how a lot of stuff in the game works.
Second game I tried out was Die in the Dungeon, a fun little dice deck-building game, I can recommend it.
First game I tried out was FARA, which plays like a singleplayer MUD. It's pretty decent, but obviously still early in development. There's especially a lack of documentation on how a lot of stuff in the game works.
Second game I tried out was Die in the Dungeon, a fun little dice deck-building game, I can recommend it.
Zloth
Community Contributor
Steam has a new-to-me DLC hub for your games:
That is kinda interesting! It's still an experiment, though. You can sort it a few ways other than the default, which just shows what DLC has been the most popular. (I wonder if that's popular as in "most sales" or "most sales per game owner"?)
Time to read a book. Or maybe a series of books. Or maybe a really BIG series of books!
The problem is that I typically need to be able to step away at a moment's notice. Or I need to keep an eye on a progress bar if I'm playing while working.
When I'm reading a book I prefer to be able to get really immersed in the story, which I wouldn't be able to do.
I started up Assassin’s Creed Odyssey again last night. I wanted a big dumb open world game that is easy to hop in and out of for short play sessions, and I’ve been wanting to get invested in ACO for a while. 4 years to be exact, my first save game was from 2019. I haven’t gotten further than 12 hours in at Level 11, and it’s been years since I gave it a shot, so I started a new game. Playing with my Xbox Series X controller feels great, it’s the best controller I’ve ever used, however I hate how some menus it’s like a cursor you control with the joystick. I just switch back to my mouse for that but it does get a bit annoying. The voice acting and character dialogue is robotic and artificial like all Ubisoft games but the gameplay is fun and the world is beautiful, so I can look past that.
One thing that is funny is in the prologue which takes about an hour before the game fully opens up, you automatically get all of your Ubisoft Club rewards. So the first minute I got to play as Alexios I automatically unlocked 4 sets of armor and weapons, which are really strong, then as you go through the first few missions people start to give you gear because they think you are still wearing your rags when really I’ve already equipped all the Viking armor I just unlocked lol.
One feature from this game that I wish was more common in other open world games is the ability to take a photo and upload it to the map in game. As you look through the map you will see small golden squares, and if you hover over it you can see photos other players have taken. You can then give it a like and the posts with the most likes stay on the map for much longer than others I presume. It’s a really cool little feature, and it gives you incentive to take nice photos if you want to. As with any social media it’s also nice to see people liking your post. It could be improved upon, like being able to see a list of many different posts within a certain area. I really enjoy little things that allow you to engage with other players in single player games. It’s a bit like the messages people would write in Dark Souls and Elden Ring, or even Death Stranding’s player posts and messages. Adding a little connectivity to other players while in a single player only game is something I wish we’d see more often in games.
One thing that is funny is in the prologue which takes about an hour before the game fully opens up, you automatically get all of your Ubisoft Club rewards. So the first minute I got to play as Alexios I automatically unlocked 4 sets of armor and weapons, which are really strong, then as you go through the first few missions people start to give you gear because they think you are still wearing your rags when really I’ve already equipped all the Viking armor I just unlocked lol.
One feature from this game that I wish was more common in other open world games is the ability to take a photo and upload it to the map in game. As you look through the map you will see small golden squares, and if you hover over it you can see photos other players have taken. You can then give it a like and the posts with the most likes stay on the map for much longer than others I presume. It’s a really cool little feature, and it gives you incentive to take nice photos if you want to. As with any social media it’s also nice to see people liking your post. It could be improved upon, like being able to see a list of many different posts within a certain area. I really enjoy little things that allow you to engage with other players in single player games. It’s a bit like the messages people would write in Dark Souls and Elden Ring, or even Death Stranding’s player posts and messages. Adding a little connectivity to other players while in a single player only game is something I wish we’d see more often in games.
My only question about this sort of thing is what happens when they decide it isn't worth it to run the servers that store the pictures/messages. Will the games still work? If not, will they fix them or will they take them off the market? We permanently lose multiplayer games all the time. Adding multiplayer components to otherwise single-player games comes with the risk that we'll start losing them, too.
Take Darktide, for instance. This isn't exactly what you are talking about, but in their previous games they didn't have a hub for players to congregate in. You just went to your own base and set up a non-dedicated server from there. For that reason, we'll always have the Vermintide games, but stand to some day, perhaps not that long from now since the game tanked, lose Darktide.
One of the things I considered you might want to use shops for in Fallout 4 was ammunition, as I hadn't seen a crafting station for that yet. However, I was messing around with the workshop items and stumbled upon the category for automated production, which included a machine for producing ammunition.
Which was good timing, as my hunting rifle ammo was running somewhat low. It's a bit of a bother manually finding the right junk to get the right components from in the giant list in my workshop, but I'm too lazy to create an automated system for it. Also, it turns out that I didn't have that many components in the first place, as apparently pencils are one of the few sources of lead in this game and I didn't think pencils were worth picking up...
Which was good timing, as my hunting rifle ammo was running somewhat low. It's a bit of a bother manually finding the right junk to get the right components from in the giant list in my workshop, but I'm too lazy to create an automated system for it. Also, it turns out that I didn't have that many components in the first place, as apparently pencils are one of the few sources of lead in this game and I didn't think pencils were worth picking up...
Kaamos_Llama
Moderator
In DS and Elden Ring you can play offline, games fully functional but the messages arent there.
Good points. In the case of ACO, the pictures are compressed and lower res when you look at them in-game. I wonder if they can just download all the pictures and release it as an update so when the servers shut down you can still see them like relics of the past. But of course, this is Ubisoft we’re talking about, so it’s just wishful hoping. Dark Souls servers are still up, but who knows how long for. I never thought of adding these components to single player games as risks the companies have to take but you’re right, who knows how much it is to run these servers. Another downside is that if games with these kinds of features do decide to turn them off in the future, anyone playing the game for the first time after that will be missing out. It’s nothing major like you’re missing a whole portion of gameplay, but it’s a nice little touch that I really appreciate.
I’ve tried ammo crafting mods and in my experience they become so OP it takes some fun away from the game. You’re able to craft a large quantity of ammo for relatively low resources, but then you end up with 2000+ bullets for all your guns. I bet you can tweak it and make it more resources for less ammo to balance it but I have not dug deeper into fixing it.
Apparently the ammunition crafting machine was added by the Contraptions Workshop DLC. So far it doesn't seem terribly unbalanced, as the resources it uses are fairly rare.
I think Fallout 4 is generally pretty generous with the amount of ammunition you find though. I have well over 1,000 fusion cells for example, even though the laser musket is my most used weapon, and I have several hundreds of most other ammo as well. Though I played most of the game on normal and only recently switched to hard. I suspect it's different if you play on survival from the start.
yeah i find that a bit of a double edged sword sometimes. The game world is strangely lifeless without all those messages on the floor or those ghostly reflections. i don't mean dead, more in a sterile/bland sense.
I did play Dark Souls 2 offline for a large chunk of it near the end as frankly getting invaded was just annoying as hell. if i recall, certain areas were PVP and you didn't need to be human to do PVP content. Someone invades and the fight is on. I found the whole thing irritating. Especially when you're not very good, not geared for PVP play and the people who do invade made no pretentions as to their motives; to be a bunch of dicks and to rob you in the process. Sure the AI invaded you but honestly i was ok with that as they were part of the game, the human players weren't and frankly being their to be unintentionally ganked filled me with hatred for my fellow man.
Not much to report on the Hollow knight side of things. Still plodding along mapping the game world, gearing up before i face off against the 3 main dreamers. I've finally acquired all the maps, the tram card and the last of the nailmaster skills and started to harvest stuff with the dreamnail. I'm not sure what to think tbh, most seem to warn me to stop or feel like innocent souls minding their own business. i mean, one of them is a Girl scout bug begging people to buy her cookies so she could go home. i can't harvest that... I'm not a monster. i mean, yeah, its dead, but same time it feels sentient. Currently at 300-400ish souls.
i did make some unintentional detour into the deepnest after i slipped and fell down a large hole. Took me ages mapping that place and its filled with spiders, parasites and stuff of nightmares. Will go back there last once i've mapped the other stuff.
yep i was drowning in regular AR, rifle ammo and fusion cores that i had to stash them. They did come in useful in far harbor where the entire island is radioactive and at the edge of the map where you needed power armor to survive.
One of the main things i liked was building my personal robot companion. came in very useful when i went kill crazy at nuka world.
mainer
Venatus semper
I don't use them much to buy things, but they are a good place to sell things you don't want to break down into parts or give to your settlers. But the big thing they do is raise the "happiness" level of your settlement. Any of the different types of stores will do that, but especially crafting a bar and/or restaurant as a place for settlers to relax has a large effect on their happiness.
The "happiness" level needs to be kept high (above 50) or they'll start to complain, and if it gets to low, they'll actually leave for good. Happiness is affected by a lot of things; like food, water, shelter, beds, defense, as well as things like stores. It's definitely time consuming, especially if you have 15-18 settlements you're trying to keep happy. But it's the favorite part of the game for me.
Settlers have the "protected" tag on them (like companions) so they don't actually die in combat, they just fall down and get back up when it's over. The only way they can permanently die is if you kill them. So if you're helping to defend a settlement and fire indiscriminately you could kill a few by accident (which lowers happiness). Also, never give settlers grenades of explosive type weapons, like rocket launchers, as they'll do more damage than the attackers.
Yeah, it's rare that I run out of ammo completely. If you explore enough and get into enough fire fights there's usually plenty, even with automatic weapons. I usually have 3 or 4 weapons with me at any given time that use different ammo types, and just switch if I get low. I always have an ammo workbench mod installed, but I actually rarely use it.
Zloth
Community Contributor
Oh yeah, that was cool! And yeah, it would have been great in Death Stranding.
I have a new, saddest moment in gaming (but this is serious, so I'm posting it here).
My gaming partner, my best friend, my son, Thomas is leaving for college tomorrow. I am crushed. They were the best 18 years of life anyone could ever hope for.
I'll be alone in the house tomorrow, as I am right now. I'm not ashamed to admit I may weep for days. God truly blessed me. I didn't deserve the last 18 years, but I had them anyway. Such a fortunate man. I love you, Thomas.
My gaming partner, my best friend, my son, Thomas is leaving for college tomorrow. I am crushed. They were the best 18 years of life anyone could ever hope for.
I'll be alone in the house tomorrow, as I am right now. I'm not ashamed to admit I may weep for days. God truly blessed me. I didn't deserve the last 18 years, but I had them anyway. Such a fortunate man. I love you, Thomas.
If you don't buy things, why would you need the money you get from selling things? And what things would you not want to break down?
Also, I have only 3 charisma and apparently you need 6 to built shops.
15-18 settlements? I have 4 now and I'm already ignoring 2 of them.
If settlers cannot kill other settlers, why would it matter that they hit each other with explosive weapons?
I am going through my ammo pretty quickly currently, as I went into a building that appears to just keep going and is filled with enemies. I think I went from about 1,000 to 600 on my main weapon and I'm not sure how close to the end I was when I called it quits.
Just before I quit playing, I found a terminal with a master level lock. However, I'm only level 20 and you can unlock the skill for master level terminals at level 21. So now I have to decide whether I want to backtrack and see if I can scrounge up the experience I need for a level up or just forget about it and continue.
First of all, that's harsh. Second of all, who do I talk to to stop being responsible for people dying of old age?
Edit: Just to be clear, those messages weren't related to each other. I just happened to glance at the messages and thought they looked funny together.
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mainer
Venatus semper
I occasionally buy a few things like ammo, but most of the stock is pretty generic. But I'm always needing caps as managing & building all those settlements takes far more resources than I can find. Especially things like wood, concrete, glass, metal, ect) so I'm constantly purchasing those things from the various merchants that sell them, and those resource shipments are expensive.
Most things related to settlement building are charisma based, even some of the perks like Local Leader. I always go with a character with high charisma (16-18 range usually) as I know the settlement building part will be my priority. Plus there are some clothing items that will raise you charisma by 1 or 2 points.
Ha! But with 3 charisma you probably wouldn't get many settlements anyway. Preston will not be pleased.
But that's one of the great things about FO4, you can play any way you want to and still have a good time.
It's not about them knocking out other settlers, but about the settlement resources they will end up destroying. The crops you planted, water purifiers, generators, turrets, and electronics that you created in Workshop Mode will end up getting destroyed. Then you have to go around and repair all of them. Time consuming and costly in terms of the resources you have to use.
I found that to be fairly common in some of the larger interiors (basically dungeons), finding a lock or computer with a high level skill requirement. If I'm not going to hit that level soon, I usually just make a note and return to it later.
Since you're level 20, have all the quest DLCs unlocked yet? I can't remember what character level they unlock at, but it seems to me that the Automatron DLC unlocked first.
Played some more AC Odyssey last night. The graphics are amazing, but I wish Ubisoft was better at optimizing their games, so I have to compromise by lowering graphics quality to reach a smooth 60fps. Always a bummer for gorgeous looking games but overall I prioritize FPS over graphics.
I’ve heard spoilers about some characters that I didn’t care much for the last time I tried to play this game, so I’m treating them extra nice and doing all their side quests.
The exploration is really one of the best parts of the game. There are some systems in place to assist you with exploring, like these stone tablets you can find called Ainigmata Ostrakas, apparently directly translates to Riddle Shells. They are cryptic messages that tell you of a location you should go check out, so you go there and find some good loot hidden somewhere. One of them told me to dive to the bottom a very deep lake and I was happily rewarded with lots of crafting materials and a nice bow. I enjoy doing these because you have to find them yourselves based on the text, no map markers for these, which leads me to my next complaint.
AC Odyssey has two gameplay styles you can choose from: Exploration and Guided. Guided is more traditional open world gameplay, where you have your mission objectives on screen and a marker to show you where to go. Exploration mode gives you more vague details about where you need to head, saying something like “the camp is south of this lake” and you have to open the map and find the general area it’s referring to. Although that is cool and I would normally enjoy that over Guided, the sheer amount of quests in this game makes me have to use Guided mode. If you’re not careful you can fill your quest log tons of random quests, and it gets a bit tedious after a while. I’m playing this game because I want something easy and relaxing, so I use Guided. That also kind of correlates to the difficulty settings, Normal is too easy but Hard is a tad bit too difficult. I’m sticking with normal for this playthrough, I want to be able to kill and use abilities more freely and easily.
I’ve heard spoilers about some characters that I didn’t care much for the last time I tried to play this game, so I’m treating them extra nice and doing all their side quests.
The exploration is really one of the best parts of the game. There are some systems in place to assist you with exploring, like these stone tablets you can find called Ainigmata Ostrakas, apparently directly translates to Riddle Shells. They are cryptic messages that tell you of a location you should go check out, so you go there and find some good loot hidden somewhere. One of them told me to dive to the bottom a very deep lake and I was happily rewarded with lots of crafting materials and a nice bow. I enjoy doing these because you have to find them yourselves based on the text, no map markers for these, which leads me to my next complaint.
AC Odyssey has two gameplay styles you can choose from: Exploration and Guided. Guided is more traditional open world gameplay, where you have your mission objectives on screen and a marker to show you where to go. Exploration mode gives you more vague details about where you need to head, saying something like “the camp is south of this lake” and you have to open the map and find the general area it’s referring to. Although that is cool and I would normally enjoy that over Guided, the sheer amount of quests in this game makes me have to use Guided mode. If you’re not careful you can fill your quest log tons of random quests, and it gets a bit tedious after a while. I’m playing this game because I want something easy and relaxing, so I use Guided. That also kind of correlates to the difficulty settings, Normal is too easy but Hard is a tad bit too difficult. I’m sticking with normal for this playthrough, I want to be able to kill and use abilities more freely and easily.
Zloth
Community Contributor
There's also a/an historical mode. It's made more for students to learn than for outright play, but it's neat to learn about the buildings and people. It's worth checking out, IMHO, maybe as an intermission after 50hrs or so.
I just did that and skipped the game.
****
Today was much better than expected. No tears or breakdowns. I just listened to local sports talk and played Kingdoms Reborn all day.
I've read that settlements repair themselves after a couple of in-game days.
I actually found a password for that terminal a bit later. I think I still took the perk when I unlocked it.
I don't think so. Though perhaps the one I just did one of the DLCs, as it was quite a long quest chain.
EDIT: I checked, it was the Automatron DLC. That explains why it felt way bigger than other side quests.
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