July 2024 Game Discussion Thread

[ZedClampet]

Dear developers,

When you are designing the UI for your graphic options, stop putting resolution at the top and the "apply" button at the bottom. If your game misidentifies the user's native resolution, the user may not be able to even see the options needed to fix the problem.

Also, leave my mouse settings alone.

 

[neogunhero]

Managed to play a few hours in between all the work going on with moving. Decided on some DayZ. Played a no mods vanilla server with PVP turned off, and it was on the ex-DLC map Livonia which has since been made free to everyone in wake of a new DLC coming out later this year. There was a massive update two months ago and I haven’t played since.

The first thing I noticed was how good the new ambient music is. Playing in the dark with my headphones on made for a very eerie experience. The music fits the atmosphere very good, and reminded me a ton of the STALKER games.

Although the server I played on wasn’t modded, they did increase the loot multipliers so it was very easy getting outfitted and geared up, which was nice since I have quite limited time to play currently. I was able to find a pistol, three mags for it and enough ammo to fill them all, so I was goofing around and shooting at all the zombies in the middle of a large town. Someone eventually found me, and we explored a bit together, fighting zombies along the way. Somehow I eventually lost him, so I went about trying to build a campsite. Unfortunately it started to rain very heavy and all my clothes and gear got soaked, so I was unsuccessful in making a campsite. Overall it was a great bite sized experience which was exactly what I wanted. I’m very excited to get the new DLC, they are saying that it’s going to be a totally unique map in terms of map design and layout as well as unique loot and POIs.

I also managed to get some time into RoboQuest. Great little FPS roguelite for quick sessions but with very surprising depth. It’s one of those games that I can chip away 30mins-1hour every now and then and always make some decent progress. I’m not the best at it, usually dying around the 2nd or 3rd level, but that’s usually enough to get some Wrenches needed to upgrade your base camp to unlock perks in your runs. This is one game that I bought brand new in Early Access and I’m so happy to see it fully released with amazing reviews.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

You picked a great time to start. They've pretty much fixed everything they broke when they launched the game, plus benefitting from all the improvements they made over #1&2.

Would anyone be interested in playing TWWH3's three-player co-op campaign?

Im in the honeymoon phase at the moment planning to finish all of the campaigns. Usually that fizzles out after a bit, but we'll see how it goes. I played a fair amount of campaign in 1 bit not much in 2.

One thing I noticed is I cant set battles to top difficulty without it artificially raising stats on enemy troops. Id like the AI to jink spells and be as smart as possible but I dont want to have top tier infantry getting tar pitted by bottom tier stuff because they have inflated stats. Minor annoyance anyway.

I dont really have that much time to play, and when I do its irregular times so Im not really able to commit to co op campaigns unfortunately.

 

[Zloth]

That plan to skip a bunch of side content in Forbidden West has failed in a pretty epic way.

 

[Hveðrungr]

One thing I noticed is I cant set battles to top difficulty without it artificially raising stats on enemy troops. Id like the AI to jink spells and be as smart as possible but I dont want to have top tier infantry getting tar pitted by bottom tier stuff because they have inflated stats. Minor annoyance anyway.

You can—check out the video I embedded in the dedicated thread in the Strategy subforum—but it doesn't really do anything because the AI itself doesn't improve much.

 

[Pifanjr]

I started a new game of Rimworld, using the Naked Brutality scenario, but with my single pawn being tribal, meaning I also start with fewer research options unlocked.

I also started at a random point in the world, which turned out to be an arid wasteland with no trees or berries. So I immediately had to start traveling to the nearest plains. I managed to make it with a quick stop halfway through where I crafted a knife and used it to kill a small animal, luckily without getting too wounded, and eating it raw.

Once I got to the plains I set up a camp, though because it was right at the border with the wasteland it was still mostly rocky ground. But at least I could make a bow and start safely hunting, while relying on the few berry bushes to keep me fed.

Because my colonist had a shooting skill of 2, I had to micromanage him, letting him hit an animal only once and then waiting until it bled to death, which is more efficient than missing a hundred shots trying to finish it off in one go.

I had a lot of fun micromanaging my guy's needs, right up until a second person joined and I didn't feel like micromanaging two people.

It was a bit disappointing to go from barely scraping by and pausing all the time to being able to run the game at 3x speed most of the time. It's a problem I've encountered in other games as well, where scraping by in the beginning is really fun, but then you get too powerful and lose that aspect of the game. On the other hand, there are games that constantly keep you right at the edge of losing and that gets tiresome as well.

 

[Johnway]

more Dark souls 3 hijnks. I've finally got all 4 of the lords of cinder and we're coming up to end game. DLC wise i've also reached the boss for ashes of ariandel. Unfortunately the boss is rather tough. Especially when i have to face off 3 times and whether i have the patience/skill to do it i don't know.

i'll probably pick up some of the one or 2 items i've missed before carrying on the story. Slowly grinding and infusing weapons. I would like to max out my Lotheric longsword before upgrading it again to amplify it, but those titanite slabs are just way too rare to upgrade it to max.

 

[Brian Boru]

there are games that constantly keep you right at the edge of losing and that gets tiresome as well

They need to learn the lesson from good drama—periods of intensity and tension need to be interspersed with periods of relaxation… 'comic relief' sort of thing.

scraping by in the beginning is really fun, but then you get too powerful and lose that aspect

Some games provide extra antagonism for those times.

Far Cry 6 has a 'You're for it now' event which spawns after you really eat their buns. You'll get a couple of choppers, a couple of Special Forces foot patrols, and 2-3 Special Forces armored patrol carriers all bearing down on you… before the tank shows up.
You trigger this by picking off a few of their supply truck drivers and then blowing the trucks up—or tackle a random patrol but let the officer live long enough to call for backup, altho response to that can be muted.

Civilization V Brave New World on higher diff setting with Raging Barbarians is also a nice ongoing challenge, which doesn't deteriorate much until you finally wipe 'em off your landmass—the Barbs often show up with troops I don't have access to yet… I'm not sure, but I think if any other civ has access, the Barbs will too.

I used to love C&C missions where after surviving the start you'd have to take over an enemy base, which then opened up another map segment with a more powerful enemy force.

But yeah, I agree in general, pacing and leveling are difficult to get right.

 

[BeardyHat]

I started a new game of Rimworld, using the Naked Brutality scenario, but with my single pawn being tribal, meaning I also start with fewer research options unlocked.

I need to get back into Rimworld. I've got over 300-hours in it, but after I finally made it off the planet properly, I kind of lost interest in it for whatever reason. My brain says it's a solved game or something.

I'm still playing WoW after my friend getting me back into it about a week ago. Playing on this private server and running in "Slow and Steady" mode, which means I gain half the exp from kills and if I die, I lose 5% of my current exp, but get rewards ever 10 levels and quests always give full exp, even if they're the lowest level ones. It's a good time, actually; I'm enjoying the slow pace and just really taking my time, even if my friends are zooming through levels and begging me to catch-up; I've played this game so much, it's nice to take a breather and just go slow.

I want to get back to Yakuza: Like a Dragon, but it's tough to play. Much as I really enjoy it, I feel like time to play it is relatively limited due to the amount I need to actually pay attention to the game. Much of my game time is continually interrupted or while my wife and I are relaxing in the evening with the TV and Yakuza can be tough to pay attention to with its cinematics, but I'm going to try and get back to it once I do catch-up my buddy in WoW.

And I know I've harped on this more than a few times here, but hot damn I do love my eGPU. After upgrading my laptop to 2tb and installing a whole bunch of stuff, I'm giving System Shock remake another go, which runs alright on my Steam Deck, but just doesn't feel correct to play it there. Previously my laptop could run it at 20-30fps at 720p, low, with maybe 80% resolution and now it's on Medium, 2160x1350, 100% resolution with a rock solid 60fps and it just feels so right now. I'm just continually impressed with this little thing, even being a low end GPU, it really adds some grunt to my 13", less than 2lb laptop, which is just crazy to me.

 

[ZedClampet]

@ZedClampet fyi 29m from Gameranx:

20 Best COOP Campaigns You SHOULDN'T MISS

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKjE_uhcXYk

Glad to see Evil West made the video. Wouldn't mind playing Dead Island 2 and the Gears of War that he mentioned. Of course, we've already played a lot of those games.

Im in the honeymoon phase at the moment planning to finish all of the campaigns. Usually that fizzles out after a bit, but we'll see how it goes. I played a fair amount of campaign in 1 bit not much in 2.

One thing I noticed is I cant set battles to top difficulty without it artificially raising stats on enemy troops. Id like the AI to jink spells and be as smart as possible but I dont want to have top tier infantry getting tar pitted by bottom tier stuff because they have inflated stats. Minor annoyance anyway.

I dont really have that much time to play, and when I do its irregular times so Im not really able to commit to co op campaigns unfortunately.

We had a discussion about this in some other thread. Is it too much to ask for the AI to get better with a higher difficulty? It's so cheap just to make them progressively stronger to the point that your tier 4 infantry struggles against the AIs tier 1 infantry.

Basically, the best way, currently, to make the game more difficult without letting the AI cheat is to give them more money. I made a quick and easy mod that gave AI factions 200 percent more money and that made a significant difference. Of course, you can't give it to yourself or you'll steamroll everything almost immediately, so just give it to the AI.

Another thing you could do, but I've never tried, is to only give them a small amount of extra money, but improve their population growth so that the early game is more difficult and keeps you from just destroying everyone around you right away.

Of course, this is still AI cheating, but as long as you keep the difficulty on "Normal" at least they won't cheat in the battles.

I don't upload my mods anymore after the nonsense I went through with TW Troy and this guy harassing me constantly, but if you don't feel like figuring it out yourself, I could upload whatever you need to Google drive.

 

[Zloth]

...even if my friends are zooming through levels and begging me to catch-up; I've played this game so much, it's nice to take a breather and just go slow.

Can't you just sidekick.... oh, right, you're playing that less advanced MMO, not City of Heroes.

Horizon: Forbidden West done did a stupid thing.

You're swimming around in a deep area. There's a BIG monster guarding a door in a big room. Opposite the door is a little cave/room with a red light in it. In this game, you've got zero offense underwater - you can't even use harsh language because you've got a breathing apparatus in your mouth. The monster is doing a circle in front of the door, there's not really any way around it. If you try to go around the sides to sneak in, you'll find a current is coming out that makes that impossible. (The game likes putting weird little currents in water that make no sense at all.)

So, obviously, go for the red light. The red light is an underwater console. It is currently disabled.

Swim around the rest of the huge area and you'll find a few interesting things, but nothing that advances the plot at all.

I gave up after half an hour and looked it up, and I'm glad I did. What you have to do is swim straight at the door and the big monster. Going from the sides won't work - go straight in like the monster isn't even there. Then Aloy will think to herself, "gee, this isn't going to work, I should try something else." Now go back to the red light and the console. Suddenly, it allows your input, and the quest can continue. <facepalm>

I'm still having a ball with the game but jeez.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Glad to see Evil West made the video. Wouldn't mind playing Dead Island 2 and the Gears of War that he mentioned. Of course, we've already played a lot of those games.

We had a discussion about this in some other thread. Is it too much to ask for the AI to get better with a higher difficulty? It's so cheap just to make them progressively stronger to the point that your tier 4 infantry struggles against the AIs tier 1 infantry.

Basically, the best way, currently, to make the game more difficult without letting the AI cheat is to give them more money. I made a quick and easy mod that gave AI factions 200 percent more money and that made a significant difference. Of course, you can't give it to yourself or you'll steamroll everything almost immediately, so just give it to the AI.

Another thing you could do, but I've never tried, is to only give them a small amount of extra money, but improve their population growth so that the early game is more difficult and keeps you from just destroying everyone around you right away.

Of course, this is still AI cheating, but as long as you keep the difficulty on "Normal" at least they won't cheat in the battles.

I don't upload my mods anymore after the nonsense I went through with TW Troy and this guy harassing me constantly, but if you don't feel like figuring it out yourself, I could upload whatever you need to Google drive.

Been away a lot last couple weeks and busy for a while yet, i'll check into the dedicated thread when I get a chance to play some more. Was just planning on trying the canned campaigns for now, will see how it goes but if I need the mod help Ill let you know. Thanks!

 

[Colif]

This is going to be abused really badly

 

[Hveðrungr]

They need to learn the lesson from good drama—periods of intensity and tension need to be interspersed with periods of relaxation… 'comic relief' sort of thing.

Marvel's Midnight Suns does this very well by interspersing the tense combat with the relaxing Abbey. You develop a really nice routine where you don't feel burnt out.

Some games provide extra antagonism for those times.

Total War: Warhammer III has added an Endgame Crisis. After a number of turns (which you can customise), one of the races will suddenly get loads of armies and start aggressively chomping everyone. It's based on a similar mechanic from Stellaris, in which the slumbering ancient super-civilisations would wake up and start battering you once you got strong enough; I believe they've added several other Endgame Crises since. That was in turn based on the real, organic Endgame Crisis of the medieval world that is covered in Crusader Kings: the Mongol invasion. I remember one especially gripping CK2 campaign in which my restored Roman Empire was hit by the Mongol invasion at the same time as a particularly nasty civil war.

 

[ZedClampet]

Been away a lot last couple weeks and busy for a while yet, i'll check into the dedicated thread when I get a chance to play some more. Was just planning on trying the canned campaigns for now, will see how it goes but if I need the mod help Ill let you know. Thanks!

We don't always play this way. Sometimes I'm not in the mood for the stress . Depending on who your are playing, you become surrounded by enemies pretty easily, and it can seem like a back and forth without actually making progress, but it feels great when you get your revenge and finish them off.

Because I usually auto resolve, I don't really mind the higher difficulties, and I will often do that.

In Troy giving them extra money made the game completely insane. You would have Hector bringing 14 ships to you by turn 12, and I usually turtled until I could field an extra army and send it by itself over to try to take his territories and slow him down.

Troy is actually my favorite Total War game. Ajax has some bad, bad dudes for infantry.

 

[Hveðrungr]

Troy is actually my favorite Total War game.

What do you think of Pharaoh?

 

[ZedClampet]

What do you think of Pharaoh?

I like it as well, and they are putting out a large update soon. They are greatly expanding the map and adding a number of new factions who should all have different playstyles.

With both Pharoah and Troy, which settlements you take over really matters because each has different resources. With Pharoah you also have outposts for each settlement which adds another layer of strategy. They aren't just there to be pretty, how you choose to build those out really makes a difference.

This highlights a problem with a lot of factions in Total War Warhammer 2. You build the same things in every settlement. They've done a good job, though, of expanding the options on 3, but it still isn't as deep and impactful as it is in Troy and Pharoah.

The main problem with Pharoah is it only has one campaign, although it has a number of factions and some of them play differently. The update will add some very different factions that should fix this problem. Troy is more complicated. It also only has one campaign, but there are 3 modes that make it quite different, and, of course, there are several main factions who all play differently.

All-in-all, though, I miss the days when each DLC came with its own unique campaign.

 

[Hveðrungr]

This highlights a problem with a lot of factions in Total War Warhammer 2. You build the same things in every settlement. They've done a good job, though, of expanding the options on 3, but it still isn't as deep and impactful as it is in Troy and Pharoah.

Yeah, Total War: Warhammer is very much the arcade version of Total War.

 

[ZedClampet]

In what has to be the weirdest news I got today, Clothing Store Simulator now has a battle pass. It costs $50,000.

Fortunately, that's in-game money

 

[ZedClampet]

Is anyone else waiting for the [Mod action: NFT game name edited out] launch this August? I'm looking for a friend to play with. ^^

TBH, I've never heard of it.

It's a very confusing company. They say they are called Metaverse Game Studio and are based in the Netherlands, but when you click on the "About" section, they say they are called Gamico Studio and are based in the UK, and then they list their address as being in Illinois.

Then you have all the corporate speak and their goal to "change the world".

Personally, I'm not excited to start giving them my personal information to apply for the testing.

 

[Hveðrungr]

TBH, I've never heard of it.

It's a very confusing company. They say they are called Metaverse Game Studio and are based in the Netherlands, but when you click on the "About" section, they say they are called Gamico Studio and are based in the UK, and then they list their address as being in Illinois.

Then you have all the corporate speak and their goal to "change the world".

Personally, I'm not excited to start giving them my personal information to apply for the testing.

User rgamesacc has made precisely two posts, both of which reference this obscure dodgy game.

I really think the mods should be heavier-handed about tackling such obvious spam, and us ordinary users should be more alert about not interacting with them.

 

[Colif]

But it is fun to play with your food sometimes...

Most of the spam doesn't even get to the forums. You see but a small fraction. We sometimes miss some.

warnings about NFT games do have a place since they seem to be coming back again. New generation of people to scam I guess.

 

[Hveðrungr]

I was just griping because it baffles me when I see what to me is an obvious spammer and people are politely replying to them as if they're genuine lmao

Y'all are nicer than I am (no surprise to anyone there)

 

[Colif]

I see it sometimes too. Its why we have a few mods as we don't always react the same way.

 

[ZedClampet]

I was just griping because it baffles me when I see what to me is an obvious spammer and people are politely replying to them as if they're genuine lmao

Y'all are nicer than I am (no surprise to anyone there)

Personally, I don't research someone's post history, and there's nothing unusual about someone being excited about a game I've never heard of. I did question it when I went to the corporate site, though, which is why I brought up how dodgy it seemed.