March 2024 General Game Discussion Thread

[Zloth]

X4:Foundations keeps trundling along. I'm doing a terraforming job that's going to take a long time, probably another month or two real time. I've got an army of miners, big and small, out there mining ice and bringing it back to HQ.

I really should check the stats on those things to see which ones are doing best. There's a lot of complexity to figuring that out. Small, fast miners can't mine much at a time, but they fly faster. Bigger can deliver a lot more per trip but they tend to be slower. There's nothing for it but to just look through the ship logs and figure out how much each is delivering per hour.

 

[Pifanjr]

I'm getting a bit tired of XCOM 2. It's gotten too easy and it's starting to feel like a chore. I kept putting off doing the main story missions because I wanted to unlock more research first, but now I'm way too overpowered.

It doesn't help that I now often have 1 or 2 extra units on missions I have to move around each turn. And positioning doesn't really matter any more, as most enemies will be dead before their turn anyway and most soldiers have abilities that hit through obstacles. Or they simply cannot be hit even if they get attacked. Or worse, they kill anything that gets close to them.

I also just played too long today and am just generally tired. There's a good chance I won't get to continue before next Wednesday though, so by that time I'll probably just be happy I get to play again.

 

[Colif]

I think more and more people are getting fed up with microtransactions and broken releases and Dragon's Dogma 2 just became a target that these people latched on to as an example of what they think is wrong with the current game industry.

Depends on definitions.

I think I am level 1. IE, I want full games... no paid extras. Last epoch to me is a finished game but then it has cosmetic options that I will never see playing offline. I have seen people complain about not seeing them offline , but the entire point of cosmetics in a game (from a dev's point of view) is to let others see it and want to buy that pretty thing so why make it work offline? They don't care about offline as it doesn't make them as much money. If you never see what it looks like, you can't feel left out.

Sure, me accepting that arguement means I am not 100% level one, I have bought mounts in mmo before. But it sure beats walking or saving 60 gold in a game where 1 gold was a lot... thinking of wow here. thats ppay to win I guess, it lets you achieve more than say that person who runs everywhere. But then I think of Age of Conan where you got mounts free as part of buying the collectors edition, so is that pay to win as I never saw it that way, it was just pay to make game more liveable. You still had to play to get to the level required to use the mount, they weren't something you got in first town... like DIablo 4. But D4 is online only and selling $60 horses so other people can see them and want them, makes total sense in there. No lvl cap on faster travel.
Buying mounts you pay a subscription to never felt that way to me... its not like buying better weapons or anything, or booster packs.No point asking if Blizz would make horses free if D4 was an mmo as look at wow... I wonder, do you still need to be lvl 40 to use a mount in wow? I can guess you don't anymore, that restricts sales on shop.

When the shop works but the game its attached to is broken in some way, you start to see where priorities lie. Too many games are released like that... the continuing to make money off the people who buy your game is more important than making the game fun.

 

[Brian Boru]

When the shop works but the game its attached to is broken in some way, you start to see where priorities lie

That may not be a valid conclusion. Online shops are a pretty standard generic commodity these days, and so take very little effort—buy it in and customize is likely to be the best option.

 

[Colif]

Fair enough then, if its just an add on.

 

[Pifanjr]

I wonder, do you still need to be lvl 40 to use a mount in wow?

No, but you need to be level 40 to be able to fly with the flying mounts.

 

[ZedClampet]

If you suddenly see a white overlay in the upper right corner of your screen that shows your FPS, GPU and CPU usage and LAT, and it shows it all the time whether you are in a game or not, it's from the latest update to Nvidia App, and can be turned off in the overlays section of the settings. Took me a minute to figure out where it was coming from since I've got two different mouse programs, HP programs, etc. that I had to look through.

 

[neogunhero]

Only managed to play a bit of Balatro last night. I’m definitely not as good as other players, most times I struggle to beat the end of Ante 8 on White difficulty, but the game is still tons of fun. The more I play the more strategies and different gameplay approaches I can think of. I came up with a new strategy after I got a joker that turned all red cards and all black cards into the same suit. I got another joker that gave mult for Spades meaning as long as it was a black card it gained extra mult, then kept upgrading the flush hand. It was really OP in the first few antes, and I kept trying to replace any red card with black. I got to ante 6 or 7 and the boss blind disabled all black cards, and that’s where I completely fell flat. It was a good strategy until that boss blind…

 

[ZedClampet]

Welp. For better or worse, my Enshrouded house is finished. There are nicer materials I could have that aren't unlocked, especially for the roofs. I might replace these when I get them.

I made a basement, too, but the house is really a lot larger than it needs to be. I think I only have one more NPC to go get. I'm not sure how many more crafting tables I'll be getting, but it definitely won't fill up the house. Will have to craft some furniture and decorations.

Actually, now I'm thinking about creating a wizard's tower.

 

[Pifanjr]

Welp. For better or worse, my Enshrouded house is finished. There are nicer materials I could have that aren't unlocked, especially for the roofs. I might replace these when I get them.

I made a basement, too, but the house is really a lot larger than it needs to be. I think I only have one more NPC to go get. I'm not sure how many more crafting tables I'll be getting, but it definitely won't fill up the house. Will have to craft some furniture and decorations.

Actually, now I'm thinking about creating a wizard's tower.

I must admit I had some doubts when you posted the first screenshot of your house:

Spoiler

But I think the end result looks quite nice.

 

[neogunhero]

I must admit I had some doubts when you posted the first screenshot of your house:

Spoiler

But I think the end result looks quite nice.

My thoughts too, I was surprised how much the house transformed haha.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

House looks good, got some crab grass in that lawn though.

 

[ZedClampet]

Thanks all. Did I mess it up adding a short wizard's tower?

The problem with towers is that you have to climb lots of stairs to get to the top. Any taller, and I'd put my crafting tables at the bottom and never go up.

I might delete it. All you have to do is hold the hammer and right click on the blocks.

 

[Zloth]

Thanks all. Did I mess it up adding a short wizard's tower?

Who, me? I'm not living there. That's obviously something only your homeowners association can decide.

Anyway, while most people's stations in X4 look like this: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3199754818

Mine looks like this: https://forums.pcgamer.com/media/the-brain-3.2683/full

I might delete it. All you have to do is hold the hammer and right click on the blocks.

Jeez! Does it at least prompt you with a 'hey, did you really mean to wipe out all this?' prompt?

 

[Gamer king22]

hii Looking for some plat peeps for builds

anyone want to play with me or want to add me

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

hii Looking for some plat peeps for builds

Hi. If you explained what a plat peep was and what you wanted to build it would help?

 

[ZedClampet]

Who, me? I'm not living there. That's obviously something only your homeowners association can decide.

Anyway, while most people's stations in X4 look like this: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3199754818

Mine looks like this: https://forums.pcgamer.com/media/the-brain-3.2683/full


Jeez! Does it at least prompt you with a 'hey, did you really mean to wipe out all this?' prompt?

No warning. The hammer is a wonderous and dangerous thing

The problem with the wizard tower. which I've already deleted, was that it looked like a watch tower because it wasn't circular and flared at the top. But I don't know how to make circular walls, and just making a rectangular tower looked horrible. But there are some glowing blocks I'll unlock later which may spice up an otherwise plain tower, so I'll probably come back to it.

 

[Pifanjr]

Who, me? I'm not living there. That's obviously something only your homeowners association can decide.

Anyway, while most people's stations in X4 look like this: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3199754818

Mine looks like this: https://forums.pcgamer.com/media/the-brain-3.2683/full

And what does your stationowners association say about that?

 

[ZedClampet]

Who, me? I'm not living there. That's obviously something only your homeowners association can decide.

Anyway, while most people's stations in X4 look like this: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3199754818

Mine looks like this: https://forums.pcgamer.com/media/the-brain-3.2683/full


Jeez! Does it at least prompt you with a 'hey, did you really mean to wipe out all this?' prompt?

That's probably what mine will look like some day when I get to actually playing it. I've still got all my notes.

 

[Zloth]

And what does your stationowners association say about that?

Let's just say there was some friction. Do you see those little round bits attached to short segments that are just floating out around the station? They're covered in the deadliest turrets I could find.

 

[ZedClampet]

Sometimes going to a new house in House Flipper 2 is a little disturbing. Notice the size of my feet compared to the footprints.

There are also very large scratch marks on the walls.

 

[ZedClampet]

Wellllll, the mission I just did killed my enthusiasm for playing Enshrouded by myself. Immersive sim doesn't begin to describe how I finished this mission, which took me at least 4 hours and involved digging through a mountain with my pickaxe, ducking in and out of the map out of bounds area where you can only survive for a few seconds, building a tower to glide from, creating a spawn point next to a boss, dying to the boss countless times, and each time he resets his health, making 400 arrows and building a ramp just out of the boss's range and shooting him over and over and over again until dead, and finally spending who knows how long wandering through a deadly city looking for the building I needed, the key for which the boss dropped. My reward is that I can now build a fireplace.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Only managed to play a bit of Balatro last night. I’m definitely not as good as other players, most times I struggle to beat the end of Ante 8 on White difficulty, but the game is still tons of fun. The more I play the more strategies and different gameplay approaches I can think of. I came up with a new strategy after I got a joker that turned all red cards and all black cards into the same suit. I got another joker that gave mult for Spades meaning as long as it was a black card it gained extra mult, then kept upgrading the flush hand. It was really OP in the first few antes, and I kept trying to replace any red card with black. I got to ante 6 or 7 and the boss blind disabled all black cards, and that’s where I completely fell flat. It was a good strategy until that boss blind…

Im not any kind of master either, Ive played about 100 hours according to my profile and the RNG gets me most times. Sometimes you get the lucky re roll ante skip for the boss blinds, or are lucky enough to get jokers that add chips, mult, and Xmult so the value of your cards doesnt matter.

Games really fun, Ive been playing it everywhere. Kind of making me want to get a Steam Deck so I can play other stuff away from my desk, have to see how the budget goes this year.

 

[ZedClampet]

Welp, Atlas has been abandoned. The main problem with Atlas was Unreal Engine. At the time, you could only make a map so big in Unreal, so the devs made the game 500 maps (wild guess--I don't care to look it up this morning). This caused endless problems. If you were running a server, it was like you were running 500 games at once. Save files were a disaster, etc. But the biggest problem for the health of the game is that you couldn't really run private servers at all. No one has a system powerful enough to have all those maps going at once. You could rent servers, but they would limit you to 10 maps, which is not good enough. Games like this survive on the strength of their private servers, so it was doomed from the beginning.

 

[DXCHASE]

Welp, Atlas has been abandoned. The main problem with Atlas was Unreal Engine. At the time, you could only make a map so big in Unreal, so the devs made the game 500 maps (wild guess--I don't care to look it up this morning). This caused endless problems. If you were running a server, it was like you were running 500 games at once. Save files were a disaster, etc. But the biggest problem for the health of the game is that you couldn't really run private servers at all. No one has a system powerful enough to have all those maps going at once. You could rent servers, but they would limit you to 10 maps, which is not good enough. Games like this survive on the strength of their private servers, so it was doomed from the beginning.

Imagine putting in these hours on a EA game and have it be abandoned