March 2024 General Game Discussion Thread

[Kaamos_Llama]

Balatro Balatro balatro. I've cleared 3 of the decks on the base difficulty, white stake. The black deck is really difficult for me because having one less hand to clear the ante really makes getting an economy going difficult. Played 3 games this evening had good decks going and got hit with a boss ante that negated the deck I was building, or RNG didnt give me the cards I needed to get through. I just need to get that one perfect run....

 

[Brian Boru]

I’m not a huge fan of the rare weapons … I’ve made more powerful weapons than all the rare unique weapons I find

Yeah, that's annoying. Same in Far Cry 6, I went chasing all the recommended supers, and almost all the standard types—rifles, shotguns etc—were worse than a fully tricked out normal weapon. One exception is a way-OP rifle which comes with buddy Oluso—but too OP to use imo, lets you kill thru walls.

gameplay loop

You make it sound fun, but I thought it was a RPG? How can that be 🤔

Is DI all melee, or is there tactical choice involved? Your description sounds almost like a Far Cry variant.

 

[neogunhero]

You make it sound fun, but I thought it was a RPG? How can that be 🤔

Is DI all melee, or is there tactical choice involved? Your description sounds almost like a Far Cry variant.

The RPG elements are very light. There are 6 characters to choose all with unique abilities, and you get perks slots you fill with cards that do different abilities. You obtain these by doing missions and leveling up. You can use these cards to change your playstyle, but only slightly, meaning some cards give you more melee damage, others give you more stamina, health regen, etc.

The game does have guns and they are useful but the main focus is definitely melee. There is a decent variety of melee weapons all with different stats. The upgrading/resource collecting is a lot like the Far Cry games.

Overall, for a big fan of the Far Cry series, this game might be up your alley. If you have Game Pass and fast internet, you can cloud stream it since it’s not on Game Pass PC, that’s how I play it. It’s coming to Steam next month, but I haven’t seen it go on sale for cheaper than $30, I personally wouldn’t spend that much on this game since it’s fairly short. $20 is a better value for this game IMO.

 

[Johnway]

Anyone seen the monthly bundle on humble bundle? Some tasty games; namely Nioh 2 which for 8.99 alone is a steal. Seriously tempted as there are a fair few games i want or interested in.

but so far looking at my game collection for 2024 i have acquired 15 games - most being free. but nioh 2 for that price... damn.

 

[Brian Boru]

Overall

Thanks, appreciated 🙂
Sounds of interest, and I was able to tolerate melee-heavy in FC Primal for a couple of playthrus—so wishlisted for a serious sale around 2030, current PC just scrapes minimum specs 😀

RPG elements are very light

Ah, that explains why it seems nearly fun 😉

 

[Pifanjr]

I've played some more of the demo of Path of Achra. I just died, but I had a really good summon build going. I had two summons that healed and got more damage every time an ally died, which were my main damage dealers. Then I had 9 summons that spawned on the start of every match that mostly served to put distance between me and the enemies (with 3 of those capable of healing allies). I could also summon a weak fly every turn, which often immediately died from the astral + lightning damage that streamed from my character to a random enemy every time, which just served to power up my other summons. Then every full game round my character also summoned two more units that helped keep enemies away.
If my summons did start dying too quickly, I also spawned three units with every prayer (a limited resource that regenerates based on specific conditions), though I hardly ever needed that, just like the healing I got with every summon.

It all went wrong when I got to a level that had a lot of enemies with a very high speed and an attack that hit an entire line, making it impossible for me to stand in a safe spot and getting hit multiple times per turn I got. It didn't help that I realized too late that the summon my most powerful prayer spawned was also hitting me...

 

[neogunhero]

I picked up Balatro last night and… I get it. I get why people are going feral over this game. It really is that good.

I need to play more to give a full analysis but I put in 2 hours of gameplay when it felt like maybe 20 minutes… it totally sucked me in. If you like card games, games where you can abuse the mechanics to create insane combos, games where you need to use your brain, you will like this. To put it simply, it’s a mix of Slay the Spire and poker, heavy on the roguelike mechanics.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

I picked up Balatro last night and… I get it. I get why people are going feral over this game. It really is that good.

I need to play more to give a full analysis but I put in 2 hours of gameplay when it felt like maybe 20 minutes… it totally sucked me in. If you like card games, games where you can abuse the mechanics to create insane combos, games where you need to use your brain, you will like this. To put it simply, it’s a mix of Slay the Spire and poker, heavy on the roguelike mechanics.

I managed to beat the white stake on 2 more decks today. Spent a long time stuck on the black deck that reduces amount of hands by one and was starting to get frustrated because its so much harder than the others, but its like the fourth they introduce to you. Once you start to open up more and more jokers the combos get more and more crazy. Great game.

 

[BeardyHat]

I picked up Balatro last night and… I get it. I get why people are going feral over this game. It really is that good.

I need to play more to give a full analysis but I put in 2 hours of gameplay when it felt like maybe 20 minutes… it totally sucked me in. If you like card games, games where you can abuse the mechanics to create insane combos, games where you need to use your brain, you will like this. To put it simply, it’s a mix of Slay the Spire and poker, heavy on the roguelike mechanics.

It really sounds interesting and I keep thinking about checking it out, but the Poker aesthetic really puts me off. I know it pretty much has nothing to do with Poker, but I care so little about that particular game that I haven't bothered with Balatro yet. I guess I probably ought to give it a go; it's currently $12 on Green Man Gaming, so I may pick it up.

I still don't have a ton of time for gaming right now, but my busy period is very close to being finished. I am still playing Advance Wars 2 and I was playing Lies of P, which I'm finally starting to click with, but something else drew my attention away from that, which is Daggerfall Unity.

Had played it for quite a long time last year, but stopped around February, but something clicked in my brain again and I wanted to continue playing it. After watching a new Youtuber uploading some videos on it, I decided to grab some more mods and jump back in.

So far, I've only played about another hour, but I am enjoying myself and am eager to jump back in. One of the new mods I grabbed is Climates & Calories, which requires you to wear appropriate clothing, as well as have food and water with you so you can eat and drink. Just last night I was in a dungeon and fell into some water; well, being cold and wet, with no fire nearby, I ended-up eventually dying because I never dried off. It just drained my fatigue until I collapsed and was killed by monsters in the dungeon.

At any rate, it's a nice fit for my Steam Deck, so I'll probably continue playing that for awhile and hopefully have much more time very soon.

 

[neogunhero]

… the Poker aesthetic really puts me off.

Same here at first, but I kept reading about how you don’t need to know anything about poker to play this. The only similarities it has to poker is the cards and the hands you play, but there is a very convenient guide on the left hand side while you’re in game that lists all hands you can play. They even level up to give you more points and multipliers, allowing you to make even larger combos. Took me a little bit to understand but very shortly I knew what a Flush, Straight, and Full House all are and were searching for them in each hand I drew.

I still don't have a ton of time for gaming right now…

…it's a nice fit for my Steam Deck…

PCG did call for action to rename the Steam Deck to the Balatro Deck, I suppose it works very well there

 

[Brian Boru]

Balatro … It really is that good

…

Great game

Okay, okay, geez… I've wishlisted it, y'all happy now?

Poker aesthetic really puts me off

Poker gave me pocket money in college, so I have fond memories—mind you, video poker machines got all that back in later years 🙁 But one of my 2 daily fillers is Pohtzee, a mashup of Poker and Yahtzee, so it's all good.

One of my claims to fame is, when playing penny poker with roommate in college digs, I was dealt a Royal Flush cold! Won maybe £1 off the poor guy 😀 Only time I ever saw one live in play—not sure if I even saw a straight flush live, been a long time since it was a daily occupation.

 

[neogunhero]

Played some Balatro, Dead Island 2, and a tiny bit of Warhammer 40K Boltgun last night.

Starting with Balatro, I did my longest run so far. Got to Ante 6 with the blue deck and had used couches to give me 6 hands per round. It was going so well until the boss encounter had the condition “reduce hand to 1” and score to beat of 20K. I didn’t make it even with my flush with +4 mult on each card. RNG kicks your butt in this game but that is part of the appeal haha.

I keep seeing people call Balatro “gambling simulator” and making jokes how it fuels their gambling addictions. Maybe I don’t understand gambling much but I don’t see what part of the game is considered gambling. I thought gambling is taking a risk with your money hoping to get a return. In Balatro you don’t put anything down, no money or anything. You just start a run and earn money on how well you play essentially. Yet so many Steam reviews have some mention of gambling in them, I don’t get it.


Moving onto Dead Island 2, I’m currently at 20/24 story missions, I don’t want to give up on it yet. Since I’m really enjoying Balatro, I kind of want to push through this game and finish it but I still want to complete some more side missions that will take a decent chunk of time. The group of people you team up with towards the end of the game are so far the best people, not as annoying as the very first group of survivors you meet in Beverly Hills.

Speaking of teaming up, I haven’t gotten a random co-op encounter in a long time. I’m sure it all has to do with your position in the story, it will only matchmake you a person if they are on the same story mission I assume. So since it seems lots of people have dropped off the game earlier in the story (only 21% of Xbox players got the achievement for completing story mission 19/24) I most likely won’t have another random person join my game which is a shame. It’s a lot of fun exploring the world and fighting zombies with someone else but not imperative to the experience. Hoping to finish it soon.

Lastly, I checked out some Boltgun. I only played it to complete my daily Microsoft rewards task, and from the 20 minutes I played it feels very good. I love how chunky even just walking around sounds, and the guns and chainsaw are so satisfying. I had to turn off the retro pixel filter and IMO game looks so much better that way. May play some more of it in the future.

 

[Pifanjr]

I keep seeing people call Balatro “gambling simulator” and making jokes how it fuels their gambling addictions. Maybe I don’t understand gambling much but I don’t see what part of the game is considered gambling. I thought gambling is taking a risk with your money hoping to get a return. In Balatro you don’t put anything down, no money or anything. You just start a run and earn money on how well you play essentially. Yet so many Steam reviews have some mention of gambling in them, I don’t get it.

Probably a reference to this:

Poker-themed deckbuilder Balatro gets delisted from some stores after its PEGI rating absurdly jumps from 3 to 18+ over 'gambling imagery'

"I do not condone gambling," says Balatro developer LocalThunk, "nor do I believe that Balatro contains gambling."

www.pcgamer.com

Balatro sounds really interesting, so I've added it to my wishlist.

Played some more Path of Achra. I tried a teleport build, but the chance of teleporting into a group of enemies is too high. Then I tried a dodge build, but there are some abilities that cannot be dodged that I didn't account for.

My current build is entirely based on standing still and freezing everything that comes close. It's working very well so far, though I have died once when I didn't realise I was pressing the attack button instead of the stand still button, which meant none of my abilities got triggered.

As far as I can see my only weakness now would be a big group of long range enemies that apply damage over time effects. Though I think most builds would struggle with something like that. I have decent healing though, so even then I might be able to survive.

 

[BeardyHat]

Boy do I want to love Daggerfall; I have so many fond memories of messing around with the demo back in 1996, but the game just feels so empty, even with a few dozen mods that add really cool things and fun new gameplay mechanics. I felt this way after playing about 20-hours last year, but decided to go back to it just this week and now after only a few more hours and plenty of new mods, I'm feeling similarly again.

I feel like it's largely a roleplayers paradise. Like you'll get a lot out of the game if you're bringing a lot of yourself to it; thinking of stories you want to tell yourself about your character and engaging with the game on that level, setting boundaries for yourself and the like, but I'm just not good at that.

The most recent straw was my wanting to cure myself of Lycanthropy, because rather than deciding my character wouldn't want to be a Werewolf, it was more just mechanically a pain in the ass. I had received a note that a hunter was going to start tracking me down in about two months, which I'd ignored for awhile, but finally decided to follow its directions. But, in order to do so, I had to disable the mod which hides all the map locations, because it basically breaks Quests on this level--this is not the only time I had to do this with this quest either.

But to try and be brief, the quest basically involved me going to various towns and repeatedly asking the same question to NPC's until they finally revealed the info I needed (which you can often just exit out of a conversation with an NPC and then go back into it and ask the same question to get a different answer), which ends-up not feeling "real" or whatever, but instead like I'm just rolling dice and trying to get the right response to "Proc". But I had to do this same sequence about 3-times to find 3 different NPC's.

Finally, I get to the last NPC, who for some reason just asks if he can have the thing I'm supposed to give them (rather than needing to convince them or anything), which I give to them. They change into a Werewolf, I'm cured and that's the end of it. No follow-up, no conclusion, just "You're cured and this guy is now a Werewolf instead. Bye."

The world is so neat, but Proc-Gen everything is just kind of bland. I had more fun with Starfield last year than Daggerfall and felt more immersed in the world and even that wasn't as good as the best Bethesda games.

Anyway, congratulations if you read this far, I know it was a long one. Now I'm thinking about modding Morrowind, but maybe I'll just go play the Gothic series again; it's been years at this point and Gothic I/II are just fantastic.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Finally beat the Black Deck in Balatro! Only took about 10 tries😛 Skipped the first blind to get an uncommon joker in the second shop and took off from there. Ended up with 7 Jokers because I found a negative one that gave +8 Multi when using a pair. Had a couple of Holographic cards which give +10 multi on top of their normal abilities and a foil one which gives +30 chips, but the big ones were Bootstraps which does + 2 multi for every $5 in hand combined with the The Duo for x2 multi when playing any hand containing a pair and on top of that BlackBoard for X3 multi with only Spades and Clubs left in hand. Used a lot of Tarot cards to delete/change my red suits to black and got a lot of Steel cards as well for the 1.5x multi when left on the table. Cruised through Ante 8 hitting over 100k per hand at worst! The Ante requirements really rack up after that in endless mode, I've not yet managed to get past Ante 10 on any deck even with the White stake.

 

[Zed Clampet]

You make it sound fun, but I thought it was a RPG? How can that be 🤔

Believe it or not, most games that get labeled just as RPG--as opposed to CRPG or JRPG--are basically the same as Far Cry 4 and 5. There really isn't a difference that I can think of. Anymore, RPG just means leveling your character and/or equipment and maybe making a decision here or there that impacts the story. That's why I keep calling Far Cry games RPGs. It wasn't just to annoy you 🙂

For instance, didn't you try Fallout 4 for awhile? Did you feel overwhelmed by the RPG of it all?

The main features of RPGs are: Character Development, Rich Interactive Narrative, Exploration, Immersion, Replay Value (because of the interactive narrative) and Complex NPC behavior/Interaction. (thanks. wiki)

Out of these, only games like Baldur's Gate hit them all to any significant degree. Most games labeled as RPGs just have a little character development (leveling your character or creating loadouts), exploration, and the minimum amount of interactive narrative they can get away with (like all the decisions you make in FC4 about who to help). Real RPGs are just too expensive to make because of the branching storylines, etc.

To be honest, the deciding factor of whether a game is labeled an RPG seems to be whether or not the developers call it an RPG, rather than the game's systems/stories.

 

[Johnway]

assassins creed odyssey 96 hours and level 57. So far still bumming around the distant greek islands generally exploring and doing the odd mission here and there. Again mostly bland stuff and nothing of note worthy. My issue again still remains, with no real guidance, i'm just bumping into cultists and just removing them. This includes the inner circle members that require you to eliminate the lesser members to track them. instead by just wandering around i've bumped into them and saved me the hassle of searching for them. A bit rubbish honestly. it feels like i'm just murdering every bad (or innocent) person in the hopes i find the right target(s).

compared to origins, Its made worse when there's very little fanfare or story. ln that game it really did feel like a revenge story as you hunted each member of the order. yes the final eulogy from each of your targets was hated, the alternative is just a random face in a rogues gallery.

but progress we must! hopefully i'll be back on the track by the end of march.

Speaking of March, it looks like my chance to play the crew is too late, i won't finish odyssey to play the crew let alone finish it. So a missed opportunity. Thankfully, i didn't buy the game, but yeah sucks that a game just stops working because ubisoft didn't want to run the servers.

 

[Zed Clampet]

Finally beat the Black Deck in Balatro! Only took about 10 tries😛 Skipped the first blind to get an uncommon joker in the second shop and took off from there. Ended up with 7 Jokers because I found a negative one that gave +8 Multi when using a pair. Had a couple of Holographic cards which give +10 multi on top of their normal abilities and a foil one which gives +30 chips, but the big ones were Bootstraps which does + 2 multi for every $5 in hand combined with the The Duo for x2 multi when playing any hand containing a pair and on top of that BlackBoard for X3 multi with only Spades and Clubs left in hand. Used a lot of Tarot cards to delete/change my red suits to black and got a lot of Steel cards as well for the 1.5x multi when left on the table. Cruised through Ante 8 hitting over 100k per hand at worst! The Ante requirements really rack up after that in endless mode, I've not yet managed to get past Ante 10 on any deck even with the White stake.

Played the demo. When I finish my current casual game of choice, Sixty Four, I might grab Balatro. I don't really consider it a "poker game", but I love card games in general.

*****

Save 10% on Sixty Four on Steam

Dive into the world of Sixty Four, where you transform simple machines into a thriving factory.

store.steampowered.com

I don't recommend this until the developer fixes a couple of things, but if you like casual games it's worth keeping an eye on, although it has a couple of basic flaws that may not be easily addressed by the dev.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Played the demo. When I finish my current casual game of choice, Sixty Four, I might grab Balatro. I don't really consider it a "poker game", but I love card games in general.

Its not much to do with poker outside of using the hands and terminology, Its goooood though.

 

[Brian Boru]

It wasn't just to annoy you

Oops, sorry about sending the boys round… hope you got some good use out of the nails afterwards.

Anyway it's all karma—there's FC4 again—cos I dump on RPG to annoy everyone else!
Now to invade the RPG forum with this new clarification in hand…

EA games on Steam

Can someone tell me if buying these gets rid of the EA launcher? I could complete my 17-game C&C collection on Steam for < $7—I already own 4 there, and of course don't need the Remastered ones—which would be worth it to avoid the EA launcher.

 

[Zloth]

My issue again still remains, with no real guidance, i'm just bumping into cultists and just removing them. This includes the inner circle members that require you to eliminate the lesser members to track them. instead by just wandering around i've bumped into them and saved me the hassle of searching for them. A bit rubbish honestly. it feels like i'm just murdering every bad (or innocent) person in the hopes i find the right target(s).

You don't have to kill them all, do you? Can't you start with Persephone, then pop back for a cult member from time to time?

 

[Pifanjr]

As far as I can see my only weakness now would be a big group of long range enemies that apply damage over time effects. Though I think most builds would struggle with something like that. I have decent healing though, so even then I might be able to survive.

It wasn't damage over time, it was a status effect that lowered armour and block, together with another enemy with a ranged attack that ignores 90% of armour and block and an enemy that would teleport to me if I tried moving to a hiding spot (which wasn't close by either, I was caught in the open and probably wouldn't have been able to make it even without teleporting enemies).

 

[BeardyHat]

Oops, sorry about sending the boys round… hope you got some good use out of the nails afterwards.

Anyway it's all karma—there's FC4 again—cos I dump on RPG to annoy everyone else!
Now to invade the RPG forum with this new clarification in hand…

EA games on Steam

Can someone tell me if buying these gets rid of the EA launcher? I could complete my 17-game C&C collection on Steam for < $7—I already own 4 there, and of course don't need the Remastered ones—which would be worth it to avoid the EA launcher.

I'm tempted as well. I already own several of the games via the EA launcher, but my problem with that is just that I completely forget it exists. I'll go and install a thing and then totally forget about it.

Would be nice to have everything on Steam for the rare occasion I get the itch for more C&C, but realistically, my favorite games are still the originals, though I've never played RA2 and C&C2.

 

[Johnway]

You don't have to kill them all, do you? Can't you start with Persephone, then pop back for a cult member from time to time?

Each line of the cult is its own primary mission, so yes, whilst you do kill the odd cult member here and there in some of the main story missions, there are a lot of optional members. The problem was that i was just picking them off before i even identified them. i didn't even realize they were a cult member until i killed them.

For example 2 of the bounty hunters are cult members and they came looking for me on a random mission i was doing. Another i was exploring a cult base and behold an unknown target started to attack me and i put her to the blade. inner circle member dead. Didn't even know who she was or she was even there.

prior to that each of the members did have a skill level so you couldn't rush in and kill them, but by lvl 45/50 i could practically go anywhere i wanted and do whatever the hell i wanted. So i would preexplore bases taking out much of the opposition before returning 15 minutes walk in and complete the task. linear progression /narrative paths be damned.

 

[neogunhero]

Thinking I will treat myself to a new CPU for my birthday. I know I have said something similar for probably a year now on this forum but I’m ready to pull the trigger. Not wanting to spend $600-700 to upgrade to AM5 yet, so I think a good AM4 CPU like the 5700X will last me a while. After all a lot of brand new graphics intensive games call for a 3600X for their recommended specs, so the extra cores, newer architecture, and higher thread count leads me to believe that the Ryzen 5000 series chips are still very much competitive with their newer models.
Besides, going from a 1600X to a 5700X is expected to give me a massive performance boost, if not just make games smoother overall.

I was playing Boltgun last night and my game kept having microstutters. The art style is very much retro FPS but there is some really nice lighting and particle effects, but I was amazed that even a game like that causes me minor issues. I believe a 5700X would help eliminate that.