Technical issues ? I still see drops from 120 to 12 fps occuring when my character is just looking in another direction.
Fortunately, Layers of Fear (the new one) ran great on UE5. UE4 is just bad for open environments.
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March 2024 General Game Discussion Thread
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Fortunately, Layers of Fear (the new one) ran great on UE5. UE4 is just bad for open environments.
If they're particularly long it's probably to get around the file size limit of whatever website they wanted to upload it to.
Kaamos_Llama
Moderator
If you really want to know..
www.thegamer.com
Theres a podcast I listen too that had a big Silent Hill fan on it who was really disappointed that Bloober team were getting to develop the remake. Its all of the stuff in this article that probably most wouldnt notice unless they really analyzed it like this. At least thats the part I know about, could be other stuff for other people.
I played through and liked Silent Hill 2 back in 2000 or whatever but I'm generally not a fan of straight up horror games so I'm not familiar with Bloober teams stuff to comment.
Here's Why Silent Hill Fans Really Don't Like The Medium
Delicate subject matter should never be taken lightly.
www.thegamer.com
Theres a podcast I listen too that had a big Silent Hill fan on it who was really disappointed that Bloober team were getting to develop the remake. Its all of the stuff in this article that probably most wouldnt notice unless they really analyzed it like this. At least thats the part I know about, could be other stuff for other people.
I played through and liked Silent Hill 2 back in 2000 or whatever but I'm generally not a fan of straight up horror games so I'm not familiar with Bloober teams stuff to comment.
Zed Clampet
Community Contributor
That's not the reason I'm referring to. I'm talking about all the people in the PC Gamer comments who give the reason "Layers of Fear was terrible." It's not, but it's also not their only game.If you really want to know..
Here's Why Silent Hill Fans Really Don't Like The Medium
Delicate subject matter should never be taken lightly.
Theres a podcast I listen too that had a big Silent Hill fan on it who was really disappointed that Bloober team were getting to develop the remake. Its all of the stuff in this article that probably most wouldnt notice unless they really analyzed it like this. At least thats the part I know about, could be other stuff for other people.
I played through and liked Silent Hill 2 back in 2000 or whatever but I'm generally not a fan of straight up horror games so I'm not familiar with Bloober teams stuff to comment.
As for the Silent Hill fan, I think she's wrong. The two main women in the game were both abused as children pretty severely. I won't say what happened to them, but one of them, the medium, grew up to be fine, all things considered. The other one did not, but that's a reasonable take on things, I think. Now the ending sucked and could cause some confusion, but it's impossible to say what happened after everything went black. The only thing we know for certain is that the medium acted selflessly whatever decision she made, even to the point of possibly sacrificing her own life. That doesn't sound to me like someone who failed to overcome her childhood trauma.
Here's the thing - world is imperfect, and not every person who's struggling psychologically will overcome.
Stop making games as a means of conveying that everything ever will eventually be fine.
I welcome sad endings in movies and games. Sadness in a perfectly normal human state of mind. I don't even want all games to end perfectly, how boring is that. On emotional level, I hated it when Newt died in Aliens, but at the same time that only made the movie better for me. That's Alan Wake 2 was a masterpiece in that regard, with the concept of a reality spiral.
I heard the same about Alan Wake 2 - "There is no ending", "The ending was bad", people expect games to be hollywood movies where everything ends perfectly well. They should switch to watching Disney plus instead of playing games like Medium or AW2 then.
Kaamos_Llama
Moderator
Fair enough, I just remembered a long conversation about it from a year or so ago and then found that article as well. Like I say I havent played any Bloober team games and its been 20+ years since I saw Silent Hill 2. Some people do REALLY love Silent Hill 2.
I dont disagree, my favourite stories have bittersweet endings. Not here to argue one side or the other because I'm not equipped, just remembered something I found interesting a while ago and it seemed relevant to mention.
Probably! I dont look in the Steam forums very often. Usenet was before I was active online, you might have found me on AIM or a bit later MSN sometimes but the few forums I was posting on a little in the early 2000's are long gone now.
Zed Clampet
Community Contributor
The microphone has gone out on my new Sennheiser/Epos headset. I've already sent it in once for repairs. I've only had it a couple of months. I'm a lemon magnet.
Also, I want to stop playing Helldivers 2. I'm over it. I've seen what it has to offer. The grind is too much.
Also, I want to stop playing Helldivers 2. I'm over it. I've seen what it has to offer. The grind is too much.
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Kaamos_Llama
Moderator
Still playing Balatro. Running out of steam with it a bit. Pretty sure theres a large element of RNG as to whether a run will work or not, thats part of the fun but also a bit frustrating when you pull the 5% draw for the 3rd time in a row and dont get the card you need to progress when you had a breally strong build going on. No saves in the game as its a roguelike, but they wouldnt suit it anyway.
Still playing Armored Core 6, its a good fast paced mech game. The campaign based around one planet and the various factions involved in trying to mine a substance called Coral. No idea what the story of any of the other AC games were so its a bit confusing with many different factions involved who hire you as a mercenary under your handler 'Walter'. Thats just a bit of a hallmark of FromSoft, even if this is straight up told through dialogue and exposition unlike their Souls games.
The AC's are very mobile unlike Mechwarrior. They jump and boost in the air and on the ground super fast. The missions are pretty varied and theres a lot of different mech weapons and body parts to collect, mix and match and try out. Speccing a mech is fairly simple, you have both an engine load and a weight load which is determined by your reactor and leg strength far as I can tell which limits the size and energy use capacity of the gear you can select. Then there are 4 hard points for weapons on the arms and shoulders. Bigger mechs are heavier and tougher and smaller are faster but more lightly armored, standard. Cash earned from completing missions gets spent on new weapons and parts.
There are self contained missions you select from a hub menu which progress the campaign and a duel mode where you face off in VR against characters in their AC's from the campaign. Doing the optional duels also gives you upgrade points which you can spend on extra damage for the various weapon types, damage mitigation and other bonuses. For me this is both the most exciting and least interesting part of the game. Once you select a loadout and start it seems to me a lot of the fighting is pretty button mashy, watching timers for weapons and pressing when theyre available and jumping/boosting around to avoid fire. Its really tense and the fights are usually close, but at the same time doesnt make me feel particularly skillful when I win. If the enemy AC wins, usually repeating with some more appropriate weapon types for the opponent does the trick using the exact same movement and strategy.
Speaking of strategy there is some to the missions, you can choose multiple paths forwards and flanking or finding high ground where you can launch an attack without being seen helps a lot. Sometimes charging forwards into the thick of it results in death, but only resets you to the start of the mission or last check point with no penalty. The missions arent long, maybe 10-15 minutes mostly so you never lose much progress. No quick saves though, but that never bothers me.
Then there are the boss fights at the end of some levels, sometimes its a duel with one or two special mech enemies which play out as I described above in the VR mode. theres always a checkpoint before them, and you can respec for free there if you die and have to replay as much as you need. Sometimes theyre more interesting, and theres a trick or gimmick to the boss with its weakpoints which keep it interesting.
Its a good looking game, but not spectacular by todays standards andthe in mission music is some pretty pumping electro which suits the action
I think I'm getting towards the end of the campaign, about 16 hours in but probably going to see it all the way. Recommend it for sure.
Still playing Armored Core 6, its a good fast paced mech game. The campaign based around one planet and the various factions involved in trying to mine a substance called Coral. No idea what the story of any of the other AC games were so its a bit confusing with many different factions involved who hire you as a mercenary under your handler 'Walter'. Thats just a bit of a hallmark of FromSoft, even if this is straight up told through dialogue and exposition unlike their Souls games.
The AC's are very mobile unlike Mechwarrior. They jump and boost in the air and on the ground super fast. The missions are pretty varied and theres a lot of different mech weapons and body parts to collect, mix and match and try out. Speccing a mech is fairly simple, you have both an engine load and a weight load which is determined by your reactor and leg strength far as I can tell which limits the size and energy use capacity of the gear you can select. Then there are 4 hard points for weapons on the arms and shoulders. Bigger mechs are heavier and tougher and smaller are faster but more lightly armored, standard. Cash earned from completing missions gets spent on new weapons and parts.
There are self contained missions you select from a hub menu which progress the campaign and a duel mode where you face off in VR against characters in their AC's from the campaign. Doing the optional duels also gives you upgrade points which you can spend on extra damage for the various weapon types, damage mitigation and other bonuses. For me this is both the most exciting and least interesting part of the game. Once you select a loadout and start it seems to me a lot of the fighting is pretty button mashy, watching timers for weapons and pressing when theyre available and jumping/boosting around to avoid fire. Its really tense and the fights are usually close, but at the same time doesnt make me feel particularly skillful when I win. If the enemy AC wins, usually repeating with some more appropriate weapon types for the opponent does the trick using the exact same movement and strategy.
Speaking of strategy there is some to the missions, you can choose multiple paths forwards and flanking or finding high ground where you can launch an attack without being seen helps a lot. Sometimes charging forwards into the thick of it results in death, but only resets you to the start of the mission or last check point with no penalty. The missions arent long, maybe 10-15 minutes mostly so you never lose much progress. No quick saves though, but that never bothers me.
Then there are the boss fights at the end of some levels, sometimes its a duel with one or two special mech enemies which play out as I described above in the VR mode. theres always a checkpoint before them, and you can respec for free there if you die and have to replay as much as you need. Sometimes theyre more interesting, and theres a trick or gimmick to the boss with its weakpoints which keep it interesting.
Its a good looking game, but not spectacular by todays standards andthe in mission music is some pretty pumping electro which suits the action
I think I'm getting towards the end of the campaign, about 16 hours in but probably going to see it all the way. Recommend it for sure.
Enjoying some more Dragons Dogma. Here I am fighting with a Cyclops in some random dungeon I found. The sequel is right around the corner and I can't wait!
I'm loving XCOM 2, now with the War of the Chosen expansion. I especially love the concealment mechanic, at least as long as I manage not to accidentally reveal my units prematurely.
The Chosen luckily wasn't as bad as I feared. The first time I encountered one I killed it within the first turn of it appearing. The second time was a bit trickier, but everyone survived, so I can't complain.
The combat goes pretty well now, but I have no idea if I'm picking the right priorities outside of it, on things like research, building facilities and scanning world events. It seems a new event shows up every 1-2 days and I'm never quite sure if it's worth diverting my attention.
I'm pretty sure I wasn't supposed to build the Proving Grounds as my first building though, but it doesn't hurt being able to bring a fifth soldier on missions. I just hope delaying other facilities won't bite me in the ass later.
I'm still reverting saves occasionally, but only when it isn't entirely clear to me how certain new abilities or mechanics work.
The Chosen luckily wasn't as bad as I feared. The first time I encountered one I killed it within the first turn of it appearing. The second time was a bit trickier, but everyone survived, so I can't complain.
The combat goes pretty well now, but I have no idea if I'm picking the right priorities outside of it, on things like research, building facilities and scanning world events. It seems a new event shows up every 1-2 days and I'm never quite sure if it's worth diverting my attention.
I'm pretty sure I wasn't supposed to build the Proving Grounds as my first building though, but it doesn't hurt being able to bring a fifth soldier on missions. I just hope delaying other facilities won't bite me in the ass later.
I'm still reverting saves occasionally, but only when it isn't entirely clear to me how certain new abilities or mechanics work.
Enjoying some more Dragons Dogma. Here I am fighting with a Cyclops in some random dungeon I found. The sequel is right around the corner and I can't wait!
Need to play this still. Owned it for like...7 years or something and have never even installed it. Wonder how it works on Deck?
WotC makes it an entirely new game. I didn't really care for XCOM2 when it first released, but after WotC is when it really got me hooked.
Which Chosen did you end-up encountering first? Some are definitely easier than others, the Assassin probably being the most challenging. I'd recommend hunting them down and killing them as soon as you're able to, as then they'll stop bothering you, it'll negate a couple dark events and you'll get some nice upgrades for a few classes. You'll need the Covert Ops room or whatever it's called; what's nice is that you can also send rookies out as support and get them a couple of levels, so you can start slotting them in if your A-team/B-team folks are wounded or dead.
Proving ground is a good early room, as you can get a few upgrades. The extra soldier is nice and you absolutely want some of the experimental armor. The Spider Suit is a game changer for a Sniper. Also recommend the training center, so you can start training recruits for the same reasons the Covert Ops is good.
Zed Clampet
Community Contributor
I can't decide what to do about Enshrouded. I love this game, but I've been playing with Guido during his spring break. During the semester, we don't really play games but maybe once a month. I could continue playing by myself, but he gets disappointed when I do that. He likes to experience things the first time together. I started my own world, and I was just not going to say anything about it unless he asked, but you can't create more than one character, so if I play this new world, I'm going to level up without him.
Sigh, I guess I'm just going to shelve the game until mid-May. He really wants to play Nightingale too, so all these great survival games, my favorite genre, are just sitting in my inventory gathering dust. I tried playing Medieval Dynasty again, but I just finished a playthrough a couple of months ago, and I'm not feeling that magic this time.
Sigh, I guess I'm just going to shelve the game until mid-May. He really wants to play Nightingale too, so all these great survival games, my favorite genre, are just sitting in my inventory gathering dust. I tried playing Medieval Dynasty again, but I just finished a playthrough a couple of months ago, and I'm not feeling that magic this time.
I had a mission in XCOM 2 to grab a mcguffin from an enemy base. I made it all the way to the roof of the building it was in without being spotted, then had one guy jump in through a window, grab it and ran out through a wall another soldier blew up. That triggered a lot of enemies, but I got lucky and no one died during their turn. The next turn everyone ran to the extraction zone and escaped... except one guy who was a little bit too far away. The little log he tried hiding behind did not save him from the dozen or so attacks aimed at him and thus I lost my first soldier of this campaign.
It's the assassin, but they have a weakness to explosives. So the first time they showed up they went invisible, but the camera tracked where they went. So I just threw a grenade in that area and they appeared with half their life missing. Another grenade finished the job.
I build the Covert Ops room now and it's a nice way to get experience and some resources. I'll probably upgrade it as soon as I have built a power station.
The main problem is that almost all of the upgrades in the Proving Ground require that you have someone at rank Captain. I didn't even have someone at Sergeant yet when I finished constructing it.
It's the assassin, but they have a weakness to explosives. So the first time they showed up they went invisible, but the camera tracked where they went. So I just threw a grenade in that area and they appeared with half their life missing. Another grenade finished the job.
I build the Covert Ops room now and it's a nice way to get experience and some resources. I'll probably upgrade it as soon as I have built a power station.
The main problem is that almost all of the upgrades in the Proving Ground require that you have someone at rank Captain. I didn't even have someone at Sergeant yet when I finished constructing it.
Over the weekend, my son came home for spring break, he left his gaming pc here to focus on school and work. So over the last month ive been talking to him about Helldivers 2. He says that a lot of his friends have been playing it and as such, was developing some FOMO.
So i grabbed him a copy this weekend and we all spent time (my wife, son and i) doing our part to serve managed democracy! It was funny seeing his first reactions to some of the stratagems in the game and some of the chaos that ensues while playing. This has been a successful mission in recruiting new helldivers for super earth!
So i grabbed him a copy this weekend and we all spent time (my wife, son and i) doing our part to serve managed democracy! It was funny seeing his first reactions to some of the stratagems in the game and some of the chaos that ensues while playing. This has been a successful mission in recruiting new helldivers for super earth!
Steam :: Steam News :: Introducing Steam Families
Hello! We are excited to announce Steam Families, available today in the Steam Beta Client. Steam Families is a collection of new and existing family-related features. It replaces both Steam Family Sharing and Steam Family View, giving you a single location to manage which games your family can...
Soon you'll be able to play games from a shared library without having to worry about being kicked out of the game when the owner starts playing, unless they happen to start the exact same game.
I played a couple more XCOM 2 missions. I lost two more soldiers through a string of unlucky misses, but other than that it's going pretty well. I have a bunch of new, unique weapons, I defeated the Codex, I encountered and defeated the "Warlock" chosen with the help of my new Templar soldier, I just bought the predator armour upgrade which increases the health of all my units and allows them to bring an extra utility item and I just unlocked access to one of their Avatar facilities.
The only thing I don't have is supplies. I unlocked better weapons, but I cannot afford to buy any of them. I could probably sell some stuff at the black market though.
The only thing I don't have is supplies. I unlocked better weapons, but I cannot afford to buy any of them. I could probably sell some stuff at the black market though.
Movies too. I just watched this one called As Above, So Below, it was fine, but would have been better with a grim ending.
I feel like the zeitgeist is finally starting to settle on HD2. I still haven't played it, but I figured I wouldn't get around to it while it was still relevant.
I think I'm mentally unwell though; as soon as the internet starts talking up a game, I immediately lose any potential interest I might have had. Perpetual hipsterness, I guess.
Sounds like you're beginning to snowball, which is good. Just keep up on your research and stuff, because you can definitely fall behind.
It's worth it to start dumping stuff on the black market, especially corpses you're not going to need for research or buying new stuff.
I’ve been playing AC Valhalla pretty heavily. It’s a great semi-casual, pick up a controller and turn off your brain kind of game which is all I seem to be able to stomach these days. The most use of my brain in a game I’ve done lately is Balatro, which isn’t too strategic if you play how I do.
The more I play Valhalla, the more I realize just how absolutely massive this game is, and not in a very good way. It suffers from the classic Ubisoft trope of stuffing the open world with as many random things as possible and give you a big checklist to complete, but that’s not always bad. It’s still fun collecting the “Wealth” (armor, weapons, rare crafting mats, base building mats, etc) but then things like Roman Artifacts and Saga Story notes are just filler. The exploration part of getting these things is fun but I wouldn’t fully commit to trying to complete the checklist beyond the Wealth items.
15 hours in, the story overall is really good but then it diverges into MMO-esque style missions to tell the story. When you first arrive in England you must forge alliances. You pledge to a specific area to try to become alliances with, and that’s where it turns into a massive fetch quest to complete one story line. I had to do so many missions for this lady until she would join forces with me and it started to bore me but I pushed through and finished it. That is how I suspect the rest of the game will be like.
The gameplay is where it shines. It takes very long to unlock abilities but once you get some they change the way you approach combat. Before I tried my best to be fast and stealthy, but now I just want to fight and throw my harpoon at people. The combat is fluid, moves and unique and powerful, and the raiding mechanics is so awesome though can be repetitive.
It’s a decent game but it’s just so long and there is so much it’s kind of becoming overwhelming. I’ll report back if I decide to quit it or continue trudging through it.
The more I play Valhalla, the more I realize just how absolutely massive this game is, and not in a very good way. It suffers from the classic Ubisoft trope of stuffing the open world with as many random things as possible and give you a big checklist to complete, but that’s not always bad. It’s still fun collecting the “Wealth” (armor, weapons, rare crafting mats, base building mats, etc) but then things like Roman Artifacts and Saga Story notes are just filler. The exploration part of getting these things is fun but I wouldn’t fully commit to trying to complete the checklist beyond the Wealth items.
15 hours in, the story overall is really good but then it diverges into MMO-esque style missions to tell the story. When you first arrive in England you must forge alliances. You pledge to a specific area to try to become alliances with, and that’s where it turns into a massive fetch quest to complete one story line. I had to do so many missions for this lady until she would join forces with me and it started to bore me but I pushed through and finished it. That is how I suspect the rest of the game will be like.
The gameplay is where it shines. It takes very long to unlock abilities but once you get some they change the way you approach combat. Before I tried my best to be fast and stealthy, but now I just want to fight and throw my harpoon at people. The combat is fluid, moves and unique and powerful, and the raiding mechanics is so awesome though can be repetitive.
It’s a decent game but it’s just so long and there is so much it’s kind of becoming overwhelming. I’ll report back if I decide to quit it or continue trudging through it.
Zed Clampet
Community Contributor
Yawn. In Enshrouded, it takes 2 hours to make 60 planks.
But you don't need 60. The number you need is better expressed in $hit-tons.
I'm going to take a little break and let it run in the background. When I started playing there was a forest around my base. Now it's just a field.
I'm a lumberjack and I'm okay.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FshU58nI0Ts
But you don't need 60. The number you need is better expressed in $hit-tons.
I'm going to take a little break and let it run in the background. When I started playing there was a forest around my base. Now it's just a field.
I'm a lumberjack and I'm okay.
Zloth
Community Contributor
Still just cruising along in X4: Foundations. Getting that tarraforming done will likely take me a few months.
That first XCOM Chosen was assassin for me, too, and she wiped the floor with me a few times. I didn't know she was vulnerable to explosives until I looked it up. Even knowing that, I remember her being pretty nasty in that first mission.
That first XCOM Chosen was assassin for me, too, and she wiped the floor with me a few times. I didn't know she was vulnerable to explosives until I looked it up. Even knowing that, I remember her being pretty nasty in that first mission.
Looks like the pawns were feeling unchallenged. Have you poked your nose into the DLC dungeon yet?Enjoying some more Dragons Dogma. Here I am fighting with a Cyclops in some random dungeon I found. The sequel is right around the corner and I can't wait!
I don't think I'm snowballing, because as soon as I got all of my new toys the enemy started rolling out their new toys as well. Even their regular troopers have like three times the amount of health they had at the beginning of the game. It's luckily still manageable as long as I avoid triggering too many enemies at once and I make sure to stay in high cover as much as possible.
I attacked one of their Avatar facilities, which had a warning that it was guarded by an extremely dangerous unit. I managed to sneak up on it in concealment and ambushed it, but the damn thing teleported away... On My Turn! I still had a soldier left who hadn't even acted yet. Incredibly rude.
I quit right at the start of an assault on another Avatar facility, so hopefully I'll be able to kill the big bad this time before they run off.
I have also made some progress chasing down the Chosen, but I don't have a soldier of a high enough rank to unlock the mission to attack them at their base, which is frustrating. I thought spreading out the XP gain between all my soldiers would be a good idea, but in hindsight it might have been a good idea to have at least one soldier leveling up as much as possible.
Zloth
Community Contributor
Midnight Suns had an enemy like that, too. I think they might have split into two enemies when it did it, though with fewer HP. Somebody at Firaxis likes that trick!
There's quite a lot of annoying enemies in XCOM 2, a lot more than in the first game it seems.
I attacked the other Avatar facility this morning and encountered a different "extremely dangerous" enemy. I actually managed to catch it in an explosion twice before breaking concealment, so I thought I could get it this time, but it still escaped. Even freezing it didn't really do much to slow it down.
I guess I need stronger weapons, but I've run out of supplies again. It might also help to just level up my soldiers.
