May 2025 General Game Discussion Thread

[Zed Clampet]

You went bankrupt. The game is part economic sim, so that happens, especially in the early game.

Yes, I went bankrupt, but I wasn't expecting the economic sim to simulate employees showing up to work drunk and accidentally burning down our warehouse. That's Dwarf Fortress levels of simulation.

 

[Colif]

@Colif I'm going to go out on a limb and say that Game Rant will be the first big gaming site to be entirely written by AI.

You will have to tell me when it happens as I don't waste my time going there. Why do you keep going back?

 

[Zed Clampet]

You will have to tell me when it happens as I don't waste my time going there. Why do you keep going back?

I'm not. I just read a couple of articles due to the Polygon purchase.

 

[Pifanjr]

My friend and I continued our game of Outward yesterday. We made our way to the leyline in the first area and my friend picked up some magic. I decided to wait since I hadn't even gotten the first health upgrade yet and I'm dying way too often, so I don't want to sacrifice my max health.
We then made our way to the next city in the forest area, where we spend all of our money.

So far we haven't really found a good way to make money. Both of us keep getting overencumbered really quickly and we don't really know what is and isn't valuable. I might just load up my single-player world and do some grinding there.

 

[Zed Clampet]

Both of us keep getting overencumbered really quickly

This is one of the things I find most annoying in ganes

 

[Johnway]

So the humble choice selection is out and ... meh, i see some games on my wish list that falls "in the nice to have but not essential" So i'll give it a miss this time.


No really significant news for Asscreed Valhalla. Each week you get a free Lootbox from the store and this time i got... A modern helmet. Could be worse, as long as its not a tattoo or a settlement option i think i can live with it. i'll concede that the MTX situation in Valhalla is better Odyssey as every item is an item from the store as opposed to mostly rare loot or personel. But its still over priced.

 

[Zed Clampet]

So the humble choice selection is out and ... meh, i see some games on my wish list that falls "in the nice to have but not essential" So i'll give it a miss this time.

For my kind of games, this is a great month. I absolutely loved Evil West and thought that The Thaumaturge was very good also. The Amnesia game is quite a bit better than the previous one, too.

Shadow Gambit is a game I've thought about buying a number of times, but was afraid that since I'm pretty awful at stealth that I'd just get frustrated with it.

Star Wars Bounty Hunter looks okay. Eiyuden Chronicles is a JRPG, a genre I'm learning to love.

I don't have any use for the other two games, but for me this is one of the better months I've seen

 

[Pifanjr]

My friend wasn't available to play today, so I did some grinding in my single-played game of Outward. I got a passive skill that increases my max HP and Stamina by 25%, which is really nice, as well as a bunch of cooking and alchemy recipes.

I also bought a bigger backpack and put a bunch of my stuff in the stash in my house. I realised that if I keep my character near my stash in my single-player world, I'd basically have unlimited inventory when I join my friend's game, as I can always disconnect from him, load my own world, transfer stuff to/from my stash and rejoin his world. It's not ideal, but it's worth it for stuff I don't need very often, at least until we can actually get a house in each city.

 

[Zed Clampet]

Still loving Exp33. I just spent probably an hour or more setting up a single new character. I think I have a good build with him and expect massive damage, but I'm spent for now, so I'll find out tomorrow.

I've benched Maelle. I had her doing okay for awhile, but everyone has passed her, and I just don't think I'm using her correctly. Going to save up some skill points for her and see what I can do. In the meantime, L is back in the group even though I desperately need to improve her weapon level.

I've got time for one more backtrack before leaving this area, but I don't think I'm going to do it. I just want to move on.

The only bad thing I have to say about the game is that I wish there were a map or a mini-map. Can't tell you how many times I've been turned around after a fight and ended up running in the wrong direction.

 

[Zed Clampet]

The more that I think about it, the more I actually want to play the game I made up as a joke for the first post in this thread.

 

[Johnway]

For my kind of games, this is a great month. I absolutely loved Evil West and thought that The Thaumaturge was very good also. The Amnesia game is quite a bit better than the previous one, too.

Shadow Gambit is a game I've thought about buying a number of times, but was afraid that since I'm pretty awful at stealth that I'd just get frustrated with it.

Star Wars Bounty Hunter looks okay. Eiyuden Chronicles is a JRPG, a genre I'm learning to love.

I don't have any use for the other two games, but for me this is one of the better months I've seen

I would add Ultros as a metroidvania but yeah pretty much the thaumaturge, shadow gambit and evil west are the only ones i want. maybe amenisai the bunker, but the rest i can probably ignore for now.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Still loving Exp33. I just spent probably an hour or more setting up a single new character. I think I have a good build with him and expect massive damage, but I'm spent for now, so I'll find out tomorrow.

I've benched Maelle. I had her doing okay for awhile, but everyone has passed her, and I just don't think I'm using her correctly. Going to save up some skill points for her and see what I can do. In the meantime, L is back in the group even though I desperately need to improve her weapon level.

I've got time for one more backtrack before leaving this area, but I don't think I'm going to do it. I just want to move on.

The only bad thing I have to say about the game is that I wish there were a map or a mini-map. Can't tell you how many times I've been turned around after a fight and ended up running in the wrong direction.

You're not alone in getting turned around a lot. On the way to the Gestral village there was the excuse that they were hiding where they were, but theres a lot of other places where Im not sure where I am and suddenly end up back at the start of the level. Its a bit annoying at times.

Otherwise its still great, the end of Act 1 was a bit of a shock for sure. Spent a bit of time wandering the map and found a couple of very difficult fights to come back to but now heading way north on the main quest.

Still using Maelle, Lune, and Verso. Would like to try out Sciel a bit but I'd have to spend some time working her out and I kind of want to crack on with the story in the time I have. Maybe next time through Sciel gets a chance.

Also turns out Ive made life difficult for myself by not realizing exactly what Color of Lumina does. I somehow thought it enhanced each characters equipped Pictos but it turns out you can get a ton of bonuses from unequipped Pictos by spending Lumina on them in a part of the character menu I'd somehow not seen. Might find stuff a little easier from now on.

 

[Zed Clampet]

Your not alone in getting turned around a lot. On the way to the Gestral village there was the excuse that they were hiding where they were, but theres a lot of other places where Im not sure where I am and suddenly end up back at the start of the level. Its a bit annoying at times.

Otherwise its still great, the end of Act 1 was a bit of a shock for sure. Spent a bit of time wandering the map and found a couple of very difficult fights to come back to but now heading way north on the main quest.

Still using Maelle, Lune, and Verso. Would like to try out Sciel a bit but I'd have to spend some time working her out and I kind of want to crack on with the story in the time I have. Maybe next time through Sciel gets a chance.

Also turns out Ive made life difficult for myself by not realizing exactly what Color of Lumina does. I somehow thought it enhanced each characters equipped Pictos but it turns out you can get a ton of bonuses from unequipped Pictos by spending Lumina on them in a part of the character menu I'd somehow not seen. Might find stuff a little easier from now on.

Now, I don't know what "good" damage is for the part of the game that I'm in, and I would consider it something of a miracle if my damage was even close to the possible amount of damage, but Sciel is consistently hitting for 10,000 damage for me. Also she can heal the whole group pretty significantly while also doing good damage in the same skill. She's the only reason I've survived a couple of fights. Verso is also hitting very big at around that amount. Lune, on the other hand, is not doing nearly as well, but I messed up and spent all the whatevers that you need to improve weapon level, so she's still using a level 4 weapon.

I'm not doing Verso justice, though. I've only gotten him above "C" on two occasions.

I knew about the Color of Lumina, but there are plenty of things I don't know about, I'm sure. And despite being reasonably successful, I feel like my builds are probably pretty bad compared to other people's builds. Right now I'm trying to focus attributes on critical and damage, and I've stopped having one character set up shots by another character. It's every man/woman for themselves.

But the damage is getting higher and higher. I thought I was okay at dodging and parrying, but now people are doing just incredible damage with that chroma shot or whatever it is, and even just missing one of those is devastating. Up until now, I felt I'd put enough into Defense to survive most things, but this is a whole other level.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Now, I don't know what "good" damage is for the part of the game that I'm in, and I would consider it something of a miracle if my damage was even close to the possible amount of damage, but Sciel is consistently hitting for 10,000 damage for me. Also she can heal the whole group pretty significantly while also doing good damage in the same skill. She's the only reason I've survived a couple of fights. Verso is also hitting very big at around that amount. Lune, on the other hand, is not doing nearly as well, but I messed up and spent all the whatevers that you need to improve weapon level, so she's still using a level 4 weapon.

I'm not doing Verso justice, though. I've only gotten him above "C" on two occasions.

I knew about the Color of Lumina, but there are plenty of things I don't know about, I'm sure. And despite being reasonably successful, I feel like my builds are probably pretty bad compared to other people's builds. Right now I'm trying to focus attributes on critical and damage, and I've stopped having one character set up shots by another character. It's every man/woman for themselves.

But the damage is getting higher and higher. I thought I was okay at dodging and parrying, but now people are doing just incredible damage with that chroma shot or whatever it is, and even just missing one of those is devastating. Up until now, I felt I'd put enough into Defense to survive most things, but this is a whole other level.

I just beat a boss at the end of the Forgotten Battlefield, if only I didnt need to sleep.

I'm pretty damn sure what I'm doing isnt optimal either, but I expect Ive chosen a few different abilities to you. Currently Lune is able to set herself up with the 1AP Electrify skill which leaves 2 lightning Stains, if she attacks the turn after that to gain a little AP following up with Crystal Crush skill will hit for 4K damage per hit and its a 5 hit skill. Shes also I think over 50% critical, so a fair amount of the time those 4K hits are 6K instead. Just absolutely destroyed a Chromatic Nevron with that combo.

It seems adjusting skills for each area helps, but Im kind of winging it anyway. I'm finding Verso a little underwhelming, think I need to respec because there must be some better skills for him. Not exactly struggling anyway, the mobs in the Battlefield level I just got through were pretty easy for my party, which to be fair may be over levelled.

Normal mobs arent hitting me too hard but bosses and chromatics can still be brutal. The amount of hits in the attack combos is getting to the point its impossible for me to parry them the first time I see them. Especially now its mixing up parrys with jump parries with Radiant Counters on top. I dont mind though, its fun to learn the combos and even more satisfying when finally the counters land.

 

[Pifanjr]

I tried out Undertale, but I'm not very good at the bullet hell type fights. I just died twice to the same enemy and gave up.

It wouldn't be so bad if I could just retry the fight when I die, but the game uses a checkpoint system instead so I had to redo a puzzle and walk a bunch as well and I'm not going to do that every time I lose.

 

[Zed Clampet]

I just beat a boss at the end of the Forgotten Battlefield, if only I didnt need to sleep.

I'm pretty damn sure what I'm doing isnt optimal either, but I expect Ive chosen a few different abilities to you. Currently Lune is able to set herself up with the 1AP Electrify skill which leaves 2 lightning Stains, if she attacks the turn after that to gain a little AP following up with Crystal Crush skill will hit for 4K damage per hit and its a 5 hit skill. Shes also I think over 50% critical, so a fair amount of the time those 4K hits are 6K instead. Just absolutely destroyed a Chromatic Nevron with that combo.

It seems adjusting skills for each area helps, but Im kind of winging it anyway. I'm finding Verso a little underwhelming, think I need to respec because there must be some better skills for him. Not exactly struggling anyway, the mobs in the Battlefield level I just got through were pretty easy for my party, which to be fair may be over levelled.

Normal mobs arent hitting me too hard but bosses and chromatics can still be brutal. The amount of hits in the attack combos is getting to the point its impossible for me to parry them the first time I see them. Especially now its mixing up parrys with jump parries with Radiant Counters on top. I dont mind though, its fun to learn the combos and even more satisfying when finally the counters land.

Yeah, my Lune is terrible, but the problem is that I've found enough power in my initial hit that the mobs aren't getting a turn in most cases, but this comes at the expense of more powerful shots that I could build up over a few turns. Basically I've using area of effect only for the most part.

I'm also not doing a good job of charting my course through the skill tree. Part of the reason for this is that I had it in my mind that I wouldn't bother with it until I got to the second area. I was planning on doing a deep dive at that point, but that didn't happen. Also, I've been a little too linear and haven't fought hardly any extra fights, so I don't actually have that much of the skill tree unlocked. Maybe I'll just grind for a bit.

Also, I may be raising the attributes in a mentally challenged fashion. Not finding half the treasure, etc.

I just need to do my skill tree review as I had planned and maybe do a little grinding. Plus, I refuse to use someone else's build guide. That destroys all the fun. Part of the fun right now comes from the fact I have no idea what I'm doing.

 

[Johnway]

So i came across a rather interesting bundle on fanatical: https://www.fanatical.com/en/bundle/killer-bundle

For the price of the games (4.99) i wanted Empty shell (i played the demo and was suitably entertained), paint the town red is overwhelmingly positive and its the cheapest i've seen it and finally dandy ace was on my wish list and is an added bonus. overall a good haul for me.

 

[DXCHASE]

I've benched Maelle.

If i was further along id switch to this build. I read the article and it sounds insane, not sure if you have the pictos or not. Shes also my weakest link atm.

‘Clair Obscur: Expedition 33’ Too Hard? Here’s The Maelle Nuke Build

A Maelle Nuke Build to help you through the Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 endgame if you just want to see the story stuff.

www.forbes.com

So the humble choice selection is out and ... meh, i see some games on my wish list that falls "in the nice to have but not essential" So i'll give it a miss this time.

I think the quality of the bundles has gone down a lot but i still wind up getting them lol maybe because of its donation aspect? But like the last few months theyve given us games not on steam, where you have to use the EA client, and now in this one theyre offering a free month of some subscription? Thats lame because those offers are always given out by whatever company has them (in this case ign) and now thats an "option"? Just go back to when you were throwing AAA titles on there within 3 months of their release.


Diablo 4's Beserk event is live! It adds some free stuff to earn from the anime/manga which i am absolutely going to complete but its offered very little outside of that. Its setup like D4's typical events, you collect pieces of whatever the event is using to buy the rewards, in this case you are collecting beherits, which fit with the crossover.

Now, it wouldnt be blizzard if it didnt release armor sets and 'pets' from the series for actual money (25 bucks for The Schnoz pet or 25 bucks each for the 4 different sets of armor they offer and 1 set of horse armor. This has cause a backlash with Diablo players obviously because you literally have to pay almost as much as the game/exp was to collect everything.

Now, ive never looked at one of those 25usd sets (2800 platinum in game) and straight up dropped 25 bucks.

If theres a set i have its because ive used the platinum you get through the seasonal pass (used to get around 700 a season, now its down to 200, thank a lot blizz!) or in the bundles for the exp./game.

Its then usually followed by paying a discount price, but I never uploaded 25 bucks to buy 1 armor set.....until now

This set, to me, was worth 25 bucks. My biggest reason is i love the armor and the anime, my little excuse is that some of the proceeds go to the people behind the series, not just blizzard.

It looks dope.. 1 note, in the manga, that sword is like 3x the length it is in the game, its bigger than the guy who wield it (Guts), but still a nice outfit.

Well, thats all for now, ive only been playing D4s event/season between my work days with the little time and just counting down the days until i get my Doom the Dark Ages LE in the mail (wont be here until tuesday which makes sense for the early access).

 

[Zed Clampet]

It wouldn't be so bad if I could just retry the fight when I die, but the game uses a checkpoint system instead so I had to redo a puzzle and walk a bunch as well and I'm not going to do that every time I lose.

EW! That is worse than when I died to the final boss about 8 times in Quantum Break and had redo some stuff including a cutscene. If that had been the 1st boss, I probably would have quit long before I actually beat him, but since it was the last boss there was no way I was going to give up.

 

[Johnway]

I think the quality of the bundles has gone down a lot but i still wind up getting them lol maybe because of its donation aspect? But like the last few months theyve given us games not on steam, where you have to use the EA client, and now in this one theyre offering a free month of some subscription? Thats lame because those offers are always given out by whatever company has them (in this case ign) and now thats an "option"? Just go back to when you were throwing AAA titles on there within 3 months of their release.

yeah increasing the price because of the IGN thing is frankly off putting. i don't care for IGN and if there was an option to remove it to save money i would.

But if anyone has any free keys that they don't want, feel free to let me know what you've got and i'll take them off your hands...

 

[Zed Clampet]

yeah increasing the price because of the IGN thing is frankly off putting. i don't care for IGN and if there was an option to remove it to save money i would.

But if anyone has any free keys that they don't want, feel free to let me know what you've got and i'll take them off your hands...

I've got to go through it again and see what I didn't activate, and I'll let you know.

****
Been playing Flyout again. It's kind of like Kerbal except that there's no one available to die in your creations for you. I have actually done a decent job of designing planes, but I really wish there were some Kerbals around because I can't fly for crap. So I'm downloading Flight Simulator 24 on Game Pass and am going to see if I can get some practice because there are no practice runs in Flyout. At least, not that I'm aware of--the UI was designed by a serial killer.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Yeah, my Lune is terrible, but the problem is that I've found enough power in my initial hit that the mobs aren't getting a turn in most cases, but this comes at the expense of more powerful shots that I could build up over a few turns. Basically I've using area of effect only for the most part.

In the area I was just in I found the same, Id do Wildfire from Lune, then Fencers Flurry from Maelle and it would only be a matter of a normal attack to kill the bigger mob that was left. Things got easier after I realized I wasnt using Lumina at all. The Chromatics and the area boss needed a bit more though, one of them was healed by fire damage and wouldnt burn as well which made me have to switch up.

Maelle also has a skill that breaks all shields and converst them to AP which has been very useful a couple times.

I'm also not doing a good job of charting my course through the skill tree. Part of the reason for this is that I had it in my mind that I wouldn't bother with it until I got to the second area. I was planning on doing a deep dive at that point, but that didn't happen. Also, I've been a little too linear and haven't fought hardly any extra fights, so I don't actually have that much of the skill tree unlocked. Maybe I'll just grind for a bit
Also, I may be raising the attributes in a mentally challenged fashion. Not finding half the treasure, etc.

I just need to do my skill tree review as I had planned and maybe do a little grinding. Plus, I refuse to use someone else's build guide. That destroys all the fun. Part of the fun right now comes from the fact I have no idea what I'm doing.

No guides for me either, just trial and a lot of errors. I'd consider reading up on it if I hit a wall where its clear I screwed up so badly I cant carry on, but so far its manageable with standard tactics outside of the tougher fights where it really helps to respec skills to counter some of the enemies abilities.

 

[Pifanjr]

After ditching Undertale, I decided to continue Baldur's Gate 3. I finally made my way past this horrible vertical layout that was a pain to navigate, defeated two big enemies by shooting them from somewhere they couldn't reach me and crafted myself a new, shiny shield.

 

[DXCHASE]

These bot posts are insane right now. This thread almost disappeared!

 

[Zed Clampet]

These bot posts are insane right now. This thread almost disappeared!

Yep. Being in Australia, I'm pretty sure Colif used to take care of these, but we only have 2 mods now.

*****

I wouldn't be surprised if developers stopped porting to Xbox. For instance, with Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, out of the first 2 million sales:

Steam: 1.2 million
Playstation: 600k
Xbox: 200k

And that's for a successful game. Imagine what an unsuccessful game does on Xbox.

*********

In the area I was just in I found the same, Id do Wildfire from Lune, then Fencers Flurry from Maelle and it would only be a matter of a normal attack to kill the bigger mob that was left. Things got easier after I realized I wasnt using Lumina at all. The Chromatics and the area boss needed a bit more though, one of them was healed by fire damage and wouldnt burn as well which made me have to switch up.

Maelle also has a skill that breaks all shields and converst them to AP which has been very useful a couple times.

No guides for me either, just trial and a lot of errors. I'd consider reading up on it if I hit a wall where its clear I screwed up so badly I cant carry on, but so far its manageable with standard tactics outside of the tougher fights where it really helps to respec skills to counter some of the enemies abilities.

How are you upgrading the user stats? I think I've killed most of my chances with a lot of builds by emphasizing raising the attributes that add to more than one thing. Like improving your luck works with critical, defense and speed (I think, just depends on the character). And then Vitality I think on the tanks, helps with health and attack power. You get a well rounded character which is not really what you want for most builds, generally speaking. If anything, I'm a crit build right now.