May 2025 General Game Discussion Thread

[Kaamos_Llama]

I heard they nuked Maelle's broken build, did anyone wind up using it at all? I havent played since the new patch.

Dont use any build guides either so I probably havent worked out the best ones.

I'm a killing machine, an instrument of death. Talk and romance are for pansies. It's only natural for her to be bewitched by one such as me, but I never give such things a thought. When I close my eyes to sleep at night, all I see is blood. And if I ever have any regrets for things undone, it will be for not collecting the empty skulls of every soul I sent back to the ether.

For some reason my brain puts this into one of those year book photo pages you guys do in high school or whatever it is.

I went straight to hard in DOS2, too! The secret to my success: re-load. Often. I took far longer than most to finish that game. I'm 118 hours into this one and I haven't seen the city yet!

Ahh I see. Think it took me around 150 hours to beat the final encounter. Ive since restarted on Tactician once or twice but the early encounters were a bit annoying with low level characters after having all the toys available.

 

[Colif]

i love the smell of spam in the morning...

wait, isn't that what he said in the movie?

 

[Pifanjr]

I went straight to hard in DOS2, too! The secret to my success: re-load. Often. I took far longer than most to finish that game. I'm 118 hours into this one and I haven't seen the city yet!


Better than 'not bad' - it was great! Got to the end of a dungeon that was very important to Shadowheart. She was about to do something I really didn't want her to do, so I asked her not to. I even said 'please.' That didn't go down well. She left the party, and I ended up knocking her out. OK, not that option.

Reload and try to persuade her. OK, I need to roll a 30. On a single 20-sided die. I can muster up a +2, which becomes a +1 thanks to my sad excuse for a personality, so the only way I get this is to roll a natural 20. Ouch. I roll a 17. Oh, but I've got some inspirations! Try again, and again, and again, and...

There followed some very touching scenes, with Shadowheart wearing that big helmet the whole time.

I think I'm getting close to that, but I want to backtrack to the mountains first because as far as I know I won't be able to if I progress too far.

Make sure it's a cliff you can GET down if you want whatever treasure they've got on them!

I don't need any reward other than that I just threw someone off a cliff.

Exactly. Also, most enemies don't have good loot on them anyway and it's not like I would know what I'm missing out on.

 

[Zloth]

i love the smell of spam in the morning...

wait, isn't that what he said in the movie?

Confusing spam with napalm? I don't know what you folks use to spice up meats over there, but I advise using a LOT less!

I think I'm getting close to that, but I want to backtrack to the mountains first because as far as I know I won't be able to if I progress too far.

I did that! I just wanted to look real quick to see what it was like, even though I was going to be too high level for it. But I was having fun (and getting challenging fights), so I went ahead and did the whole thing.

Exactly. Also, most enemies don't have good loot on them anyway and it's not like I would know what I'm missing out on.

Oh yeah you would, because they would be using that future-treasure to take you apart!

 

[Zed Clampet]

COE33 does a fantastic job designing the look of bosses. I was in this one area and looked across to see this giant glowing woman, she was more of a golden, glowing outline, and behind her was what looked like a gigantic black hole that was glowing the same way she was, and this was following her as she paced back and forth. The immediate thought that I had was, "Yeah, nope. Maybe later." We were in bad shape anyway

I put Maelle back in my group because we were running up against shields again, but I'm just not getting good damage from her. The only way I can put her into Virtuoso stance, which is her high damage stance, is to first set an enemy on fire and then use another skill on that enemy. I need to do a deep dive on her because everyone says she's great.

 

[Pifanjr]

I tried out the demo for Nice Day for Fishing, a game based entirely on the Epic NPC Man series by Viva La Dirt League.

It's definitely more enjoyable if you're familiar with the source material, but I think the jokes are good enough to stand on their own.

The gameplay however is a bit too basic for me. The game starts with a long series of fetch quest, each explaining a little bit of the basics of the game. Your main activity is, unsurprisingly, fishing for various different fish and while there's decent variety, I just don't like the core mechanic.

The core mechanic is to hold the attack button while the fish is facing you, then switch to holding the guard button when the fish is swimming away. You can also tap the guard button instead, lowering damage even more if you get a perfect guard. If your HP drops to 0, the line snaps and you have to try again.
You also get spells you can use on a cool down (a healing spell and a large damage one at first) and consumables you can use, adding a bit more complexity, but it wasn't enough for me. I quit when I was asked to catch one of every species of fish in the first area.

Maybe I would've stuck with it longer if the tutorial hadn't taken so long.

Oh yeah you would, because they would be using that future-treasure to take you apart!

Bold of you to assume that enemies get a turn to attack before they get yeeted off a cliff.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

COE33 does a fantastic job designing the look of bosses. I was in this one area and looked across to see this giant glowing woman, she was more of a golden, glowing outline, and behind her was what looked like a gigantic black hole that was glowing the same way she was, and this was following her as she paced back and forth. The immediate thought that I had was, "Yeah, nope. Maybe later." We were in bad shape anyway

I put Maelle back in my group because we were running up against shields again, but I'm just not getting good damage from her. The only way I can put her into Virtuoso stance, which is her high damage stance, is to first set an enemy on fire and then use another skill on that enemy. I need to do a deep dive on her because everyone says she's great.

/Gush

I cant get over how good everything about this game is. I was just scooting around the open world looking for things to do before progressing, listening to the incredible soundtrack and thinking how great the art design is, little gameplay touches like how the movement speed is fast enough that you never feel impatient moving around. The random fights around the world with the chromatics are so much fun to do because they all need slightly different strategies. I like that if you party wipe the first 3 characters the other can 2 drop in and you get to take a final shot at the enemies if you choose. Esquie and the Gestrals at times are lol funny and I hardly ever laugh at most games attempts at humour. At the same time the dialogue isn't awkward and the human characters feel real and relatable, Im speaking to everyone and listening to all the dialogue, again which hardly ever happens. I'm even changing cosmetics around on the party which I never ever do, because I really like them all.

/Gush off

Theres a little jank here and there with getting caught on scenery, and I wish Esquie wouldnt do that belly flop animation every time you take your finger off sprint. Some of the level design is too confusing in a couple of areas and gets mildly annoying here and there. Apart from that theres not much I can fault.

Far as my playthrough goes, Ive started using Sciel, and I switch in the other new character sometimes. I'm finding them all pretty powerful and I like them all so theyre all getting used at times. Big story stuff happened, more world opened up, happy days.

 

[Pifanjr]

I got into the Dune Awakening beta weekend. I wanted to wait until my wife and I could take a look at it together, but I decided to start it up just now to see if it would even work.

Good thing too, because it started compiling shaders which seems like it'll take half an hour at least. It also crashed the first time (not sure after how long, i had it minimised) and had to start from the beginning again.

 

[Zed Clampet]

UGH, such a moron. No spoilers, but there were 3 paths, and I was supposed to take all of them, but I wasn't paying attention, so now I'm supposed to take the third path, and I have no idea which one it is.

/Gush

I cant get over how good everything about this game is. I was just scooting around the open world looking for things to do before progressing, listening to the incredible soundtrack and thinking how great the art design is, little gameplay touches like how the movement speed is fast enough that you never feel impatient moving around. The random fights around the world with the chromatics are so much fun to do because they all need slightly different strategies. I like that if you party wipe the first 3 characters the other can 2 drop in and you get to take a final shot at the enemies if you choose. Esquie and the Gestrals at times are lol funny and I hardly ever laugh at most games attempts at humour. At the same time the dialogue isn't awkward and the human characters feel real and relatable, Im speaking to everyone and listening to all the dialogue, again which hardly ever happens. I'm even changing cosmetics around on the party which I never ever do, because I really like them all.

/Gush off

Theres a little jank here and there with getting caught on scenery, and I wish Esquie wouldnt do that belly flop animation every time you take your finger off sprint. Some of the level design is too confusing in a couple of areas and gets mildly annoying here and there. Apart from that theres not much I can fault.

Far as my playthrough goes, Ive started using Sciel, and I switch in the other new character sometimes. I'm finding them all pretty powerful and I like them all so theyre all getting used at times. Big story stuff happened, more world opened up, happy days.

Yeah, I can't tell you the last time I finished a AAA single-player game. I've completed a couple of Far Cry games with my son and also Watch Dogs 2, but I honestly think the last single-player game was Resident Evil 7, Pillars of Eternity, Titanfall 2 or Battlefield 1, and those were all ages ago.

This game is making me want to play more RPGs of any type. It's kind of awakening my old gamer self back when I was playing Might and Magic, Neverwinter Nights and any other RPG I could get my hands on. I realize that this game has set the bar incredibly high, but it has made me more interested in fantastical worlds again.

I probably watched the announcement trailer 50 times before the game released. I felt that anyone who made a trailer like that was going to make one heck of a game. For once I was right about something.

 

[Zed Clampet]

(not sure after how long, i had it minimised)

This reminds me of the other day when I was doing a backup of my entire D drive on a laptop. I never back up the whole thing, but this time I just wanted everything on my new computer. It was 1.5 TB. So I started the thing, and the estimated time until completion was "More than 1 day". I knew it wouldn't actually take nearly that long, but it was going to be awhile, so I set the laptop on the table and left. I came back several hours later expecting it to be almost finished, but it had a little pop-up saying it was unable to move a file for some reason and wanted me to decide what to do with it. IT WAS STILL AT 1 PERCENT!

I got into the Dune Awakening beta weekend. I wanted to wait until my wife and I could take a look at it together, but I decided to start it up just now to see if it would even work.

Let me know how this goes. If it's going to be Rust except on Arrakis, then I'm not interested in it. I love Funcom, though. Conan is one of the best survival games out there.

 

[Zloth]

Huh, I seem to have closed off a couple of quests in BG3 that were supposed to get solved in the very-often-mentioned Moonrise Towers. Not sure why, as I haven't been in there yet.

UGH, such a moron. No spoilers, but there were 3 paths, and I was supposed to take all of them, but I wasn't paying attention, so now I'm supposed to take the third path, and I have no idea which one it is.

The one without the carnage left behind by the best dressed murder-hobo gang in the world?

 

[Zed Clampet]

Huh, I seem to have closed off a couple of quests in BG3 that were supposed to get solved in the very-often-mentioned Moonrise Towers. Not sure why, as I haven't been in there yet.


The one without the carnage left behind by the best dressed murder-hobo gang in the world?

No, it doesn't leave carnage behind. Bodies just disappear, and if you stop and rest your party, everything respawns (like Souls games).

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

No, it doesn't leave carnage behind. Bodies just disappear, and if you stop and rest your party, everything respawns (like Souls games).

Thats another little touch I love, even if they respawn its very easy to just avoid them by sprinting past if you dont want to engage and a lot of the toughest fights are optional.

 

[BeardyHat]

I've discovered in Abiotic Factor that the best methodology for using the toilet is as soon as my character says they need to use the bathroom, find some plastic scrap. At that point, just let it ride until they s*** all over themselves and on the floor and then use the plastic scrap to bag up the turd for use in crafting.

Here I was using the toilet and letting the character flush like a sucker for my first 35 hours when I could be collecting my own turds to use to make soil.

You do need to wash yourself afterwards, but that not hard to do.

 

[Zed Clampet]

I've discovered in Abiotic Factor that the best methodology for using the toilet is as soon as my character says they need to use the bathroom, find some plastic scrap. At that point, just let it ride until they s*** all over themselves and on the floor and then use the plastic scrap to bag up the turd for use in crafting.

Here I was using the toilet and letting the character flush like a sucker for my first 35 hours when I could be collecting my own turds to use to make soil.

You do need to wash yourself afterwards, but that not hard to do.

I have about 30 hours, but I rarely did much with farming because it takes forever for stuff to grow, and then it spoils almost immediately. It was just a pain. At least, that's how I remember it. It's been a minute since I played.

 

[BeardyHat]

I have about 30 hours, but I rarely did much with farming because it takes forever for stuff to grow, and then it spoils almost immediately. It was just a pain. At least, that's how I remember it. It's been a minute since I played.

Yeah, I haven't bothered with farming or cooking much, feels like a waste of time.

I'm assuming you get better food with farming, but I get so much from chopping up the local fauna, I just grill that up and eat it. Occasionally I go back to my base and hang out for a little while to fry stuff up and then throw it in the fridge. I did make some pea soup, which was kind of nice because you get 4 servings out of one can.

But the reason I like making the soil is that you can use it to make Mugnades, which just completely annihilate the soldiers, so I've been carrying a lot of those around.

 

[Zed Clampet]

I've given up on Expedition 33 this morning. I have no idea where I am or where I'm going and I'm not able to skirt fights, and I'm just over it for now.

This area is so complicated that it would take a miracle for me to accidentally go into the right area, so I may be done for awhile. Just don't feel like dealing with it.

 

[Colif]

wtb titan quest 2. All they need to do is release the game

I suspect they will when I stop checking.

Full version of this launches on the 15th

Preserve on Steam

Preserve is a relaxing puzzle nature-building game in which you flourish a vibrant ecosystem by cleverly placing plants and animals to create a perfect symbiosis to your liking.

store.steampowered.com

I don't remember why i stopped. Hmm

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

I've given up on Expedition 33 this morning. I have no idea where I am or where I'm going and I'm not able to skirt fights, and I'm just over it for now.

This area is so complicated that it would take a miracle for me to accidentally go into the right area, so I may be done for awhile. Just don't feel like dealing with it.

Need a sad face react, I heard around that the area Im coming up to where you have to go to 2 dungeons and kill 2 powerful enemies to access a new area is maybe the worst in the game. Maybe thats where youre at?

 

[Zed Clampet]

OK, I'm satisfied now. I have 10 TB of storage on my new PC.

Need a sad face react, I heard around that the area Im coming up to where you have to go to 2 dungeons and kill 2 powerful enemies to access a new area is maybe the worst in the game. Maybe thats where youre at?

Yep. That's where I'm at. I've been wandering around the overworld looking around and doing side stuff. I think I may have misunderstood something and might be done with one of the dungeons. If that's the case, I know where the second one is, but I'm not sure.

What is confusing me is that after I defeated the second boss of the first dungeon, Lune said something like, "That's two, I think I saw another path" I had been under the impression that there were only two there, but went off looking for a third. I think maybe I was actually supposed to leave and go to another area altogether for the second dungeon.

Anyway, I'm not as grumpy as I was when I first got up this morning, so I'm just wandering around doing random things. I figured out something with Maelle, but it's hard to pull off and I'm probably just going to put Lune back in the group. Sciel isn't going anywhere because she does 10k damage to each enemy on turn 1 and you can do it again on turn 2. With Maelle I have to set someone on fire, but then Sciel usually kills them, so Maelle never gets to do the second part. And that only switches her to Virtuoso stance. Then she still needs to do her big attack, but I've never gotten that far. I haven't fought a boss with her, just mobs.

Oh, and I got a 9 AP skill for Verso called something like "end bringer", but for some reason it isn't doing as much damage as the other one I was using. No idea why. Will need to look at that again.

 

[Zed Clampet]

I'm about to release my first ever home-made LLM chatbot named Clem.

If you've ever played Warframe, you know what to expect.

Spoiler: Clem may just be the most advanced and accurate LLM on the planet.

Clem, your occasional NPC companion, only says one word, "Clem". He has become a Clampet family hero. Whenever there's an opportunity, we change an NPC's name to Clem. So no matter what you type into the chatbot, it's just going to say "Clem".

 

[Zed Clampet]

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

So I continued goofing around and realized my assumption from above was incorrect. So after I was done goofing, I went to the island designated by the map, which was the same island I had been on before, and this time it all made sense to me, and I understood why Lune had said what she did. So I went and defeated that boss. TBH I'm not sure what to do next, but I'm sure I'll figure it out when I go back in.

Had a ton of fun roaming around the world map and fighting stuff. I decided I would level up the "left behinds" and had some fun with them. Monoco is kind of a fun support guy, but a little unreliable because of the wheel or whatever it is. But he was a definite help in defeating the boss in the Sinister Cave. You could definitely leave Lune and Vulva (can't remember his actual name because my brain is fried) out and do well.

 

[BeardyHat]

Feels like I'm slowing down and maybe growing a little bored with Abiotic Factor again. Although, I must just be generally tired lately, which kills my motivation to game (I definitely am exhausted for a variety of reasons).

It's still a great game, I'm just tired of going back and forth between the latest area I've reached and my main base. I could build an FOB, like I did in the past, but then I find that is problematic because I often have resources I need from there and I'm a bit too lazy to actually go back and forth to retrieve them all and bring them back to my main base.

Anyway, I might just be tired. I'm starting to look towards some WW2 wargames to get invested in, but nothing has really hooked me so far.

 

[Zed Clampet]

Feels like I'm slowing down and maybe growing a little bored with Abiotic Factor again. Although, I must just be generally tired lately, which kills my motivation to game (I definitely am exhausted for a variety of reasons).

It's still a great game, I'm just tired of going back and forth between the latest area I've reached and my main base. I could build an FOB, like I did in the past, but then I find that is problematic because I often have resources I need from there and I'm a bit too lazy to actually go back and forth to retrieve them all and bring them back to my main base.

Anyway, I might just be tired. I'm starting to look towards some WW2 wargames to get invested in, but nothing has really hooked me so far.

I never moved bases when I played, but I did have a forklift at my base just in case. Not sure how far I would have gotten with it.

One reason I stopped playing was because I didn't set resources to respawn, and I was having difficulty doing anything. Apparently I missed the recipe for the poop grenade you mentioned above, so I was having to shoot everyone with ever-dwindling amounts of ammo.

But the main reason was the big invisible guy who tracks you apparently for the rest of the game. He shows up and you have to stare at him for a few seconds or he kills you. The problem is that after you heard him it was a mad dash to find him since he was often hidden behind a corner. Maybe I just wasn't doing it right, but after about the n-teenth time he killed me I lost interest. If I decide I am going to play it again, I will mod him out of the game.

 

[Pifanjr]

I want to play Dune Awakening with my wife, since she is a huge Dune fan and got me to start reading the books, but her schedule has shifted so she's asleep by the time our kid is in bed, so we haven't been able to play yet.

Hopefully we can get around to it today while my kid is at school, it the last day of the beta.

I'm about to release my first ever home-made LLM chatbot named Clem.

If you've ever played Warframe, you know what to expect.

Spoiler: Clem may just be the most advanced and accurate LLM on the planet.

Clem, your occasional NPC companion, only says one word, "Clem". He has become a Clampet family hero. Whenever there's an opportunity, we change an NPC's name to Clem. So no matter what you type into the chatbot, it's just going to say "Clem".

LLM? More like OWM (One Word Model).