November 2023 Random Game Thoughts Thread

[Zloth]

I'm still dinking around in Old World.

I revved up Tomb Raider: Anniversary and it seems to work again. It's amazing how stark the game is. Lara says almost nothing, there's rarely any music: it's just you and the puzzles.

 

[Brian Boru]

I'm still dinking around in Old World

That's gotta be a good sign, that you haven't dropped it yet. How does it compare with Civ of your choice ?

 

[ZedClampet]

Been playing Parkitect in sandbox mode and decided to start a new map by building a hotel area at the beginning of the park. I'm not finished with it yet, but here's what I have so far:

The only building in that picture that I made myself is the glass and concrete skyscraper in the bottom right. The rest are blueprints from the workshop. However, after making that building and seeing how amazingly easy it was with their building system, I probably won't be using a lot of other people's blueprints anymore. That building only took me a few minutes. It's not very complex, but it let me get a feel for the process, and it is so much better than Planet Coaster's system.

Actually, every single game mechanic shared by the two games is better in Parkitect. Building structures, paths, custom rides (the things that are important to me) are all just so much easier in Parkitect. I suspect some Planet Coasterstans would tell me their tools are more powerful, but not really. Sure, you can't make curved paths in Parkitect, but it's nearly impossible to make a straight path in Planet Coaster. And in Parkitect, you can make the paths as wide as you want and you always get exactly what you were expecting. Raised and lowered paths are also much easier. And I won't even bother going over roller coasters and building structures.

 

[ZedClampet]

Hey, I discovered something in Weed Shop 3. If you hit your employees in the head with a blunt object, it resets their skill points.

 

[Frindis]

Lara says almost nothing,

Just the way *hush!* bad flappy ears, baaaad!

 

[ZedClampet]

Had to upgrade my blunt weapon to the purple dildo to handle the missile shooting robot turkeys.

 

[neogunhero]

(Posted this in the wrong thread, oops. Pasting it here now.)

Did our Thanksgiving dinner over the weekend. After we ate, cleaned up, and the guests left, I hopped on to Age of Empires 4, tummy full of food, slightly tipsy off wine, and immensely enjoyed my domination as the Mongols against the Roman Empire. Mongols are so far the hardest Civ I’ve tried to play and I’m sure I didn’t even do half the civ-specific stuff they can do. One great thing is that you can use stone to output 2x as many units at once, so I was sure to focus on mining stone asap. I am still trying to get used to their pack-up style of city building: they don’t require houses, and all of their buildings can be packed up and moved to a new location. I haven’t found great use in it, or understand the strategic usefulness of it, but that is all part of the fun. I outta just focus on one Civ at a time, learning their ins and outs, but it’s also fun to try new civs in Skirmish and figure out how to play them as you go. Once I get a basic understanding, I’ll go to the AoE website to read the guides or watch some videos to explain it better.

I’ve also played some more Battlefield 2042. I love the opposite dynamics of my two main games right now. BF2042 if I’m ready to get sweaty and play hard, AOE4 if I’m wanting to wind down and relax while still using my brain. BF2042 is a lot more fun to me if you’re in a server with bots. The bots are decent most of the time, dumb other times, but it helps give me a power-fantasy high when I mow down 8 bots all at once (happened to me yesterday!). There has to be a good balance of bots to players though. 32 players in a 64 player lobby, the rest filled with bots, is perfect to me. Great mix of human and bot action, which also keeps it a bit unpredictable if you’re fighting a dumb AI or someone who is actually good at the game. I’ve found that going to the Portal section of the main menu then going to the community server browser is the best way to play the game.

Didn’t forget about Cult of the Lamb though. Only played like 30 minutes, but I did make some slight progress, and I keep inching closer to the end. Hoping to finish the game before the end of the next weekend. I hope there isn’t a whole other level after I beat this last one… it requires 20 followers and I’m only at 18, need to do another run to get more, but each time I do, one of my followers back at the base dies of old age, so I’m in this cycle of trying to grind for followers so I can unlock (what I believe is) the last level. Also I’m almost 100% done with all unlocks in the game, besides follower forms (follower appearance customizations) and tarot cards (dungeon run abilities).

 

[neogunhero]

it didn't draw me in strongly then, but maybe I just need to give it some extra time. I also have AoE 2 HD to revisit

not sure how AOE4 will improve/different from the other ones apart from looking a bit nicer etc.

I can’t say how much better AoE4 is compared to the classics, but my main takeaway of AoE4 is that it seems to have an identity crisis: it is trying to cater to new players, while also appealing to long time fans and PVP players. It wants to be welcoming to players new to AoE and new to RTSs in general, it seems it wants to be the new main AoE that long time fans will want to play exclusively, and it is really really really pushing PVP/ranked competitive mode. It’s a bit of a hot mess, and as someone who only falls into one of these categories, it’s a bit hard to figure out where to start. They have a decent tutorial system, but the Basic/Advanced Combat Art of War (guided tutorials) missions are so bland: you start in a pre-made city with the guide telling you there are enemies headed your way, so you have to figure out the Rock-Paper-Scissors mechanic of combat to find out which unit to deploy to counter the attack. It doesn’t set you up to have to build the city yourself, you don’t even need to click the normal unit button to create them - you just click the building that has the corresponding unit you want and it immediately deploys them.

Overall it really seems best for players new to AoE and players new to RTSs. It’s pretty simplistic compared to other RTS games.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Had to upgrade my blunt weapon to the purple dildo to handle the missile shooting robot turkeys

It just clicked in my head that youre using #blunt# weapons in Weed Shop 3. Duh.

Just clutched the Ent boss in Remnant FTA. 3rd attempt today after neither of us could find time to play for a couple weeks. My mate was dead, its summoning exploding mushrooms and little round dudes left and right, hes down to a sliver and I'm dodging like Neo somehow. It goes down into the mortar position and I managed to get in a perfect rhythm of dodge and shoot to get the criticals every time and it goes down finally.

Its a pretty good game.

 

[Frindis]

Soooo, has anyone tried out that Alex Jones game yet?

 

[Johnway]

I can’t say how much better AoE4 is compared to the classics, but my main takeaway of AoE4 is that it seems to have an identity crisis: it is trying to cater to new players, while also appealing to long time fans and PVP players. It wants to be welcoming to players new to AoE and new to RTSs in general, it seems it wants to be the new main AoE that long time fans will want to play exclusively, and it is really really really pushing PVP/ranked competitive mode. It’s a bit of a hot mess, and as someone who only falls into one of these categories, it’s a bit hard to figure out where to start. They have a decent tutorial system, but the Basic/Advanced Combat Art of War (guided tutorials) missions are so bland: you start in a pre-made city with the guide telling you there are enemies headed your way, so you have to figure out the Rock-Paper-Scissors mechanic of combat to find out which unit to deploy to counter the attack. It doesn’t set you up to have to build the city yourself, you don’t even need to click the normal unit button to create them - you just click the building that has the corresponding unit you want and it immediately deploys them.

Overall it really seems best for players new to AoE and players new to RTSs. It’s pretty simplistic compared to other RTS games.

i think thats the problem with all the AOE games after AOE2. it hit the sweet spot. Sure the other AOE games offered something different and are good in their own right, but as a franchise? meh, not quite had that spark. can't say for sure the reasons. Too much like AOE2? too different? Improper balancing?

i think AOE4 is an odd duck tbh. Era wise it sits smack in the middle of AOE 2 and AOE 3 so technically, doesn't do anything unique. Can't say much about mechanics as i've not played it, but AOE2 and AOE3 have the advantage of being able to churn out DLC like crazy and i haven't seen another t90official / spirt of the law like channel for the other AOEs.

That said, the tutorial in AOE 2 are pretty bland as well. They did improve on it in AOE2 DE but yeah its humdrum as well. I suppose for a tut it was to be expected. i don't think AOE2 is that complex there still is a triangle mechanic, but if watching T90fficial channel has taught me anything stick with a few select units and spam so many that their weaknesses are negated . Most cases i either use the factions unique units, monks, siege and maybe a ranged unit or knight spam. Good enough for standard anyway.

 

[Zloth]

That's gotta be a good sign, that you haven't dropped it yet. How does it compare with Civ of your choice ?

I'm still trying to decide! There's a whole lot to like in this game, but then some event comes along and blows everything apart. The first game where I started getting the hang of it got derailed when my ruler got cursed. There are plenty of bad traits you can pick up, but that particular trait seems to really hurt bad. Now the game I'm playing just got crazy because the Romans told me to declare war on some tribe or they would seriously hate me for a long time to come - so I declared war on the tribe, even though I was just about ready to attack a completely different tribe.

The first ruination was just because I didn't have much experience with the game, but I'm not so sure about the second. Heck, I don't even know if I am really ruined or not - maybe I can just ignore the warring tribe? Or maybe I'll just go back to an older save.

 

[ZedClampet]

The missile shooting robot turkeys are a mixed bag. On the one hand, they sometimes drop free seeds for the most lucrative weed in the game. On the other hand, they sometimes wander into the store while I'm using the computer and start hurling missiles at me.

But it's a huge boon to my income. I'm going to play as much as possible so long as they are around.

 

[Brian Boru]

it got derailed

If it's Events causing that, did you try setting Event Levels at 'Minimal'?

still trying to decide

Every so often I scan current opinion on OW and HumanKind, and OW still appeals more to me as an eventual purchase. HK will be a steep discount buy sometime, as I suspect I won't stick with it for long—unless of course modders have produced some magic by then, which is quite possible.

 

[Pifanjr]

I played a little bit of Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak yesterday. I used to love the Homeworld games, so I was curious how well the formula would translate to 2D. I've only done the first two missions, which are mostly just tutorials, but so far I really like it. Though I have apparently become very rusty at RTS games, because I was already struggling during the second mission to manage my units and got a whole bunch of them killed unnecessarily when I wasn't paying attention for a bit.

i don't think AOE2 is that complex there still is a triangle mechanic, but if watching T90fficial channel has taught me anything stick with a few select units and spam so many that their weaknesses are negated . Most cases i either use the factions unique units, monks, siege and maybe a ranged unit or knight spam. Good enough for standard anyway.

I personally really liked spamming Woad Raiders. They are cheap, relatively fast, they get a bonus against buildings so they're great for quickly destroying camps without having to wait for slow siege weapons and they work pretty well even against heavily armoured cavalry because they're small and can surround the horse, allowing a bunch of them to attack at once. You just have to be watchful for enemy onagers, because those absolutely destroy entire groups of Woad Raiders.

 

[Colif]

I am playing the whack a mole game with my PC. replace one thing and something else breaks. I can't afford this game, I want it to stop. New things are fun and all but I prefer consistency and I didn't get a new CPU just to spend most of my time not using it in games.

 

[ZedClampet]

I am playing the whack a mole game with my PC. replace one thing and something else breaks. I can't afford this game, I want it to stop. New things are fun and all but I prefer consistency and I didn't get a new CPU just to spend most of my time not using it in games.

LOL I just wrote a 500 word joke about committing very complicated insurance fraud to get your insurance company to pay you for a replacement computer. The joke was how ridiculous the steps were. But I decided some people still might not see it as a joke and just see that I was giving a blueprint for insurance fraud.

I'm only writing this post as compensation for the time I lost writing a 500 word joke that I didn't post.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

I am playing the whack a mole game with my PC. replace one thing and something else breaks. I can't afford this game, I want it to stop. New things are fun and all but I prefer consistency and I didn't get a new CPU just to spend most of my time not using it in games.

Hope its not catching, looking for GPU deals on Black Friday.

 

[neogunhero]

Soooo, has anyone tried out that Alex Jones game yet?

Is it a Gay Frog romantic visual novel? 🐸

but AOE2 and AOE3 have the advantage of being able to churn out DLC like crazy and i haven't seen another t90official / spirt of the law like channel for the other AOEs.

The first expansion for AOE4 just came out, about 2 years and 1 month after original release. Is that too long compared to the other games? And it seems like there are tons of AOE4 content creators on YT, but none that I’ve see are super big. Maybe it’s an oversaturated video topic, too many people are making AOE4 videos.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Steam Autumn sale is live!

Finally grabbed Pillars 2 for 9.99, Pathfinder WOTR 11.99, Hard Reset Redux for 1.99 and Roadwarden for 6.59. Theres a lot of deals on.

 

[Colif]

To be fair, I think latest problem is software, not hardware... but it still leads to replacing hardware. The software that controls my AIO that cools CPU is borked. At start up today its crashed... great time for the thing that controls CPU fan & pump speed to crash... and since I started typing this message its restarted once.

Every other purchase this year hasn't really been forced. I got keyboard cause Icue was messing up, its now moved onto messing up my CPU. But everything else was my choice... an upgrade. New ssd, new CPU, new GPU. Now I replace the last part of my cooling system I didn't do last December. PC is as close to new as its going to ever be again. Or will be once i installed one last part.

Only old parts now are:
Case
Motherboard
RAM
HDD (but its mostly empty, I just haven't taken it out)
a few random cables

 

[ZedClampet]

Soooo, has anyone tried out that Alex Jones game yet?

They are going to have a hard time selling that game since Google censors all things Alex Jones related. Took me forever to find it. I wonder if Valve declined it or if Jones has some weird, New World Order conspiracy involving Gabe Newell.

 

[Pifanjr]

I did the next mission of Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak and it went a lot better. The important thing is not to chase after enemies, but use smoke screens to force enemies to come close to you so you can blow them apart.

 

[neogunhero]

Is it a Gay Frog romantic visual novel? 🐸

I just seen the trailer, and the very first bit of gameplay was Alex Jones shooting upwards at gay frogs, reminiscent of Metal Slug. Not even the weirdest thing I’ve seen online today.

 

[Colif]

Not even the weirdest thing I’ve seen online today.

decides not to ask