November 2024 General Gaming Discussion Thread

[Pifanjr]

I've had time to game yesterday, but I just couldn't bring myself to play anything but Hearthstone's Tombs of Terror. At least I had one very fun run.

One of the bonuses you can (sometimes) choose after the first fight is to upgrade the taverns you visit after the third and sixth fight, where you normally just upgrade your deck slightly. With the upgrade you can make your deck significantly stronger, but on Heroic mode losing out on another passive bonus makes the first three fights a lot harder. In fact, I hadn't managed to make it to the tavern in the few runs I chose this bonus since I started playing again.

Yesterday however I made it and one of the options was to switch out my entire deck for a mystery deck. Which turned out to be ridiculously overpowered and very fun.

You know, I was sitting on the Lego2KDrive when I made the above list, but I think I'd rather give it to @Pifanjr . You want it for your girl? It would make me happier than playing it myself.

My girl was very enthusiastic when I showed her the video from the Steam store page. And I'd be very enthusiastic about anything that distracts her from Roblox 😅.

 

[Johnway]

2 days of work in Path of exile and Lootbox collected. We can end it here and move onto other games, but the explosive arrow ballista build is pretty good. I'll play to end game and see what happens. Either its reliable or, again, a dead end build that requires currency and time that is better spent elsewhere.

Ultimate doom builder, i've managed to get a teleport closet built and spawn enemies once i shoot. Been thinking about ways to get them to be interesting engagements and a way to trigger them.

 

[ZedClampet]

There are a lot of problems with Vending Machine Business Simulator, but the fact that you get credit for "defending" your machine if you run over people with your car makes up for a lot.

 

[ZedClampet]

Just so we're clear, if you put money into one of my vending machines, but your junk food gets stuck in the machine, do not attempt to jostle your morsel free by hitting and kicking the machine because I get credit for running over you with my truck.

 

[Brian Boru]

if I never wasted any money I'd enjoy life quite a bit less

"I spent a lot of money on booze, birds and fast cars. The rest I just squandered."
—George Best, Ireland's best footballer

 

[Zloth]

I finished up my practice game of Distant Worlds 2, where I set everything on easy and played through so I could figure out what I was doing. Now I'm playing through a game where I only had a slight edge. It has been plenty harder, but not because of the difficulty. In my first game, there were some independent colonies around that I was able to bribe into my empire, giving me some easy colonies on good planets, and more species so I could use to colonize various worlds. This time, I got nothing. There has been just one independent, and it's one of those species that just likes battles, so they aren't all that interested in joining up.

 

[Brian Boru]

Distant Worlds 2

I have DW1 [Distant Worlds Universe], with a note "Big 4X game, play only when committed"—much to everyone's surprise, I haven't been committed yet.

Assume you played DW1, how do they compare?

independent colonies

Sound something like the City States in Civ, yeah?

 

[Rolfil]

2 days of work in Path of exile and Lootbox collected. We can end it here and move onto other games, but the explosive arrow ballista build is pretty good. I'll play to end game and see what happens. Either its reliable or, again, a dead end build that requires currency and time that is better spent elsewhere.

Even with one Totem removed when they reworked melee it's still a really cheap build to get easily into Red Maps.

I'd thought I'd give Bleed Gladiator Earthquake a try. Into Act 6 and it's decent, but like all Melee is slower to level.

 

[Zloth]

I have DW1 [Distant Worlds Universe], with a note "Big 4X game, play only when committed"—much to everyone's surprise, I haven't been committed yet.

Assume you played DW1, how do they compare?

I would always enjoy the games right up to where a big fight would happen, then my interest would drop like a rock. They would end up as big furballs of sprite-graphics-ships shooting each other. Blah. The time leading up to the battles was incredibly fun, though, with great exploration and lots of resources to plunder.

I tried a few times to set up a universe where I wouldn't need to have many battles, but it never worked out. There was an end-game invasion of high-tech enemies that looked like it was integral to the game. Maybe there was a way to turn it off, but I think that would have been like turning the Orions off in Master of Orion.

I'm enjoying this one more. The graphics are a lot better but, best of all, I've had no trouble setting up two highly peaceful games. Don't get me wrong, there are still space monsters and pirates out there (imagine barbarians with tech that's better than your own, but more susceptible to bribes), so I still need the various weapons, but I can concentrate on the first three X's and compete against the other empires by trying to out-grow them.

And that big invasion? It's part of the latest DLC content. I think I'll pass on that, thanks! (The other DLC just add more factions.)

Sound something like the City States in Civ, yeah?

Much like them except making them happy enough puts them in such a good mood that they invite you to colonize them. Your colonists land, set up shop, and that independent colony is now a part of your empire. What's more, once they are assimilated, you can load up colonists from that independent colony and use them to colonize other worlds! (Though you probably want to set up population limits on the planet to encourage your original colonists to migrate off the planet again so they can live on a planet that matches their biology.)

The complexity is REALLY tricky to nail down. You could automate absolutely everything, and this game would play itself. You could automate absolutely nothing and the amount of stuff you would need to know would make the learning curve crazy hard, not to mention require you to pause the game constantly just to keep up with everything going on. So, the complexity you'll be faced with depends on how much you let be automated. (And that was true in DW1 as well.)

 

[ZedClampet]

Oh boy! I accidentally had my screen capture running for the last 3.5 hours. Now I can relive the thrill of this magical evening.

 

[neogunhero]

Had a nice long weekend, played a good amount of games. I just picked up a 3-month code for Game Pass in anticipation of Stalker 2 and Indiana Jones. Both games look really good but I’m not wanting to spend $70 on these games right now. MS Flight Sim 2024 also looks really interesting. I’m not a flight sim player, but the fact that it streams in the world as you play is quite intriguing. May check it out.

Played some more of that co-op mode in Dead Island 2. It’s fun but it’s becoming very repetitive. There’s only one map and they recycle the same few missions so there isn’t much variety at all. But that’s understandable as this wasn’t some massive new game mode, really it’s just a small addition to the game, not meant to be the sole purpose to play Dead Island 2.

Also got more COD multiplayer in. As I stated before I go through phases of doing really good then playing like crap. Some matches I’m at the top, others I’m at the bottom. Still it’s quite fun and I’ve been exercising my twitch reflexes a lot with the game. Glad to know I still got it in me when I didn’t think I did.

On top of all of this I’ve been watching my girlfriend play Cyberpunk for the first time. So far she is enjoying it but there is a ton of talking and if you aren’t somewhat familiar with the cyberpunk genre then a lot of the lingo is just lost on you. But I’m helping her understand the game while trying not to influence any of her choices. However I did make sure she went and seen mama Welles after the prologue, she would have been devastated if mama Welles was mad at her for not showing up.

 

[Johnway]

Even with one Totem removed when they reworked melee it's still a really cheap build to get easily into Red Maps.

I'd thought I'd give Bleed Gladiator Earthquake a try. Into Act 6 and it's decent, but like all Melee is slower to level.

My last Build for the settlers league was righteous fire. it was fine but my build just wasn't cutting it as i couldn't get the gear or the damage needed to survive or do most of the content. Good league starter i guess.

I had hoped to do a the meta lighting strike slayer build but i couldn't find decent guides for it and to top it off it was very currency dependent to take it to end game. As someone who scrambles for chaos orbs let alone divine orbs (i'll be lucky to get 10 in a league) it wasn't going to right for me.

So i picked the explosive arrow ballista champion which so far has been fine. Whether i can get the gear to take it to the end remains to be seen. I mean, i only play this league for the lootbox and the challenge rewards and doing the quick maths with the settlers league i felt i could get 18 tops. The rest are too difficult, too grindy or luck based for me to complete.

 

[BeardyHat]

Still playing Drova here and there, put in maybe 30 to 45 minutes last night. I could be playing right now, but for some reason I'm enamored with transferring my 3DS over to an emulator, which I probably won't even play once I get things migrated...

 

[ZedClampet]

@Brian Boru the last few levels of that match 3 game are so annoying that I'm thinking about just not finishing it. There are so few moveable tiles that you don't have options most of the time because the majority of the board is made up of stone and wood blocks and imps and webs. You've got 3 spiders shooting webs constantly. You have the imps spawning constantly, and you only have one or two possible moves each turn (but a lot of the time there are actually no moves and it has to shuffle the board). Even when you clear some space, the top of the board is set up so that new blocks can only fall through 3 spaces, and the spiders and imps start blocking that off immediately and most of the time all you can do is make a move somewhere below it and hope good blocks spawn at the top. It's just relying on luck and annoying as hell.

 

[Pifanjr]

@Brian Boru the last few levels of that match 3 game are so annoying that I'm thinking about just not finishing it. There are so few moveable tiles that you don't have options most of the time because the majority of the board is made up of stone and wood blocks and imps and webs. You've got 3 spiders shooting webs constantly. You have the imps spawning constantly, and you only have one or two possible moves each turn (but a lot of the time there are actually no moves and it has to shuffle the board). Even when you clear some space, the top of the board is set up so that new blocks can only fall through 3 spaces, and the spiders and imps start blocking that off immediately and most of the time all you can do is make a move somewhere below it and hope good blocks spawn at the top. It's just relying on luck and annoying as hell.

This has consistently been my experience with match 3 games as well. The further you get in the game, the more you're relying on pure luck because you only have 1 or 2 available matches at any time.

 

[DXCHASE]

Its hard for me to get any gaming time in between 12 hour shifts, but i manage to do more grinding in Diablo 4 today and usually can run some Helldivers 2 missions for the sake of democracy in-between my minimal sleeping and family duties.

I also took the gaming survey that PCG has up and i hope i win the money!

 

[ZedClampet]

So I decided to enter an AI art contest type of thing to make a holiday picture (there's more to it than that...), and the first thing I came up with was a photorealistic train set, including a little town with people, and this would all be around a Christmas tree in a living room, a world within a world sort of thing. My AI had been acting up, mostly ignoring my prompts, and I was about ready to reboot it, but typed in "a train going around a Christmas tree in the living room" and hit -enter-. I always start simple, see what it gives me and go from there.

This is what it gave me:

Spoiler: Wrong holiday

So I got an apparently fading girl in what I assume is a hospital gown and an evil entity materializing over her shoulder and grabbing her arm.

This being AI, I thought, "Cool, I got the living room" and rebooted...

The original picture was actually better than the above. Her gown was in tatters and fading. It was a cool look, but there was a lot more skin than should be posted, so I took it into my paint program and painted her a new gown. That's as good as I could do in the 5 minutes I allotted myself. I tried to keep a little of the ethereal quality of it with mixed results. It really looked like it was being worn more by the entity than the girl. It looked like what is over the girl's shoulder.

 

[Zloth]

I did the survey, too. After all, it's a lot like some of the topics around here! I got stumped trying to decide if 'early teenager' includes the "tween" ages of 10-12 or if that counts as a kid. Oh well, I guess it depends on whether those old hand-held football games counted as video games anyway.

However I did make sure she went and seen mama Welles after the prologue, she would have been devastated if mama Welles was mad at her for not showing up.

What did she do with the body after the mission before that one?

 

[Frindis]

This upcoming game by NEKCOM looks interesting. Hillarious characters/costumes looking like something from a Jane Fonda exercise video meets WWE. Looks to be open open-world survivor with some crazy boss fights, weapons attachments, and special moves. It has some similarities with the Yavuza series catching that retro feel and looks like it also has mini-games so that is a big win in my eyes. If you could play some of the music from the gameplay through radio stations that would be amazing! The Japan/USA twist looks hilarious. UI looks a bit too MMO for my taste, a bit out of place compared to the rest of the world. It seems you can do training, so perhaps you can build your character in different ways and not just get talent points. Coming out in 2025.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2gT7_e-Kc4

 

[ZedClampet]

@Brian Boru I went ahead and finished that match 3. Trying to figure out where to go next, whether I want to do the next in the series or try a different one altogether.

 

[neogunhero]

What did she do with the body after the mission before that one?

Sent it to Mama Welles. Any other option is disrespectful to Jackie!

 

[ZedClampet]

God as my witness, Flux is now refusing to make any pictures but naked hobbits. Their adorable and hilarious, but that's not what we're trying to do today.

 

[DPSIIGames]

Finding colonies in Distant Worlds 2 is a little odd. As soon as you get the colonization tech, you can send a colony out anywhere. Your species has a bonus for their favorite kinds and negatives for the ones they don't like, but they aren't huge. However, each world has a base suitability score. Even if a planet looks great, having lots of nasty earthquakes or meteors isn't going to work out well for building cities. Those suitability scores are really low! I've searched 140+ star systems and I've only found 4 good worlds for my people - and one of those was already inhabited!

Those pre-inhabited planets are the key, though - especially the ones with races other than your own. If you play nice with them, they will eventually want to join your empire. (Or you can play it mean and just invade them). After some assimilation time, you can start using them to colonize other worlds, too. Pick wisely, and you can cover quite a few world types.

Oh, and there are tech bonuses, of course. They are expensive, though, and don't help as much as I've seen in other games, where my starting race can eventually live on just about anything.

The option to invade or live peacefully is so much fun. I like the feel of slowly conquering worlds and spreading my influence among other pre-inhabited planets. I also enjoy that bonuses are mild, it feels more real and give additional challenge.

 

[ZedClampet]

I figured out why it was making naked hobbits. What's weird is that I was actually making naked (but with their underwear on) halflings just a couple of days ago. I make characters in their underwear so people can describe the clothes they are wearing, and it won't conflict with the training. But my halflings had nothing to do with these naked hobbits.

So I was trying to make an isolated woman on a green background that I was going to cut out and put somewhere else. She was supposed to be crying, and all I was getting were naked hobbits. But I know that flux makes all sorts of associations that impact what it creates, and I thought, "Is crying only a child thing?" So I deleted all references to crying, and it immediately gave me an adult, but she was in her underwear. That's when I realized that the person who made my "average faces" model had used pictures of entire bodies instead of just faces. So the descriptions of crying made the body small, and this lora model was adding an adult face and waiting for a description of clothing.

 

[DPSIIGames]

I would always enjoy the games right up to where a big fight would happen, then my interest would drop like a rock. They would end up as big furballs of sprite-graphics-ships shooting each other. Blah. The time leading up to the battles was incredibly fun, though, with great exploration and lots of resources to plunder.

I tried a few times to set up a universe where I wouldn't need to have many battles, but it never worked out. There was an end-game invasion of high-tech enemies that looked like it was integral to the game. Maybe there was a way to turn it off, but I think that would have been like turning the Orions off in Master of Orion.

I'm enjoying this one more. The graphics are a lot better but, best of all, I've had no trouble setting up two highly peaceful games. Don't get me wrong, there are still space monsters and pirates out there (imagine barbarians with tech that's better than your own, but more susceptible to bribes), so I still need the various weapons, but I can concentrate on the first three X's and compete against the other empires by trying to out-grow them.

And that big invasion? It's part of the latest DLC content. I think I'll pass on that, thanks! (The other DLC just add more factions.)


Much like them except making them happy enough puts them in such a good mood that they invite you to colonize them. Your colonists land, set up shop, and that independent colony is now a part of your empire. What's more, once they are assimilated, you can load up colonists from that independent colony and use them to colonize other worlds! (Though you probably want to set up population limits on the planet to encourage your original colonists to migrate off the planet again so they can live on a planet that matches their biology.)

The complexity is REALLY tricky to nail down. You could automate absolutely everything, and this game would play itself. You could automate absolutely nothing and the amount of stuff you would need to know would make the learning curve crazy hard, not to mention require you to pause the game constantly just to keep up with everything going on. So, the complexity you'll be faced with depends on how much you let be automated. (And that was true in DW1 as well.)

Half the game is managing the automation systems 🤣