November 2025 General Games Discussion Thread

[BeardyHat]

Arc Raiders-- Honestly, if you were to play solo on the first couple of maps doing the quests the game gives you, youd be hard up to find someone that would kill you, especially if you use the emote wheel to say "dont shoot" or "wanna team up?", also a little voice comms doesnt hurt.

Now, yes thats not a 100% guarantee, but neither was The Division's pvp. I also dont think its that relatable to its pvp, definitely its survival mode from the first Division, but thats it. Dark Zones felt more like just trying to kill people rather than killing and looting personally.

In my experience, the only time i really fight pvp is in trios. Its hard to find other trios that dont want to fight. If you want to avoid pvp, id avoid doing trios, especially on the one map i mentioned in the Arc Raiders thread, its simply just pvp with the ability to extract, the others its you can get stuff done and collect loot, with the ability to get killed lol.

Cultic- Yes, thats what i was reading and i am more into that straight-forward boomer shooter style also and thats why i was holding off but i still might pick it up. I saw it mentioned in a new PCG article today and i had forgotten about it.

Even solo, I just can't get locked in to multiplayer games these days. Too many things call for my attention at any given time that I need to be able to pause or otherwise get up and leave.

Cultic is still pretty boomy, just got more mixed in there.

Its sad, ive been reading articles over the last couple months talking about how PC gaming might become this insanely-priced level of gaming that will keep being pushed out of the reach of the general population due to the demand of AI and as much sense as it makes from a raw-material perspective, its sad that these companies cant sacrifice some revenue to keep electronic parts (especially PC) in a competitive price range because those ram prices are certainly anything but. I honestly dont know if even reversing tariffs on goods would help all that much at this point

I'm just going to ride it out again, at this point. I managed an upgrade in December of 2019 when I went to AM4 and then rode that out until August 2023 when I upgraded my processor, RAM to 32Gb and went from a 970 GTX to 6700 XT.

Doesn't seem like anything is really a significant upgrade from that yet. I was just looking at 5060 Ti's yesterday and see that they're a bit more performant than my 6700 XT in some games and on par in many others and given I don't play many high end games anyway, I think I'm set for the time being.

At least we're spoilt for choice as far as a range of games go, performance wise. And if hardware upgrades begin to dwindle, we'll probably see developers target the average system according to Steam hardware surveys, whatever that might be.

 

[Zloth]

I don't know if I'm going to bother with that very very last boss. It will take a lot of work to get that video to play with my character in it.

I started playing Dragon's Dogma 2 and I'm having a lot of fun with it. ANOTHER game with excellent exploration!

Unfortunately, you're going to need to keep playing and talking about Elden Ring so that I remember I need to continue my playthrough with it when I'm ready. So...get to it.

Ohh! How much is it worth to ya? Maybe there's something more than a video and an achievement!

My wife just tried to play Elden Ring for the first time, but for some reason the game kept freezing for several seconds every once in a while. It seemed like it was loading something as the fans would suddenly spin up too, but task manager indicated that CPU and GPU stayed below 100%.

I would get short-term freezes if I played the game for 2+ hours. The solution was to simply take the hint, stop the game, and move around some.

 

[Pifanjr]

Its sad, ive been reading articles over the last couple months talking about how PC gaming might become this insanely-priced level of gaming that will keep being pushed out of the reach of the general population due to the demand of AI and as much sense as it makes from a raw-material perspective, its sad that these companies cant sacrifice some revenue to keep electronic parts (especially PC) in a competitive price range because those ram prices are certainly anything but. I honestly dont know if even reversing tariffs on goods would help all that much at this point

There seems to be a decent chance that the AI bubble will pop somewhere in the next few years and hopefully prices will plummet then, but we'll see.

If prices don't drop down again, I suppose I'll just have to stick with less demanding games. I loved being able to play more games after my last upgrade, but it's not like I was running out of games to play.

 

[Johnway]

There seems to be a decent chance that the AI bubble will pop somewhere in the next few years and hopefully prices will plummet then, but we'll see.

If prices don't drop down again, I suppose I'll just have to stick with less demanding games. I loved being able to play more games after my last upgrade, but it's not like I was running out of games to play.

This was what i was thinking. Sure, my pc is old compared to today's tech, but everything in my steam collection will work at medium/high with indie games i can probably get away with it for even longer.

Only the very latest games released in 2025+ will bother me and even then its only a handful of games i would play like BG3, cyberpunk2077 and thats only a handful not enough to justify a replacement. So i can wait, especially when i build my pc in 2017. i would like to squeeze maybe 10 years before needing to upgrade once more.

the only thing that would get me to buy now is if my pc suddenly broke, but i don't see that happening any time soon.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

@Zloth @Pifanjr

Theres some noise about around the Xbox app/Game bar not playing well with Elden Ring in Steam if that helps you guys pick up a scent. Seems like a new problem, I had what people would probably call microstutter occasionally but otherwise no freezes on the launch version of the game. When I played it for the DLC last year I dont remember that being a problem anymore.

This was what i was thinking. Sure, my pc is old compared to today's tech, but everything in my steam collection will work at medium/high with indie games i can probably get away with it for even longer.

Only the very latest games released in 2025+ will bother me and even then its only a handful of games i would play like BG3, cyberpunk2077 and thats only a handful not enough to justify a replacement. So i can wait, especially when i build my pc in 2017. i would like to squeeze maybe 10 years before needing to upgrade once more.

the only thing that would get me to buy now is if my pc suddenly broke, but i don't see that happening any time soon.

Latching onto that thread concerning prices at the moment. My partners ancient laptop is giving up the ghost and Ive been looking into picking up spare parts cheap to build her a small desktop. I'm sure this isnt news to someone like @BeardyHat but I've been excited at what I could put together for €300-€400 from mostly second hand parts. Right now I could get a Fractal Design Define R5 case, a brand new decent PSU on sale for 50, Ryzen 3600, B550 mobo, 16GB DDR4 3200, 1TB NVME and a GTX 1070 for about 400 Euros total. Theres also really cheap 1080p IPS screens around for 50 on top of that, much better than any laptop for the same price and gives me a project. Waiting until the new year, but looks very promising, and I can donate parts down the line from my system as I update them.

Obviously a 1070 isnt going to play the latest AAA stuff that needs RT, but it will run CAD and Photoshop and a good selection of games on top, looking forwards to playing stuff with my kid in the future.

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Far as games go Ive been playing Nioh. Im in a 3rd person action mood right now and this seems like a good challenging one of those, with extra incremental loot sprinkled on top.

Still playing Tails of Iron, I'd probably have finished it now except my kid really likes to watch me play it so I'm saving it for her. Great little game, little bit grindy at times because theyre trying to stretch out the playtime, but I really like the deliberate combat so its not too much of a bother.

Sprinkled in a bit more of Pathfinder Wrath of the Righteous too, which seems a really solid isometric CRPG with decent writing so far.

 

[Pifanjr]

@Zloth @Pifanjr

Theres some noise about around the Xbox app/Game bar not playing well with Elden Ring in Steam if that helps you guys pick up a scent. Seems like a new problem, I had what people would probably call microstutter occasionally but otherwise no freezes on the launch version of the game. When I played it for the DLC last year I dont remember that being a problem anymore.

I started a new game on my own account and had zero issues, so either the game needed to be restart after changing the video settings or the problem was that my wife was streaming on Discord. Probably the latter, though I'm not sure why that caused the game to pause for like 10 seconds every so often.

I ended up playing for two hours. I definitely like the open world a lot more than the level design of the other Dark Souls games, but I still don't like the combat. Especially coming from Mount & Blade it's so frustrating how long it takes my character to attack after I press the button. And once I'm on my horse, why does my character decide that the best way to use a stick with a pointy bit on the end is to drag the point over the ground and then swing it up?

Still, once I got used to it I didn't have much trouble with any of the enemies I encountered... until I met the infamous big bears. Those things are ridiculously fast and take huge swings while having a ton of health.

 

[BeardyHat]

Latching onto that thread concerning prices at the moment. My partners ancient laptop is giving up the ghost and Ive been looking into picking up spare parts cheap to build her a small desktop. I'm sure this isnt news to someone like @BeardyHat but I've been excited at what I could put together for €300-€400 from mostly second hand parts. Right now I could get a Fractal Design Define R5 case, a brand new decent PSU on sale for 50, Ryzen 3600, B550 mobo, 16GB DDR4 3200, 1TB NVME and a GTX 1070 for about 400 Euros total. Theres also really cheap 1080p IPS screens around for 50 on top of that, much better than any laptop for the same price and gives me a project. Waiting until the new year, but looks very promising, and I can donate parts down the line from my system as I update them.

Obviously a 1070 isnt going to play the latest AAA stuff that needs RT, but it will run CAD and Photoshop and a good selection of games on top, looking forwards to playing stuff with my kid in the future.

Hell yeah!

I actually have a similar project, all of a sudden. Went to our annual Friendsgiving last night and my Nephew was there; he's about to turn 16 and was telling me he was hoping to get everyone in the family (we have a large one) to kick a little bit of cash to get him a gaming PC for a combo Birthday/Christmas gift.

I took a look at Microcenter and they've got some decent deals, but honestly it'll still probably be out of the price range for what the family can kick (large family, but many of us are paupers), so I'm starting to think our max budget might be like $300. So as soon as I woke-up this morning I started perusing Craiglist to hunt for a good deal on a whole PC or some cheap PC parts from a couple of years ago.

I think I can make it happen and get him something decent, but I need to see if the rest of the family has buy in first. My friend just upgraded his PC and he usually doesn't do anything with his old PC parts, so I was going to ask him if I could have at least his old 3060 and then I can build around that. Have also been wanting a new module PSU for my ITX HTPC since that'll allow better airflow and then I could go ahead and use my old good PSU for the Nephew's build.

Honestly, I find it super fun to have a very tight budget.

 

[Zloth]

I ended up playing for two hours. I definitely like the open world a lot more than the level design of the other Dark Souls games, but I still don't like the combat. Especially coming from Mount & Blade it's so frustrating how long it takes my character to attack after I press the button. And once I'm on my horse, why does my character decide that the best way to use a stick with a pointy bit on the end is to drag the point over the ground and then swing it up?

Short swords/knives are good for speed, but I don't think they work from horse/bull/file-transfer-protocol-back. That gold guy on the big horse has a halberd that should work, maybe you could buy it off him?

Still, once I got used to it I didn't have much trouble with any of the enemies I encountered... until I met the infamous big bears. Those things are ridiculously fast and take huge swings while having a ton of health.

You got used to it in two hours!? It took me way longer - I had to practice on a wolf pack for a while. It was days before I was swinging right even 80% of the time.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

I started a new game on my own account and had zero issues, so either the game needed to be restart after changing the video settings or the problem was that my wife was streaming on Discord. Probably the latter, though I'm not sure why that caused the game to pause for like 10 seconds every so often.

I ended up playing for two hours. I definitely like the open world a lot more than the level design of the other Dark Souls games, but I still don't like the combat. Especially coming from Mount & Blade it's so frustrating how long it takes my character to attack after I press the button. And once I'm on my horse, why does my character decide that the best way to use a stick with a pointy bit on the end is to drag the point over the ground and then swing it up?

Still, once I got used to it I didn't have much trouble with any of the enemies I encountered... until I met the infamous big bears. Those things are ridiculously fast and take huge swings while having a ton of health.

Sounds like either CPU or software problems, seems like quite a few have been having the Xbox issue but computers are weird.

Did you dodge the big golden guy on the horse? Its hard to switch between games with similar action but different control schemes and quirks.

Hell yeah!

I actually have a similar project, all of a sudden. Went to our annual Friendsgiving last night and my Nephew was there; he's about to turn 16 and was telling me he was hoping to get everyone in the family (we have a large one) to kick a little bit of cash to get him a gaming PC for a combo Birthday/Christmas gift.

I took a look at Microcenter and they've got some decent deals, but honestly it'll still probably be out of the price range for what the family can kick (large family, but many of us are paupers), so I'm starting to think our max budget might be like $300. So as soon as I woke-up this morning I started perusing Craiglist to hunt for a good deal on a whole PC or some cheap PC parts from a couple of years ago.

I think I can make it happen and get him something decent, but I need to see if the rest of the family has buy in first. My friend just upgraded his PC and he usually doesn't do anything with his old PC parts, so I was going to ask him if I could have at least his old 3060 and then I can build around that. Have also been wanting a new module PSU for my ITX HTPC since that'll allow better airflow and then I could go ahead and use my old good PSU for the Nephew's build.

Honestly, I find it super fun to have a very tight budget.

Nice, its good to have a project that will make someone else happy too. If I really pushed for lowest amounts here that would still run most stuff, it would be quad core I7's which are going for like 20-30 with the Z87-Z170 motherboards around for not much more than that. Throw in a €30 GTX 970 or something and even some DDR3 depending on the platform you could get something going that would play everything up until 2 years ago at 1080p for under €200. Unfortunately you have to be a nerd to be able to do it so its a bit restrictive for people who arent interested in hardware and just want to buy a pre-built. People are offering GT710s for €20 right next to GTX680's at the same price. I did consider at one point building systems out of 2nd hand parts and reselling them, but I really dont want to offer customer support to more than a couple of people when using old parts that could pop at any point through no fault of anyones.

Anyway, its really fun to scout out whats around and surprising what you can find for cheap. I was initially going for an ITX build because there was a really nice looking Jonsbo case going, but its so hard to find parts that fit, and I wouldn't then neccesarily be able to use my old stuff later. Wife agreed she didnt mind a mid tower under the desk so that makes stuff easier. There are 1070s going for well under €100, with 8GB VRAM its gonna be more than enough and after a couple of years it'll get my 4070 anyway.

 

[BeardyHat]

Nice, its good to have a project that will make someone else happy too. If I really pushed for lowest amounts here that would still run most stuff, it would be quad core I7's which are going for like 20-30 with the Z87-Z170 motherboards around for not much more than that. Throw in a €30 GTX 970 or something and even some DDR3 depending on the platform you could get something going that would play everything up until 2 years ago at 1080p for under €200. Unfortunately you have to be a nerd to be able to do it so its a bit restrictive for people who arent interested in hardware and just want to buy a pre-built. People are offering GT710s for €20 right next to GTX680's at the same price. I did consider at one point building systems out of 2nd hand parts and reselling them, but I really dont want to offer customer support to more than a couple of people when using old parts that could pop at any point through no fault of anyones.

Anyway, its really fun to scout out whats around and surprising what you can find for cheap. I was initially going for an ITX build because there was a really nice looking Jonsbo case going, but its so hard to find parts that fit, and I wouldn't then neccesarily be able to use my old stuff later. Wife agreed she didnt mind a mid tower under the desk so that makes stuff easier. There are 1070s going for well under €100, with 8GB VRAM its gonna be more than enough and after a couple of years it'll get my 4070 anyway.

It is a pleasant feeling, especially when you're helping someone get into a hobby that you've loved for a long time. Depending on what happens here (that is, piecing something together vs finding a cheap, but altogether machine on a second-hand site), I may collect everything and have him help build it, so he get some knowledge and experience and hopefully won't be afraid to dig-in when it's time.

Definitely not sure what we're targeting yet. He doesn't play anything graphically intensive and I'm not sure what our budget will be, as I'll have to talk to my in-laws and see what they want to kick, especially because we have several kids to buy for in the family. If it's under $200-$300, I probably will look at some of those significantly older i7's (My HTPC with an i7-7700 and 6650 XT works great. Plays everything at 1080p and a few older things at 4k). I did, just for fun, piece together an AM4 system earlier this morning on eBay and came away with approximately $465 for everything, including a 1660 Super and 16Gb of RAM.

And yeah, ITX is a little too limiting when you're on a budget and want to keep options open. I found a couple mITX cases for $15 on the local secondhand market, but figure it's just too restricting for other hardware. Plus I actually have a midtower case hanging around that I could use, though it's kind of ugly, because I painted it; mostly because it had that rubberized coating on it and it's like 15+ years old now, so it got all sticky and weird. But the system itself is an i5-2500k and a 1070. I installed Linux on it with the intention to let my kids use it, but I haven't migrated their games away from our Den yet, so they just game on my HTPC and my old gaming laptop most of the time.

There's always something fun about doing with less and pushing less as far as it can go. I'm usually pleasantly surprised at that.

 

[Pifanjr]

Short swords/knives are good for speed, but I don't think they work from horse/bull/file-transfer-protocol-back. That gold guy on the big horse has a halberd that should work, maybe you could buy it off him?

You got used to it in two hours!? It took me way longer - I had to practice on a wolf pack for a while. It was days before I was swinging right even 80% of the time.

Yeah, short weapons are probably quicker, but I'd rather have a weapon with reach and learn the timing than to have to get close to get a hit in. But I should try out some different weapons when I find some.

I'm not saying I'm good at the game by the way, I'm just good enough to not die most of the time against the regular enemies in Limgrave (large bears excluded). Having long reach helps a lot in not being hit much, as well as just running away when things go wrong.

Sounds like either CPU or software problems, seems like quite a few have been having the Xbox issue but computers are weird.

I just hope it won't come up again.

Did you dodge the big golden guy on the horse? Its hard to switch between games with similar action but different control schemes and quirks.

I went around him in a wide circle. I should probably try defeating him now that I have a horse of my own, just to see how hard it is. After spending all of my souls of course.

As for the buttons, I kept pressing the button to drink a potion instead of attacking when things got hectic. I'm not sure what that was about.

 

[Zloth]

Ran into an annoyance in Dragon's Dogma 2.

The game has inns (and, later, possibly a house) for sleeping in town, but sleeping at night requires a campfire. These are dotted around the landscape and, to use one, you need some camping gear. You can re-use the gear as long as nothing attacks you, so you don't need a pile of the things, but they are fairly heavy.

Today, I had a mul... <ahem> a fighter carrying the camping gear. Suddenly, I noticed that she had simply vanished. When I looked at my party list, she wasn't on it. There was no dead body behind me (I could have revived her if she was there). Just... gone. My stuff that she was carrying should be automatically sent to my general storage, but you can only get to that at inns, and I was WAY out of town, and it was getting dark fast!

I got lucky and found a ferrystone, so I was able to get back to town, but jeez! I almost had to hoof it back.