September 2025 General Game Discussion Thread

[Zloth]

New area! Hmm, are they just going to hand me some treasure without fighting anything? That's not like them. I don't see anything around - not even in the trees. Huh, some funny looking rocks near the treasure, though.

View: https://youtu.be/dU4LHGL9pIc

 

[Johnway]

Still playing path of exile. the good news is that we are now at 15 challenges. over halfway to the target 28 challenges. For now i can grind out the next 4 ish challenges and pretty confident that i'll get them nearer to the end. another 2 i can probably do if i splash the cash, so again, probably time constraints.

So that leaves me with the ones i haven't started with. they're all end game bsaed and i'm not sure how i can progress. i have my eye on one or 2 but its going to require serious grinding before i can complete. many of them require me to complete that content 4/5 times and thats boring. Others are too difficult or makes the grinding even worse.

Speaking of worse, i am 85% of the way to level 95. What pisses me off is that i was so close to getting to the next level but i keep getting killed just before i reach it and delays me again by hours of more grinding. i think a slow and steady progress is the way forward as i keep trying to do high level content to get there sooner. i would jump into a public game and sit and wait, but no one else is playing atm. So no hope there.

Speaking of path of exile. path of exile 2 twitch drops are available again. this time its the abyssal cape (to go with the helmet from last week!)

 

[BeardyHat]

Robocop: Rogue City is a pretty neat game. I like "Open Zone" concept, where it's a higher detail couple of blocks in the city and you're free to explore and complete little missions within the area.

That said, I don't think the way it runs justifies how it looks. It doesn't look terrible or anything, but you have something like Kingdom Come 2 which both looks and runs better. This must be the UE5 jank I keep hearing about...assuming this is on UE5. I have a similar issue with Pacific Drive.

 

[Zed Clampet]

New area! Hmm, are they just going to hand me some treasure without fighting anything? That's not like them. I don't see anything around - not even in the trees. Huh, some funny looking rocks near the treasure, though.

View: https://youtu.be/dU4LHGL9pIc

There is a cave near our base in Dune that has a chest that always drops 1 of about 15 unique blueprints, including the best armor available outside of the deep desert, and there isn't a single enemy in it. I go there all the time to get blueprints to make things to sell on the market.

The cave is extremely radiated, though, and even with the best radiation suit, you pretty much have to get in and out fairly quickly.

Robocop: Rogue City is a pretty neat game. I like "Open Zone" concept, where it's a higher detail couple of blocks in the city and you're free to explore and complete little missions within the area.

That said, I don't think the way it runs justifies how it looks. It doesn't look terrible or anything, but you have something like Kingdom Come 2 which both looks and runs better. This must be the UE5 jank I keep hearing about...assuming this is on UE5. I have a similar issue with Pacific Drive.

It's in UE5. The problem seems to be that they went crazy with Lumen (real time illumination) and Nanite (ultra detailed geometry rendering), wanting it to be sort of a UE5 showcase.

 

[Zloth]

The Fromsoft devs are outright murderous. They love to pop a treasure into a room that seems empty, only to have critters jump out and attack. They are fair about it, though - if you look carefully, you'll see them.

I was surprised by something in that video. I've found it impossible to dodge those hand attacks but, in that video of my first encounter, I did it just fine! Looks like you have to dodge toward their left or right side to make it work, not away from them.

 

[BeardyHat]

The Fromsoft devs are outright murderous. They love to pop a treasure into a room that seems empty, only to have critters jump out and attack. They are fair about it, though - if you look carefully, you'll see them.

I was surprised by something in that video. I've found it impossible to dodge those hand attacks but, in that video of my first encounter, I did it just fine! Looks like you have to dodge toward their left or right side to make it work, not away from them.

This makes me feel like such a cheater as a Sorcerer. I just ride my horse around these things and easily kite them to death.

It is a give and take though, I suppose. There's definitely encounters where being a Sorc makes things harder, such as large bosses and enemies where it pays to be up close with them.

 

[Zloth]

You mean the hand things? I've discovered that they REALLY hate fire. If I overcharge a black flame ball on them, it will take out almost all of a big hand's HP and cause it to roll around to try and put the fire out!

 

[JCgames]

No, I mean I have a key for it you can have from Humble. It's probably worth $0

Well you are a gamer with a steam account right? Just make a post on some game you both have, betterif its an old game that has little traffic, like me making a post on dead in vinland saying i love this game. Easy to find, then just link up and drop a message on the persons profile or friend them and talk shop in chat. Easy as proverbial pie

 

[JCgames]

Speaking of content algorithms, one day on YouTube it recommended a video called something like "These women divorced their husbands and immediately regretted it!" I'm not sure why, but I watched the video. Now half the suggested videos are anti-female videos.

Site's need to have some way you can go into a visual representation of the algorithm as it applies to you and let you remove types of content.

You can clear your watch history and search history at any time. You can also just not log into the site and watch as a guest. i find the whole you might like this suggestion are typically not helpful. If i want to watch a video i run a search. I prefer having a clean slate. If i want game vids, i dont need my last, tractor reviews popping up muddling the results.

 

[BeardyHat]

You mean the hand things? I've discovered that they REALLY hate fire. If I overcharge a black flame ball on them, it will take out almost all of a big hand's HP and cause it to roll around to try and put the fire out!

That sounds pretty cool. I've never actually used any fire spells for as long as I've been playing as a caster in the From games. Not sure why that is.

 

[Johnway]

Well, i've reached level 95 in POE and the amount of time to get that last 10% exp? TWO HOURS.

2 hours of fustration, walking on egg shells and the game giving me the middle finger. I started the session at 90% and decided to take it easy with a blue map, push my luck with a vaal side area and promptly got killed. I decided to do some delving (after all thats how i got the exp to this point) and just as i got to 95% again i died.

Switch back to going on easy maps and slowly mapping and eventually did i get to the next level. A sigh of relief and nearly 3 hours delay in progress.

So what next? well, keep grinding and get those challenges. Splash the cash to get the cheapest fractured gear and complete the next challenge.

i'm tempted once more to buy some tabs for POE. Mostly to prepare for POE2.

 

[BeardyHat]

Picked up Abiotic Factor again today. Just exploring my immediate area, I see there's already one new open path. However, the patch broke my containment unit for the Leyak, so I had to rebuild the tools and then recapture it, so that was annoying.

But I think I'll explore the new area opened up and then finish off the dam area I last quit in and then try to finish up the game from there.

 

[Pifanjr]

I tried Lethal Company with a friend of mine. I had no idea what I was doing or what I was looking for, so I just kind of ran after my friend. The first level went okay, but then we went to a different moon and we both got killed by a turret that was pointed at the exit of an elevator we took. I don't think there was anything we could've done to avoid that death and we lost all of the items we just bought.

It's definitely the worst game in the genre of "loot items while avoiding enemies" I've played. It was hard to avoid running into enemies and death is very punishing. It's possible that some of the items from the store would be helpful, but the game doesn't seem to have any explanation of what they do.

 

[neogunhero]

Lots of gaming this past weekend. Most played was Insurgency Sandstorm, I'm in a phase with it. Mostly playing co-op PVE and enjoying the triple XP event they've got going on. I unlocked the second rarest achievement in the game:

For context, trucks are rare in the game. Only a handful of maps have one AFAIK, and most times you have to know where it's at, as in it's usually not in the most popular path players are taking between objectives. Enemies will sometimes come in trucks which you can then commandeer but most players don't get in. When I got the achievement, someone on the server pointed out that there was one hidden in an alley some ways from where we were. A group of us ran towards it and I made sure to hop in the drivers seat for this achievement specifically. I drove us around for a good 5 minutes with the gunner doing some serious work on the enemies. The maps aren't wide open like BF maps so driving is pretty slow but it was still a lot of fun to do. I suppose I've never done that before in my 80 hours of this game so that was awesome.

I then noticed that I got early access to the early access version of Skate. What? Skate Insiders, those of played the playtest, are given "advanced" access to the public release that's coming next Tuesday. Thankfully there won't be another progress reset until (hopefully) some other major version update coming in the far future, so that means I get to grind out some levels and get stylish before the floodgates open. Performance is vastly improved, I can actually turn up the graphics settings without dropping frames anymore. Animations look better, though there are a few minor things that weren't issues before that are causing some now. I keep getting a "waiting for other players..." message when trying to do missions solo... who am I waiting for? It takes a good minute for it to go away and let me play again. Still, early access, so there will be bugs. Main gameplay still feels very solid which is good.

Last thing, after switching to Windows 11 I can't just pin This PC to my taskbar. I can pin the File Explorer, but I want it to show me my drives right off the bat just like Windows 10 did for the past 10 years... File Explorer just shows your favorited folders. I had to find a tutorial which was just a bit more involved than it needs to be. You have to make a new shortcut on your desktop and set "%SystemRoot%\explorer.exe shell:MyComputerFolder" as the location, then pin that shortcut to your taskbar. Windows 11 outright refuses to let you do this normally as it does with any other program. It's minor things like this that are annoying me with Win11. Also, I updated Windows after the whole SSD debacle died down, and had to run O&O ShutUp10++ again. It helped clear up almost a full gig of memory that was runnig idly by clearing all unnecessary Windows background processes which is just insane to me. The Game Bar should not be using 300MB of memory just to never, ever, be opened. Also, I don't see a speck of AI or Co-Pilot anywhere on my computer so that makes me happy.

 

[neogunhero]

Picked up Abiotic Factor again today.

I tried Lethal Company with a friend of mine.

I have the hardest time discerning the difference between these two games.

 

[BeardyHat]

Last thing, after switching to Windows 11 I can't just pin This PC to my taskbar. I can pin the File Explorer, but I want it to show me my drives right off the bat just like Windows 10 did for the past 10 years... File Explorer just shows your favorited folders. I had to find a tutorial which was just a bit more involved than it needs to be. You have to make a new shortcut on your desktop and set "%SystemRoot%\explorer.exe shell:MyComputerFolder" as the location, then pin that shortcut to your taskbar. Windows 11 outright refuses to let you do this normally as it does with any other program. It's minor things like this that are annoying me with Win11. Also, I updated Windows after the whole SSD debacle died down, and had to run O&O ShutUp10++ again. It helped clear up almost a full gig of memory that was runnig idly by clearing all unnecessary Windows background processes which is just insane to me. The Game Bar should not be using 300MB of memory just to never, ever, be opened. Also, I don't see a speck of AI or Co-Pilot anywhere on my computer so that makes me happy.

No need to get so complicated, Windows 11 does have this feature. I have it enabled.

Open File Explorer, click the three dots on the navigation pane, Options then the drop down at the top Open File Explorer to: This PC

I have the hardest time discerning the difference between these two games.

One is Half-Life Survival the other is...I dunno, haven't played it.

 

[neogunhero]

No need to get so complicated, Windows 11 does have this feature. I have it enabled.

Open File Explorer, click the three dots on the navigation pane, Options then the drop down at the top Open File Explorer to: This PC

What. The. Hell.

First off, thanks for this. Infinitely easier than making the shortcut. Secondly, it is annoying that it's changed the way it is. Again on Windows 10, it had no issues pinning This PC to taskbar at all. Windows 11 makes you change an option, which isn't complicated at all, but if you don't know about it like I did you end up doing stuff like making a custom shortcut lol. Still learning the new OS day by day. It's not fundamentally different at all than Win10 but it's the tiny things like that which are different.

 

[neogunhero]

Slipped in a good 30 minutes of Skate during my lunch break. This guy who was skating around the same spot I was ran up to me and started acting like he wanted to be buddies. He was waving at me, invited me to this party, and we built some ramps together to make a cool little spot. Due to my limited time though I had to leave quickly, which started to make me a bit sad because this guy just wanted to hang out and skate with someone which is exactly how I like to play this game. I should have added him as a friend! Though whenever that happens it's rare that I ever play with that person again... too many times I share a great moment with an online stranger in a game to end up adding them as a friend but never playing together ever again. I guess especially since I never use a mic in a way we both remain fairly anonymous, so the level of guilt I feel for never gaming with them again is low.

 

[Frindis]

Get Honorary Holder and more FREE Steam Points Shop items from the Political Sim Fest!

Take action and snag a new batch of free Steam Points Shop items tied to the latest fest! The giveaway ends on September 15.

gg.deals

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cd4-UnU8lWY

 

[Pifanjr]

I wanted to learn more about the wiring mechanics of Barotrauma, so I decided to make my own submarine. Just a single room with the bare minimum necessary to make it a functioning sub.

At first I thought it might be fun if the only way to steer the sub was to manually set the engine and ballast pump speed, but I quickly discovered that such a small sub reacts very strongly to small changes to the ballast and it would be really difficult to just have the sub stay at a particular elevation. You'd basically have to bounce from the floor to the top or do almost blind hops.

Now, normally you'd hook the engine and ballast pump up to a navigation terminal, which looks like this:

You can either use the autopilot and just click wherever you want your sub to be or you can manually steer and click the direction your sub should accelerate towards and the terminal automatically controls the engine and ballast pump.

However, that seemed too boring to me, so instead I set up three different modes for both the engine and the ballast pump: off, forward/up and backward/down. I then set up a button for the engine and another for the pump that would cycle through these modes when pressed. Note that submarines have quite a lot of inertia, so the 'off' mode does not mean that the sub stops moving, it just means it stops accelerating.

It's a bit tricky to control, but it honestly worked a lot better than I expected. Just look at this perfect docking maneuver:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1mV6iMRWGs


And because I have no reactor and the engine only runs on a max of 10% power the sub is quiet enough to pass by most enemies without being noticed. Of course, if I do get noticed I have a problem since I have no turrets on the ship. Luckily I'm not entirely without options. If I'm close enough to the outpost I can try to rush there while the bots keep the hull intact enough to prevent us from sinking (worked once, failed once). If something comes in I can try to shoot it before it kills us (worked a couple of times, failed a couple of times, also shot my bots quite a few times). Or I can simply try to squash the enemy between the sub and a cavern wall (worked twice):

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nbwwx5sR7Qo


I did a few missions like this and while I had to retry some of them, sometimes twice, the sub worked remarkably well. The low engine power helps prevent major damage when I do ram a cavern wall (which happens fairly frequently) and the bots repair any leaks in a couple of seconds usually.

Still, the game is a lot more fun when playing with friends compared to playing alone. The bots are too good at what they do and there's a distinct lack of chaotic energy you get when a bunch of real people start panicking when things go wrong.