What Are You Playing Right Now, Part 2: Daggerfall

[Yora]

I am doing the DLCs both at the end of my third playthrough. Difficulty isn't so much the issue. The last boss fight in Ashes of Ariandel is pretty fun, but otherwise I have just not enjoyed exploring the area or fighting the enemies. I quickly came to a point where I didn't want to discover more, but just get out.

Not sure how far I got in Ringed City, but the Dreg Heap was pretty annoying to work through. Those first enemies just keep coming in such great numbers and are not interesting to fight, that I quickly just ran past them to go the first angel gone. Then getting rid of the second angel requires that you go looking for a quiet well hidden path and make a somewhat challenging jump, which is in the part of the area that doesn't have any cover while the angel keeps spamming lasers at you. Finding the path out of the poison swamp while hiding from the angel also wasn't fun, and then you get to two elite assassins and a pyromancer who all swarm you at once. While you still have to worry about not getting out of cover to get laser spammed by the angel. The Dreg Heap requires you to do a task that should be done slowly and carefully, but giving you only seconds before you get annihilated. That just sucks and is no fun.

[Rodin]

I am doing the DLCs both at the end of my third playthrough. Difficulty isn't so much the issue. The last boss fight in Ashes of Ariandel is pretty fun, but otherwise I have just not enjoyed exploring the area or fighting the enemies. I quickly came to a point where I didn't want to discover more, but just get out.

Not sure how far I got in Ringed City, but the Dreg Heap was pretty annoying to work through. Those first enemies just keep coming in such great numbers and are not interesting to fight, that I quickly just ran past them to go the first angel gone. Then getting rid of the second angel requires that you go looking for a quiet well hidden path and make a somewhat challenging jump, which is in the part of the area that doesn't have any cover while the angel keeps spamming lasers at you. Finding the path out of the poison swamp while hiding from the angel also wasn't fun, and then you get to two elite assassins and a pyromancer who all swarm you at once. While you still have to worry about not getting out of cover to get laser spammed by the angel. The Dreg Heap requires you to do a task that should be done slowly and carefully, but giving you only seconds before you get annihilated. That just sucks and is no fun.

I tend to agree.

Ashes of Ariandel was one of the most disappointing DLCs for the entire franchise, and the last boss fight simply isn't enough to save it. The Ringed City was interesting, but it was only the second half that got me really involved. Playing back through it subsequently, I found the enemies in that area to be irritating and there was some quite unfair stuff (like the angels, and the spectral bowmen, and that priest who can attack you through walls and you can't get to without doing some of that patented Dark Souls Platforming.

[Yora]

Wow. I finally made it through the Dreg Heap and into the city. And then you meet the welcoming committee. So much fun.

[factotum]

Wow. I finally made it through the Dreg Heap and into the city. And then you meet the welcoming committee. So much fun.

This may be a silly question--why are you playing this DLC if it's not fun? There are plenty of not-fun things you have to do during the course of your life, why waste your leisure time doing them as well?

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Thea: the something or another part 2 is coming out of... something. Point is, they gave a big discount to the first part, Thea: the Awakening, so I'm giving it a try. It's a strange mixture of CCG and resource management and civ-like 4X. It's fascinating, but I'm not sure it quite gels together well. So far, my first impression is that it plays slow like molasses. Not a bad characteristic in its own right, but I do have a child which only allows for me to play in short bursts, so I'm not sure I'm giving the game the time it needs.

That said, if anyone has tips & tricks they'd like to share, they'd be welcomed.

Grey Wolf

[Razade]

I found Thea: The Awakening to be...a real slough. The combat's not great and you can auto-skip the battles and as long as you level your people up you don't need to worry. You'll win more or less automatically. The game's not very deep, there's no real need to build lots of cities or even really expand your civilization. Overall I found the game ok to invest for the entire two whole storylines the game has but not really anything to come back to. I got it on a massive discount but I still feel like I didn't get my money's worth.

Having unlocked more or less anything worth unlocking my tips are pretty straight forward. Play the two stories and hope that Thea 2 is a lot better. There's no real guide other than "over-level and win at everything". Because that's pretty much all there is to the strategy of the game.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Having unlocked more or less anything worth unlocking my tips are pretty straight forward. Play the two stories and hope that Thea 2 is a lot better. There's no real guide other than "over-level and win at everything". Because that's pretty much all there is to the strategy of the game.

Well, that's hardly a ringing endorsement, but still: how the Hel do I overlevel? I was given a goddess that gives extra XP, so maybe I'm doing ok there, but I don't see an obvious way to force level-ups (and they don't seem worth it, given there are 20 stats, and they gain a tiny amount in one per level). I was going to concentrate on finding better loot instead. I've noticed that a level-1 with the best gear they can carry is significantly better than a level-7 with basic equipment.

Grey Wolf

[LibraryOgre]

Installed a mod on Oblivion that gives me *5 on every qualifying attribute every level. I am enjoying it a lot more; I hate the "optimal level up" game that the default forces on you.

[halfeye]

Installed a mod on Oblivion that gives me *5 on every qualifying attribute every level. I am enjoying it a lot more; I hate the "optimal level up" game that the default forces on you.

That's probably overdone, I've played it taking five per chosen attribute per level, and you come out over strong, with everything too easy after about level 10. A mod that let you take 3 per attribute might totally fix the game.

[veti]

Installed a mod on Oblivion that gives me *5 on every qualifying attribute every level. I am enjoying it a lot more; I hate the "optimal level up" game that the default forces on you.

I think the best Oblivion fix I found was a mod, which I can't remember the name of now, that simply doubled the base damage done by - everything. I hate the experience of slowly whittling down those health bars with a weapon that is itself getting weaker with every hit...

[Zombimode]

I've finally finished Pools of Darkness and thus concluding and epic that has sprawled over 4 games.

PoD was as long as Curse and Secrets together, or at least thats is how it felt like. PoD was a suitable epic finish to the series.

When compared against each other, Secrets is easily below the other 3 titles. While I liked the begining of Secrets, the game felt unispired as it went on. Overall Secrets provided an only mediocre experience.

PoR, Curse and PoD are more difficult to compare. Each game has its strengths above the other games.

I enjoyed PoD for its epic scope, in both content and actions, the diverse locations and, quite frankly, its polish.
I like Curse for its strong structure and well executed and diverse "chapters". Also, the final battle is my favorite of the four games.
PoR has still the best actual encounter design. But PoR is the hardest to rate, seeing as it was the first GoldBox game I played. As such, I enjoyed PoR for the experience of that type of game. But that makes it hard to objetively compare how well the "GoldBox game model" is executed in PoR compared to the other GoldBox games. Has PoD the better executed GoldBox model? I don't know.

Overall, I would rate PoR, Curse and PoD roughly the same.

But, I have to rant about PoDs final battle. Or "battles", rather.
It's hard, but that is by itself not the problem. The problem is that the difficulty is unfair and frustrating:
The final encounter consists of three battles. The first two are LOADED with Safe-or-die effects.
You start the first battle with one of your PCs with almost zero life.
The majority of enemies can attack at range with an impossible to evade attack (lightning breath).

That means: in order to have any chance to win even the first battle:
- your 1 HP character may not be damaged before receiving a Heal
- your Cleric may not be damaged before casting said Heal
- your Mage may not be damaged before repositioning and getting a Delayed Blast Fireball off (otherwise the numbers of enemies are just insurmountable)

And even if all of the is true, your characters must pass all their saving throws against Disintegration that gets thrown arround by the Pets of Kalistes.

Even If you manage to beat the first battle, the second will pitch you against about 10 beholders (normal beholders, some Death Tyrants, and one Elder Orb) - which means even more Safe-or-dies, and magic is useless.

And even if your are lucky enough to beat that battle you still have to win the last battle (which is admittedly the easiest of the three).

AND YOU CAN'T SAVE BETWEEN THE BATTLES!


Even after setting the game difficulty from Veteran to Novice, it took me several hours of tries.

It was just to much.

[warty goblin]

Managed about 40 minutes of Age of Wonders: Planetfall this evening. The tutorial is boring. Screw the tutorial. Ima learn this game the same way I learned to run mazes made out of spikes blindfolded: face first and screaming.

Very very initial impressions. It's leaning a bit harder on the strategy side than AoW3. So there's a happiness system and you can assign pops to different areas. I'm mostly fine with this, but I'm unconvinced of its necessity. More city micro was not exactly burning up my list of things that I wanted out of an AoW game. On the other hand the Sector system seems like it'll be quite good, and focus the game a lot more on field battles and map maneuvering than AoW3, where it really wasn't worth fighting over anything that wasn't a Seal or a city.

The combat seems solid, though the interface will take a bit of adapting to. It's not bad, in fact it seems quite good, but it's different. Also, if one more preview compares this to XCOM, I will bite something. Just because pretty much everybody's eaten at Subway doesn't mean a Cold Cut Combo should be your go-to when describing sandwiches.

The art and graphical design are just fantastic. This just nails the feel of a certain style of space opera on the nose. The tactical maps in particular are stupidly attractive.

Only real downside is the substantial increase in the amount of VO. I liked AoW3's basically silent take.

Tomorrow, the space amazons will continue to... space amazon.

[Anteros]

Managed about 40 minutes of Age of Wonders: Planetfall this evening. The tutorial is boring. Screw the tutorial. Ima learn this game the same way I learned to run mazes made out of spikes blindfolded: face first and screaming.

Very very initial impressions. It's leaning a bit harder on the strategy side than AoW3. So there's a happiness system and you can assign pops to different areas. I'm mostly fine with this, but I'm unconvinced of its necessity. More city micro was not exactly burning up my list of things that I wanted out of an AoW game. On the other hand the Sector system seems like it'll be quite good, and focus the game a lot more on field battles and map maneuvering than AoW3, where it really wasn't worth fighting over anything that wasn't a Seal or a city.

The combat seems solid, though the interface will take a bit of adapting to. It's not bad, in fact it seems quite good, but it's different. Also, if one more preview compares this to XCOM, I will bite something. Just because pretty much everybody's eaten at Subway doesn't mean a Cold Cut Combo should be your go-to when describing sandwiches.

The art and graphical design are just fantastic. This just nails the feel of a certain style of space opera on the nose. The tactical maps in particular are stupidly attractive.

Only real downside is the substantial increase in the amount of VO. I liked AoW3's basically silent take.

Tomorrow, the space amazons will continue to... space amazon.

I'm downloading it now, and I'll try it tonight. Unlike you, I've always found the city building aspect of AoW to be underwhelming so I'm excited to hear that there's more to do on that front.

I'm honestly pretty iffy on the game. I'm not a huge fan of sci-fi and the trailers didn't really excite me. AoW is one of those franchises that has earned enough of my trust that I'll give them the benefit of the doubt though.

Edit: So you're right about the tutorial being kinda blah. Is it just me or is there very little music in this game? I don't particularly care about music usually, but the game is unusually silent.

[GloatingSwine]

I'm downloading it now, and I'll try it tonight. Unlike you, I've always found the city building aspect of AoW to be underwhelming so I'm excited to hear that there's more to do on that front.

The tactical battles have always been the meat and potatoes of Age of Wonders. The strategy layer is mostly a way of getting things to put into those battles.

I don't think the economy micro is going to be a massive factor, but the way the sector system and annexing sectors to cities works means that there's going to be a bit more to it than "spam cities forever" which was how AoE3 worked.

Hopefully the unit choices and mods, plus resource limit of Blue Stuff, mean that 6xT4 units won't be as dominant an endgame strat as well.

That said I've only done the tutorial and a few turns of the first real mission so far.

[Anteros]

The tactical battles have always been the meat and potatoes of Age of Wonders. The strategy layer is mostly a way of getting things to put into those battles.

I don't think the economy micro is going to be a massive factor, but the way the sector system and annexing sectors to cities works means that there's going to be a bit more to it than "spam cities forever" which was how AoE3 worked.

Hopefully the unit choices and mods, plus resource limit of Blue Stuff, mean that 6xT4 units won't be as dominant an endgame strat as well.

That said I've only done the tutorial and a few turns of the first real mission so far.

I'm about 3 missions in and it seems like "spam cities forever" is still the optimal strategy. You just annex new territories for those cities instead of having them grow naturally over time like AoW3. It gives you more control over which direction you expand, but ultimately it's not that different from before.

As for resource management, so far I've not had to resource manage at all. Research has been taking so long that by the time I can build advanced units I've got a huge stockpile anyway. And that's even considering that I've been picking research exploitation for my areas. Granted I'm only playing on advanced and it's early in the campaign so maybe you need to minmax more as you go along.

So...my opinion of the game itself...it's very much just AoW3 in space. Whether that's good or bad depends on how much you enjoy AoW3 I suppose. I'm liking it enough that I'll probably at least finish the vanguard campaign. I am also enjoying how many different options they give you to win each campaign map. They keep promising that these choices will be important later too, which is nice. No telling how much they actually matter at this point though. Still, it's nice to make your own decisions. From the trailer I was expecting a generic "human military bad, space elf good" type of story and it seems to be a bit more nuanced than that. I'm also really liking how easy it is to make alliances with other factions. In AoW3 it was almost impossible. I'm not sure if that's a quirk of the campaign or an overall design change though.

As for the bad. Like I said, it's AoW3 reskinned. There's not really much new here in the way of mechanics. Units with inherent stun are still incredibly overpowered. It's also still abominably slow during the computer turns on larger maps. Especially if you have a lot of vision. They desperately need to fix that. It made larger maps on AoW3 unplayable during the late game. Even on an SSD you'd have to wait 5-10 minutes for the computer to take their turn each round. I've not run into anything that bad yet in this installment, but it's early and I'm already running into computer turns that take 1-2 minutes each. Also, I'm not sure how I feel about the good and bad trait system for your hero. I like that they let you customize your hero for the campaign, but some of the traits simply don't work as advertised. I took the recommended ones which were "start at level 3" and "start with a melee weapon" and yet my hero was still level one with a rifle. I suppose that's probably just a bug since the game just launched.

Edit: And I've run into another bug. This one is a lot more gamebreaking. One of the scenario quests requires you to be allied with a certain faction. I've been allied with them for like 30 turns and it won't tick over. I even tried breaking alliance and re-allying with them. Pretty frustrating to have to restart a map I spent hours on with no guarantee that this time it will work properly.

[Dienekes]

Alright back in Divinity 2. Hit level 7 last night, and I have to say since I switched to a mostly all physical damage team the game has gotten ridiculously easier. To the point I’m disappointed there’s no higher difficulty. The only time I had to resurrect anyone was when I faced a Shrieker for the first time. And that hardly counts, since it’s an insta-kill. But, yeah, my Mage has shifted entirely to support stuff. Rocking Magic Armor buffs, healing, teleportation, and some transform opponents into a chicken ability. So now she doesn’t feel completely useless for 3/4 of a fight. There’s so much you can do with teleportation. My frontline strips armor faster than you can blink then has a bunch of knockdown effects. While my rogue can jump to high priority targets and nuke them.

Game rocks but there are some polish issues. Like everyone proclaiming the need to find a ship literally 10 minutes after we found one. More annoyingly my rogue needs to learn about Lone Wolves since one link in her quest got killed a bit before she got a chance to interrogate him. No problem my main is a Lone Wolf. But there is no option for them to share information. Alright then in my mains quest he meets up with another Lone Wolf to pick up an item. Can she talk to him? Still no? Alright I’m stumped here.

One final bit of criticism. So far pumping my charismatic jester of a mage full of persuasion seems useless. Which is a bit annoying as I’ve dropped a fair few points in it, and my barter focused main just straight fails every conversation check. Since getting optimal bartering is more about rearranging items in packs it seems like I’ve done this completely backwards.

[Avilan the Grey]

I am still playing the same old same old.
In fact, my old gaming laptop from 2015 is falling physically to pieces (all USB ports except one is broken, for example). But i realized the other day I really haven't bought any games since 2015 that requires a more powerful machine than what i have, so that means i can go way below the 1000 dollar mark I have spent the last three times i bought a laptop.

Anyway.

Right now juggling three games:

Sims 4 with all the expansions (playing a lesbian mermaid / human couple in Sulani)
Cities Skylines with three expansions, the only three that interests me: Green Cities, After Dark, Mass Transit.
Gloomhaven Digital (early access, so only 4 out of 17 classes implemented, and only the rogue-like random dungeons mode functioning atm).

[Erloas]

So I don't really know why but I've sort of wanted to actually try minecraft now. But I know part of that is to play with other players (not in a fighting way). Not doing MMOs any more. Is there a GITP server someone is running?

[Silverraptor]

So I don't really know why but I've sort of wanted to actually try minecraft now. But I know part of that is to play with other players (not in a fighting way). Not doing MMOs any more. Is there a GITP server someone is running?

I am actually curious about that myself.

[factotum]

So I don't really know why but I've sort of wanted to actually try minecraft now. But I know part of that is to play with other players (not in a fighting way).

Minecraft is perfectly playable single player?

[Erloas]

Minecraft is perfectly playable single player?

But I'm specifically wanting to play with other people. Not necessarily constantly, but having other people around is always nice.

[Anteros]

I took a few days off from AoW4 Planetfall and tried to go back to it tonight. It's...just not a very good game. Bugs aside, it's honestly an enormous step back from AoW3. Every hero feels the same. Every race feels the same. The tech trees don't feel appreciably different and are all bloated with nonsense useless techs that don't serve any purpose except slowing the game down. Exploration is boring, because the dwellings/dungeons of the previous entries have been gutted, and exploring them is hardly rewarding anyway. I also managed to literally skip 20 turns in a row just to get research I needed to win the last mission I played and the AI didn't punish me at all. The map took 45 turns and I skipped the last 20 of them and won. Easily. I could have probably skipped another 20-30 because the AI didn't seem to be doing anything anyway. This is on hard. I've yet to lose a battle in the 5 maps I've played, even when I auto calculate them. It's laughable. It's not even me being good at strategy games. The AI is just that bad.

It's just completely unacceptable for a 50.00 AAA title on every level. If anyone is on the fence about this entry I absolutely don't recommend it at all.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

It's just completely unacceptable for a 50.00 AAA title on every level. If anyone is on the fence about this entry I absolutely don't recommend it at all.

It was already on my "wait for a discount" list, but after this review (which confirms several suspicions I already had about the game... although I suppose I should be wary about confirmation bias), I may have to downgrade it to the "wait 'til it's 50% off or better" list, or maybe all the way down to "Epic gives it away" list.

The fact that I enjoy AoW3, but not so much I ever got to the end of a campaign was already giving me pause. But speaking of that, how's the storyline?

Grey Wolf

[Anteros]

It was already on my "wait for a discount" list, but after this review (which confirms several suspicions I already had about the game... although I suppose I should be wary about confirmation bias), I may have to downgrade it to the "wait 'til it's 50% off or better" list, or maybe all the way down to "Epic gives it away" list.

The fact that I enjoy AoW3, but not so much I ever got to the end of a campaign was already giving me pause. But speaking of that, how's the storyline?

Grey Wolf

It's hard to say how the story is. I did about 3 or 4 maps of the human campaign and then for whatever reason there weren't any more available despite the story being nowhere near finished. I guess you have to do some of the other race's to unlock the later human ones. What I had done already wasn't good enough to draw me into doing the others, so I started messing around in custom maps.

[danzibr]

A bit late to the scene, I just about beat Hollow Knight. Not only the single best platformer I’ve ever played, but definitely top 10 favorite games of all time.

[Yora]

So I decided to do a second playthrough of Bloodborne after 3 years. And something really isn't right with this game. I thought it was pretty fun the last time, but now I just can't help to think it's pretty bad. I do no damage and many enemies can kill me in one or two hits that I have no way to see coming from anywhere. Many boss fights seem like pure luck and I only win them because somehow the boss didn't use that one attack I have no clue how to predict or defend again and that kills me instantly.

[GloatingSwine]

A bit late to the scene, I just about beat Hollow Knight. Not only the single best platformer I’ve ever played, but definitely top 10 favorite games of all time.

Hollow Knight's great. I've just gotten to the end of a replay myself.

Spoiler

Show

My first go through I didn't beat The Radiance, so that's on my list. Am up to the point where I have that, the last colosseum fight, Nightmare King Grimm, and the Pantheon to do.

[DigoDragon]

But I'm specifically wanting to play with other people. Not necessarily constantly, but having other people around is always nice.

I can understand this! My siblings and I play LAN occasionally, because the game is kinda like digital LEGO and when you build something artsy, it feels better to share.

[Dienekes]

So I decided to do a second playthrough of Bloodborne after 3 years. And something really isn't right with this game. I thought it was pretty fun the last time, but now I just can't help to think it's pretty bad. I do no damage and many enemies can kill me in one or two hits that I have no way to see coming from anywhere. Many boss fights seem like pure luck and I only win them because somehow the boss didn't use that one attack I have no clue how to predict or defend again and that kills me instantly.

Used to speedrun BB. Which boss moves are giving you trouble? They all do have answers, though some of them will just be “get the dodge timing right.”

As to attackers coming from nowhere. That was kind of the point, it’s a horror game, there’s danger around every corner.

Now all the ambushes I can think of have tells if you’re moving slow and paying attention. From weapons peaking out, monsters that clearly see you waiting for you to run into their trap, hands holding on the walls, to the game giving you glimpses of the ambush some 5 - 10 minutes before you reach it.

Though if memory serves, the beginning of the game is clearly the hardest bit. A lot of the later bosses are downright easy, unless you do the DLC.

Also, how are you weapon upgrades? I don’t remember my damage in BB feeling low, especially if you’re getting your parries.

[Yora]

I currently do 341 with the saw cleaver. Have Vitality at 40 and Endurance at 30.

The problem is that I keep fighting against a giant foot for a minute and then suddenly I get hit by something from somewhere that gets me into stun/dodge-lock and then I'm dead. Half the time, I can't even see the enemy I am fighting. Amelia, Parl, and Amygdala are the worst of those bosses. Erebrietas' orbital laser strike also counts.