What Are You Playing Right Now, Part 2: Daggerfall

[Cespenar]

I tried Lands of Lore once but never really got into it. I quite happily played through the whole of Might and Magic VI again a couple of years ago, though!

M&M 6-8 still hold quite well for first person games of that age, I'd think. It's a shame that they never continued on with the series.

[factotum]

M&M 6-8 still hold quite well for first person games of that age, I'd think. It's a shame that they never continued on with the series.

I know you're joking, but I think MM9 was better than people give it credit for. I think it got a lot of criticism because it looked so massively different to the previous three games, with small muddy icons for the inventory instead of the large colourful graphics of MM6-8, but I had fun playing it. It's certainly an order of magnitude better than Ultima IX, the other "This is terrible and why did they make it" number 9 in a series.

I also enjoyed Might and Magic X: Legacy, despite its flaws--it was maybe a bit *too* old school for its own good, though.

[Cespenar]

I was being facetious -- I never actually played them to merit such clear cut feelings, just watched some playthroughs and read reviews that made them seem not quite like the recipe I had come to like in 6-8.

[Sermil]

M&M 6-8 still hold quite well for first person games of that age, I'd think. It's a shame that they never continued on with the series.

Heroes of Might and Magic III was also quite good, too bad they never made a sequel to that, either.

[Cespenar]

Heroes of Might and Magic III was also quite good, too bad they never made a sequel to that, either.

Now, now, let's not be hasty.

[Anonymouswizard]

Maybe I should try a Might & Magic game next lockdown

[Fearan]

I'm having a nice run of Trials of Mana remake

[DigoDragon]

I started playing Breath of the Wild for the first time ever. My experience so far is that I feel the real difficulty is fighting with the controller. I'm too used to a keyboard/mouse setup :P

Nearly died in the first shrine to the guardian bot, but mostly dead is still slightly alive and that's pretty much how I been getting by. With luck (and apples). Looking forward to fighting the goblin critters to loot an actual weapon when I can feel comfortable with the controller.

[Anonymouswizard]

I started playing Breath of the Wild for the first time ever. My experience so far is that I feel the real difficulty is fighting with the controller. I'm too used to a keyboard/mouse setup :P

I remember my first time playing I missed the first weapon, managed to get one in the first shrine, only for it to break quickly and all the enemies I killed with it dropped bows or nothing. I fairly quickly decided 'this isn't the Zelda I know' and turned it off.

I've heard that somewhat stops once you get a certain ability that gives you a more reliable way to kill sans-weapons, but I never got that ability, I didn't have the weapons to survive the enemies the game kept throwing at me.

Oh, and I remember the controls feeling a little unusual even for a gamepad setup. I can't remember much now, but X(?) being jump threw me off, I'm so used to playing Devil May Cry.

[Rakaydos]

I remember my first time playing I missed the first weapon, managed to get one in the first shrine, only for it to break quickly and all the enemies I killed with it dropped bows or nothing. I fairly quickly decided 'this isn't the Zelda I know' and turned it off.

I've heard that somewhat stops once you get a certain ability that gives you a more reliable way to kill sans-weapons, but I never got that ability, I didn't have the weapons to survive the enemies the game kept throwing at me.

Oh, and I remember the controls feeling a little unusual even for a gamepad setup. I can't remember much now, but X(?) being jump threw me off, I'm so used to playing Devil May Cry.

My advice, keep an eye out for woodcutters axes stuck into logs. They are not scenery, they're one of the more durable weapons in the game, and useful for scenery manipulation even when they don't do enough damaged to be worth using.

[Eldan]

I had the same experience with Wind Waker, but I stuck around a bit longer.

But yeah. On the very first plateau, I ran into a slightly tougher enemy (one of those lion-centaur things) and was determined to kill it. Then I broke about 12 weapons I had in my inventory trying to kill it, including some enchanted ones. Weapons which you don't get back when you die and respawn. That was my first major strike against the game.

The exploration after that was fun again. Just walking a bit around the world map, look at landscapes, fly over things. Though I noticed that all the collectibles I found in every hidden spot on the map were the same damn seed. That got boring fast. Second major strike.

Didn't mind running into enemies on the map that occasionally just two-shot you, I was used to that from other games. Different expectations to what I was used to from Zelda, but games I liked had done that before and it just made me want to try stealthing across some of the more difficult map sections, which was fun to try, even if it almost never worked.

The one that really killed it for me was when I got to the first of the four bosses the game suggests you take down before fighting Ganon and there was an absolute cakewalk of a dungeon. Tiny, no real puzzles, just... walk through without thinking. Then kill the boss without losing much life on the first try. Super disappointing.

I switched the game off after that and never went back. Not for me.

[Lord Raziere]

playing dark souls remastered again, got past Gaping Dragon and now going through blighttown. after coming back from Sekiro, its almost relaxing. No long chains of parries, no fast movement fights a knife edge's away from failure, no constant movement to evade aggressive bosses. just some nice and methodical luring people to the backstab murderfield or memorizing a bosses pattern and sticking to it, or parrying and killing things in one hit.

[Gnoman]

I had the same experience with Wind Waker, but I stuck around a bit longer.

But yeah. On the very first plateau, I ran into a slightly tougher enemy (one of those lion-centaur things) and was determined to kill it. Then I broke about 12 weapons I had in my inventory trying to kill it, including some enchanted ones. Weapons which you don't get back when you die and respawn. That was my first major strike against the game.

First, you should absolutely be getting your weapons back, barring a really strange autosave.


Second, lynels are among the toughest monsters in the game, even in their weakest form. Unless you're really good at the combat, taking one down requires high-end gear.

[warty goblin]

Been playing Gears Tactics. I really like Gears Tactics. Short description: it's the Doom 2016 of turn based tactical games.

Longer version, it basically takes the XCOM formula, strips it down, and builds it back up into something really lean and fast. You get three action points per dude per turn. You can spend these to do anything: move - shoot - move, shoot - shoot - move, ability - shoot - move, whatever you want. Remember the feeling the first time you left the intro sewer in Oblivion, and saw this big gorgeous land, and you felt this enormous rush of glorious freedom? The do-anything AP system is that feeling turned into a game mechanic and injected straight into your cerebral cortex.

There's more. Sometimes you can melee execute an enemy, which gives every other member of your squad a bonus action. You can do this multiple times per turn, assuming there's enough downed enemies available for harvesting. Now AP aren't just a thing you spend, they're a thing you invest. Spend however many it takes to run up to your victim and brutalize them into chunky salsa, get 3 AP back, to be spent on further mayhem. Murder: building a brighter future, together.

The other thing you can invest AP into is Overwatch. You get a number of shots equal to the number of AP you had entering Overwatch, and you get to choose not only the direction, but the maximum range your dudes will take a shot at. Plus, it actually works like Overwatch should work, so an overwatching dude will shoot at a dude in range who moves or tries to shoot. That's right, you can actually suppress enemies! And enemies can suppress you. And they love to do just that, so a lot of turns become these intricate webs of killing this Locust to let that dude move so he can flank and shoot that other Locust so the third dude can execute that downed enemy so the first dude can get another shot at this other Locust so...

Further benefits. The skill trees seem to offer actually meaningful choices, with some real build diversity. The game actually understands what the purpose of a machine gun in squad tactics is, and lets you build a dude into a suppression monster, if you so choose. At no point do I have to worry about the optimal location for my power generators, because I don't have to build any power generators. And this is entirely personal, and I expect a lot of people to disagree with it, but I find the dialog less boring than XCOM (it helps that there's no Bradford equivalent explaining your objective at least twice per mission) and way, way less painful than Chimera Squad.

It's brilliant. I love it.

[Anonymouswizard]

My advice, keep an eye out for woodcutters axes stuck into logs. They are not scenery, they're one of the more durable weapons in the game, and useful for scenery manipulation even when they don't do enough damaged to be worth using.

I'll do that if I ever go back to it. But the gene really needs either more durable weapons, a lot more weapons early on, or a reliable (if not effective or easy) way to damage enemies without weapons from the start.

Like, it's literally the one problem I had with the game, and I don't like weapon degradation in general. I don't mind the idea of Zelda having more variety in weapons, heck I'd love a Zelda game with 5-30 balanced weapons suited to different situations. I'd even be happy if the only sword available to the player was the Master Sword and you had to jump through hoops to get it (like hiding the Pendants of Courage, Wisdom, and Power in the overworld or dungeons). But forcing you to use different weapons because the only ones you can get are made of balsa wood isn't fun, it's annoying.

[GloatingSwine]

I'll do that if I ever go back to it. But the gene really needs either more durable weapons, a lot more weapons early on, or a reliable (if not effective or easy) way to damage enemies without weapons from the start.

You do have a reliable way to damage enemies from the start, bombs.

They're not amazing, but they work.

That said I do agree that weapon durability is the worst element of the game. Weapons should have worked like clothing, fewer, longer and harder to upgrade, but not made of glass.

[Gnoman]

You do have a reliable way to damage enemies from the start, bombs.

They're not amazing, but they work.

That said I do agree that weapon durability is the worst element of the game. Weapons should have worked like clothing, fewer, longer and harder to upgrade, but not made of glass.

You don't get bombs until you go through 1d4 shrines. In terms of the mass of the game, that's not much, but in absolute time it can be.

[Anonymouswizard]

You do have a reliable way to damage enemies from the start, bombs.

They're not amazing, but they work.

That said I do agree that weapon durability is the worst element of the game. Weapons should have worked like clothing, fewer, longer and harder to upgrade, but not made of glass.

What bombs?

My point was that the early game gives you no tools and then expects you to still be able to kill enemies, whereas without any melee weapons or arrows and with only the magnesia spell that was a bit of a problem.

Like, I'm sure it gets better somewhat one you have bombs, but I didn't.

And yes, they could have started you put with a basic axe, spear, or whatever, made giving it an upgrade part of the 'leave the starting area' quest of they wanted to give it an upgrade system, put a couple of additional weapons in the plot path, and used the open world to hide yet more weapons behind various challenges. If they really wanted weapon durability it should be something like Dark Souls, you lose your weapons of you for the better part of an area without a repair (and even in Dark Souls one of the first things I did was get the item that allowed you to repair at bonfires).

[Eldan]

What bombs?

My point was that the early game gives you no tools and then expects you to still be able to kill enemies, whereas without any melee weapons or arrows and with only the magnesia spell that was a bit of a problem.

Like, I'm sure it gets better somewhat one you have bombs, but I didn't.

And yes, they could have started you put with a basic axe, spear, or whatever, made giving it an upgrade part of the 'leave the starting area' quest of they wanted to give it an upgrade system, put a couple of additional weapons in the plot path, and used the open world to hide yet more weapons behind various challenges. If they really wanted weapon durability it should be something like Dark Souls, you lose your weapons of you for the better part of an area without a repair (and even in Dark Souls one of the first things I did was get the item that allowed you to repair at bonfires).

There's a shrine in the starting region that gives you bombs.

[Rakaydos]

Moblins in the starting area can be killed by breaking a wooden stick over their head a few times. You'll lose the stick but gain a club, that's good for taking out at least two other moblins before it breaks. Eventually you'll run into one with an actual weapon and you'll be good for a while. Certainly long enough to unlock the bombshrine.

And woodcutters axes and sledgehammers are a reliable standby.

[Gnoman]

What bombs?

My point was that the early game gives you no tools and then expects you to still be able to kill enemies, whereas without any melee weapons or arrows and with only the magnesia spell that was a bit of a problem.

Like, I'm sure it gets better somewhat one you have bombs, but I didn't.

And yes, they could have started you put with a basic axe, spear, or whatever, made giving it an upgrade part of the 'leave the starting area' quest of they wanted to give it an upgrade system, put a couple of additional weapons in the plot path, and used the open world to hide yet more weapons behind various challenges. If they really wanted weapon durability it should be something like Dark Souls, you lose your weapons of you for the better part of an area without a repair (and even in Dark Souls one of the first things I did was get the item that allowed you to repair at bonfires).

You're not understanding the purpose durability is meant to serve here. The entire game after the opening plateau is non-linear - you can do the rest of the game including the final boss in any order. Some areas are more difficult than others, and consequently give greater rewards, but you can go there. Weapons breaking was put in so that if you run to the end dungeon, kite around, and walk out with the best weapons in the game you aren't obsoleting all of the other content and thus killing all reward and desire to explore. Your proposed solutions would not do that.

It doesn't take long until you can keep an arsenal. After the tutorial area, I had maybe three occasions -all while fighting super-tough challenge enemies- where I ran out of weapons completely. All the fixed overworld weapons respawn every Blood Moon, so you can just mark all the nice ones and pick them up periodically.

[Anteros]

People can understand the point of something and still think it's a bad idea or poorly implemented. I happen to agree that the durability of weapons in BoTW is a huge flaw. It doesn't matter if they had a reason to implement it when the design itself is unfun.

Also, BoTW is kinda one of those games that advertises thousands of hours of content, but it's mostly just running around an empty map that's almost identical to every other part of the empty map to find boring and pointless collectibles. Not my type of game at all.

[Anonymouswizard]

You're not understanding the purpose durability is meant to serve here. The entire game after the opening plateau is non-linear - you can do the rest of the game including the final boss in any order. Some areas are more difficult than others, and consequently give greater rewards, but you can go there. Weapons breaking was put in so that if you run to the end dungeon, kite around, and walk out with the best weapons in the game you aren't obsoleting all of the other content and thus killing all reward and desire to explore. Your proposed solutions would not do that.

It doesn't take long until you can keep an arsenal. After the tutorial area, I had maybe three occasions -all while fighting super-tough challenge enemies- where I ran out of weapons completely. All the fixed overworld weapons respawn every Blood Moon, so you can just mark all the nice ones and pick them up periodically.

Maybe I am understanding the purpose, and think that weapon durability is a stupid way to solve it. It might not be a problem 'later on', but I never got off the opening plateau because of my trouble finding weapons, so there was no 'later on'. Maybe I'll give the game another go, but I still think it's pretty much the stupidest way to solve the problem.

Like, my solution is 'there are a bunch of weapons in the game, you begin with one or two and have to find the others'. Sure it theoretically adds the problem that if you get The Best weapon early on it makes the game significantly easier, but there's also no strict 'best weapon'. The endgame isn't having better weapons, it's having more weapons that allow you to effectively handle different challenges, and each weapon requires you to do something to get it.

Of course, my problems would also be solved if, at the beginning, I had any way to attack without a weapon. Even an indredibly weak punch that dealt an eighth of the damage the weakest weapon does would be something (and would lead to Punching Ganon to death challenge runs, so more fun for everybody!).

[warty goblin]

Speaking entirely for myself, the only item durability system that has done anything other than annoy me is in STALKER. Mostly because everything inevitably decaying into broken ruin was sort of the philosophical point of the whole game in the first place.

I suppose Far Cry 2's worked pretty well, again for philosophical reasons, and it was really pretty easy to manage if you paid much attention to it.

[factotum]

I have never yet played a game in which weapons had durability where I considered it anything but a chore, even in otherwise superb games like System Shock 2 or The Witcher 3. In 99% of cases, weapon degradation just adds chunks of tedious busywork as you repair your gear, or find alternative weapons to replace the ones that are about to break.

If you're going to have weapon durability at all, then make it like Minecraft, or Fallout: New Vegas, where the degradation is quite slow and you don't have to repair or replace them very often.

[Rakaydos]

I have never yet played a game in which weapons had durability where I considered it anything but a chore, even in otherwise superb games like System Shock 2 or The Witcher 3. In 99% of cases, weapon degradation just adds chunks of tedious busywork as you repair your gear, or find alternative weapons to replace the ones that are about to break.

If you're going to have weapon durability at all, then make it like Minecraft, or Fallout: New Vegas, where the degradation is quite slow and you don't have to repair or replace them very often.

I swear, it's like people dont notice the woodcutter's axe next to the old man who is the first thing you are expected to interact with after leaving the cave. The woodcutter's axe is EVERYTHING you people want, but you all ignore it and complain about your wooden sticks breaking faster than you can replace them.

[Velaryon]

I finally got going on Borderlands 3, which I bought on release day and then didn't play for several months. They're doing a thing now where legendary drops are absurdly common right now, which is wonderful.

I've also trotted out my NES Classic a few times and have been enjoying some Tecmo Bowl.

[NeoVid]

Last Year just had a massive update that fixes pretty much all of its game design issues, and I've been playing it all day. Though it's a little sad that a game that's been out for a few months is better at correcting its fundamental problems than some games that have been out for years. Sadly, it's not having a free weekend to go along with the update, but here's hoping there will be one soon. It feels a lot like Left 4 Dead's versus mode, but somehow being up against a single boss monster makes it feel like it has more variety than L4D's hordes.

[Rodin]

People can understand the point of something and still think it's a bad idea or poorly implemented. I happen to agree that the durability of weapons in BoTW is a huge flaw. It doesn't matter if they had a reason to implement it when the design itself is unfun.

Also, BoTW is kinda one of those games that advertises thousands of hours of content, but it's mostly just running around an empty map that's almost identical to every other part of the empty map to find boring and pointless collectibles. Not my type of game at all.

This was my experience. I wandered around the map long enough to get bored and switched the game off intending to come back and seek out a dungeon or something. I never got inspired enough to turn it back on.

--

I picked up Streets of Rage 4 hoping for the nostalgia rush of the originals. Boy howdy does it deliver! I got tossed by a Green Signal and instinctively used B to land without taking damage and it worked. That shows just how aware the developers are of their audience. The beat-em-up mechanics feel a lot better than River City Girls, and that game was no slouch either.

Having a blast playing as Cherry, and currently stuck on that damn elevator section. If I can just get through there I think I'll be able to progress, but I may have to swallow my pride and accept the extra life from the continue screen.

[Anteros]

Been playing Gears Tactics.

I'm very interested in Gears Tactics, and this was pretty high praise. I don't mind all the reviews that are complaining the game isn't x-com since I don't actually like X-com very much.

I don't think it's worth the price point to me right now though. I can afford it, but I almost never pay full price for a game these days. They're rarely worth the full 70 dollars and I've been burned too many times. I'll probably pick it up in a few months when the price drops a bit.