What Are You Playing Right Now, Part 2: Daggerfall

[factotum]

Also been playing more Kerbal Space Progam. I finally worked out how to use SAS and get into orbit, although I'm still failing to get to the Mun.

You might want to make Minmus your first target. It takes a bit more delta-V to reach it, because it's further away than the Mun and is also on an inclined orbit, but it's much, much easier to land and take off from because of its lower gravity, plus the dark blue basins on its surface are all at height 0 so you know exactly how far you have to go if you land in one.

[DigoDragon]

Baldur's Gate and Cleric/Thief.

Ah, thank you. Much clearer now.


Constructed my first Doom Star in MoO4 (my games always ended before getting that far in the tech tree). Interesting that they only allow you to build one... but considering how much weaponry you can squeeze into it (plus the Stellar Converter) you pretty much are unstoppable. I have mine with a flank of Titans that screen missiles and tank gunfire for it to just drift into range and nuke the field. Blowing up planets is fun, even if wasteful.

[GloatingSwine]

Playing Total Waaaaaaarhammer (because saying Total War: Warhammer sounds dumb out loud) with a friend cooperatively. I love how they finally figured out how to make multiplayer battles against the AI interesting, by giving the army's owner the option of granting units to your buddy to control.

Just had a beautiful, edge of your seats, brutal battle. 650 wood elves fought 4600 undead. We won, but oh so barely. Battle lasted for 18 minutes and had mountains upon mountains of corpses (all still) by the end of it.

If you want a mountain of corpses, rock up on some Skaven.

Had a 3000 vs 8000 battle last night.

Didn't win that one though, but it was damn close. (because my Waaaaagh! army didn't arrive in time so it was 4 on 2 not 4 on 3 as planned, and whilst Skaven aren't strong they aren't that weak).

Played a bit better I might have been able to do it, getting my Spider Riders round into their missile better instead of them being intercepted would have helped.

Still, Clan Mors are nearly out of the picture now, split those four armies up and handled them separately and drew Queek out of his capital so I can flatten that. Will be armying up with some more stacks as well now I've got the Arachnorok researched.

(They need to overhaul the greenskin techs, they're the only race that have to research a unit).

[Haruspex_Pariah]

Man, I forgot how twitchy these online games can be. The first few days were fine, but recently there’s been random crashes and credit not given for quest completion.

They are reasonably swift with responding to the community, so there’s that. In the absence of an immediate fix, sometimes an acknowledgement goes a long way IMHO.

It also bothers me that the general progression quest line requires PVP participation. There’s nothing that screams “whale” more than the PVP quarter of a freemium game. Four legendaries by level 30? Oh well.

[Anonymouswizard]

You might want to make Minmus your first target. It takes a bit more delta-V to reach it, because it's further away than the Mun and is also on an inclined orbit, but it's much, much easier to land and take off from because of its lower gravity, plus the dark blue basins on its surface are all at height 0 so you know exactly how far you have to go if you land in one.

Maybe, at this point I still haven't quite made a craft that can get into orbit with a Kerbal. I'm also having trouble in Career mode, as I need more Science in order to get some better parts, but can't get my limited science equipment to any new biomes. I knew I should have started with the 'cash income to science' policy, might be time to restart.

[factotum]

I assume you've got science from the area around the space centre itself? You can get a surprising amount just by putting a rocket-less capsule on the launchpad and getting science and crew reports from that!

[Anonymouswizard]

I assume you've got science from the area around the space centre itself? You can get a surprising amount just by putting a rocket-less capsule on the launchpad and getting science and crew reports from that!

I've not worked out how to perform science experiments on EVA, so I've done all the science I can from just a capsule and some science things. Unfortunately I can't haul the capsule to other parts of the space center, so that's about it for me (I expect a lot more science to come along once I get the science for some more experiments...)

[factotum]

I've not worked out how to perform science experiments on EVA

From what I recall (been a while since I played), you can just right-click on the Kerbal when they're outside the capsule and get a crew report from that situation? It counts as a different crew report to the one you get when they're inside the capsule, even if said capsule is in the same location. Plus you can put stuff like Mystery Goo onto the capsule and get those results as well.

[Kailey66]

I play PUBG

[Wookieetank]

Finally finished Dream Drop Distance last night. That game just. wouldn't. end. Thankfully it was all very dramatic and spectacular to watch, but it just kept going and going.

Started up Birth by Sleep: A Fragmentary Passage afterwards and hot damn, the new engine looks fantastic. Spent more time just wandering around and looking at everything than actually making progress. Very hyped about how things are gonna look in KH:3.

[Man_Over_Game]

Finally finished Dream Drop Distance last night. That game just. wouldn't. end. Thankfully it was all very dramatic and spectacular to watch, but it just kept going and going.

Started up Birth by Sleep: A Fragmentary Passage afterwards and hot damn, the new engine looks fantastic. Spent more time just wandering around and looking at everything than actually making progress. Very hyped about how things are gonna look in KH:3.

No Spoilers, promise.

One thing that they just recently added to KH:3 is a history viewer on the main menu. It has everything of importance over the series, separated into chunks.

So it has an entire section on Xehanort, an entire section on the Heartless. Who Sora and his friends are, and what they've done. It does a good job of providing all of the relevant information across all of the games. Which is important, because it's complicated as hell.

KH: 3 also includes mechanics from all of the individual games. They added mechanics from DDD, and from BBS. KH3 actually has a LOT of influence from BBS. The idea is that everyone will find it familiar, and everyone will have some way of playing. The problem is, even Pride (Hard) mode is really easy if you're good at all of the tools they provide you.

Although I'm kinda mad, as they added a Critical (Super Hard) mode, right as I hit the midpoint of the game. Which leaves me with a big choice.


Birth By Sleep is probably one of the most well done games of the series, tied somewhere with KH2 and KH3. It even has a PVP mode!

[Wookieetank]

KH Stuff

I don't know if they were originally setup this way, but we've been playing through the compilation CDs and each game seems to have an option to review anything that happened in its specific game. And Dream Drop Distance has a lot of recaps of the previous games in text dumps, which is helpful. Thankfully we've been playing it through one to the next since last August so things are nice and fresh, but it does get delightfully complicated. Glad to hear there's a recap bit in KH:3, might straighten out a few things I'm just guessing at.

Only complaints with KH's as a whole is Chain of Memories (so much needless grinding just to open doors, and cheap boss fights), and the Drop Mechanic from Dream Drop Distance (Redoing the final boss fight of Riku's route d/t BS mechanics was infuriating). Still not a huge fan of the Dream eaters, but they did some cool combo/special attacks with them.

The skill deck system though is fantastic, and wish more games would incorporate something like it. Also cuts down on having to dig through options mid battle to find what you want.

Should hopefully get to start KH:3 sometime this weekend, and the whole family is stoked that we're almost there.

[Man_Over_Game]

I don't know if they were originally setup this way, but we've been playing through the compilation CDs and each game seems to have an option to review anything that happened in its specific game. And Dream Drop Distance has a lot of recaps of the previous games in text dumps, which is helpful. Thankfully we've been playing it through one to the next since last August so things are nice and fresh, but it does get delightfully complicated. Glad to hear there's a recap bit in KH:3, might straighten out a few things I'm just guessing at.

Only complaints with KH's as a whole is Chain of Memories (so much needless grinding just to open doors, and cheap boss fights), and the Drop Mechanic from Dream Drop Distance (Redoing the final boss fight of Riku's route d/t BS mechanics was infuriating). Still not a huge fan of the Dream eaters, but they did some cool combo/special attacks with them.

The skill deck system though is fantastic, and wish more games would incorporate something like it. Also cuts down on having to dig through options mid battle to find what you want.

Should hopefully get to start KH:3 sometime this weekend, and the whole family is stoked that we're almost there.

KH3 did add two things that REALLY help with doing exact commands for what you want:

1. Multiple panes of shortcuts (So you can have 3 pages of 4 shortcuts each, for a total of 12 shortcuts).
2. An option to slow down time while moving through your command window.

So I can have 2 shortcut pages for spells, one shortcut page for items, and then slow down time when I'm picking what summon I want to use.


KH3 does less with skills and abilities than prior games (in fact, I almost always had an abundance of ability points to equip abilities with), but it does do something unique with keyblades. You now can swap between them in combat, and each of them gains "levels", temporarily, in mid-combat as you use them.

Almost all keyblades fight the same at level 1, with just their base stat upgrades and some minor passive abilities. But as they grow in levels, they really push for special playstyles. Like:

• Converting all of your spells into melee-range auras while also adding a magical attack to your dashes.
• Dashing creates a mirror image of yourself that stands in place, and attacking while you have a clone out causes all of your clones to shoot your target like a turret. I think you can have about 4 clones.
• Your combos have a tendency to launch enemies into the air, and then have many benefits to launching them or slamming them back down.
• You gain benefits when you block attacks, and your keyblade gains more temporary powers the more you successfully counterattack.
• Holding down the lockon button has you shoot your keyblade in a FPS mode, dealing insane damage and upgrading into a rocket launcher after doing so successfully for some time. Spells also gain range/power as your keyblade upgrades.

They do something similar with casting magic, too. Casting Fire a bunch will eventually grant you a single cast of an upgraded Fire spell at no mana cost.

They also made it so you don't have to swap out allies. At some points in the game, you might have up to 5 or so people joining you in a fight.

It can get really ridiculous. The game focuses more on customizing your playstyle rather than your build, if that makes any sense. And while it's all really cool, it's kinda hard to use it to its fullest potential when the game is so easy (at least, until the newly released Critical Mode).

My wife played through all the KH games over the last year or two, and she thought that KH 3 Pride Mode was easier than most of the other games' normal difficulties. So I'd really recommend Critical Mode if you're a KH veteran.

[Wookieetank]

KH3 Mechanics

I'm already hyped for this game, been waiting some 17 years for it, but all of this sounds fantastic. So glad Fragmentary Passage is short, even with being distracted by all the shiny, should get through it tonight with any luck. Thanks for all the non-spoilery info, I wander into enough spoilers all on my own ><

[Man_Over_Game]

I'm already hyped for this game, been waiting some 17 years for it, but all of this sounds fantastic. So glad Fragmentary Passage is short, even with being distracted by all the shiny, should get through it tonight with any luck. Thanks for all the non-spoilery info, I wander into enough spoilers all on my own ><

No problem!

I will say this: You will get frustrated that you'll have multiple special commands to use at once (Triangle on PS4), with no obvious way of cycling through them. The game never really tells you about it, and it's hard to experiment to find out because they're on a limited time window to use, so it's hard to find out how to cycle them. You do so with the L2 button.

A good example of this is being stuck having a Team Attack, a Keyblade upgrade, a spell upgrade, or a unique combat command. The Keyblade Upgrade is probably the one you want to do first, before the timer to do so runs out.

When you play the game, just remember to look this up. It'll make more sense, and save you a lot of grief.

[Anteros]

Although I'm kinda mad, as they added a Critical (Super Hard) mode, right as I hit the midpoint of the game. Which leaves me with a big choice.

If it makes you feel better, critical mode is usually easier than the other modes in KH games. Sure, they make the enemies hit harder and give you less HP, but they also make you hit harder as well, and give you a ton of free AP and abilities. The result is a game that's only difficult until they give you the ability that prevents you from getting 1-shot.

[Battleship789]

Currently playing through KH3 on critical and I would advise to not play it on that difficulty if you don't want to be super frustrated. Basically everything in the game one or two shots you for the first ~10 hours of the game, you get very limited healing early on for when you don't get oneshot, and the slow loading times of the PS4 can cause this to be super tilting if you have to replay a boss a bunch of times or walk through a horrible area because the reload point isn't in the greatest spot. In spite of this, I am enjoying the game, though I wish there were less times that I got 100-0 in a single frame from off screen...

And I would disagree about critical mode being easier than the other difficulties. Fights might go faster, but you will almost certainly have to replay fights many times on critical mode to get used to the attacks of enemies. The other difficulties might take a little longer to do a battle, but you won't be in nearly as much danger of dying.

@Man_Over_Game Hmmm, I could've sworn I got information on that in a tutorial early on. Maybe I only know about that because I checked the control settings early on...

[Anteros]

Currently playing through KH3 on critical and I would advise to not play it on that difficulty if you don't want to be super frustrated. Basically everything in the game one or two shots you for the first ~10 hours of the game, you get very limited healing early on for when you don't get oneshot, and the slow loading times of the PS4 can cause this to be super tilting if you have to replay a boss a bunch of times or walk through a horrible area because the reload point isn't in the greatest spot. In spite of this, I am enjoying the game, though I wish there were less times that I got 100-0 in a single frame from off screen...

And I would disagree about critical mode being easier than the other difficulties. Fights might go faster, but you will almost certainly have to replay fights many times on critical mode to get used to the attacks of enemies. The other difficulties might take a little longer to do a battle, but you won't be in nearly as much danger of dying.

@Man_Over_Game Hmmm, I could've sworn I got information on that in a tutorial early on. Maybe I only know about that because I checked the control settings early on...

I can't speak for KH3 critical yet, but I absolutely just mindlessly button mashed my way through every single previous KH critical mode. Outside of the optional bosses that are supposed to be extremely difficult I can count the number of times I died and had to replay a fight on one hand.

I'm waiting on the DLC to drop for KH3 before I grab it, so we'll see if it's different.

[Battleship789]

I can't speak for KH3 critical yet, but I absolutely just mindlessly button mashed my way through every single previous KH critical mode. Outside of the optional bosses that are supposed to be extremely difficult I can count the number of times I died and had to replay a fight on one hand.

I'm waiting on the DLC to drop for KH3 before I grab it, so we'll see if it's different.

Huh. That hasn't been my experience. Maybe I just don't mash mindlessly enough...

[DigoDragon]

When you play three different games on three different maps and the game destroys your capitol by turn 30 with a random event every time, that's the sign to just put the game away and play something else.

*Puts MoO4 on ice and goes to play Skyrim SE*

[warty goblin]

When you play three different games on three different maps and the game destroys your capitol by turn 30 with a random event every time, that's the sign to just put the game away and play something else.

*Puts MoO4 on ice and goes to play Skyrim SE*

I should circle back to MoO4 at some point. I really liked it's minimalist approach to the economy.

At the moment I'm mostly playing Mordhau. I'm very slowly improving; one of these matches I'll have a K/D ratio above one. Even totally sucking however is a lot of fun; occasionally you can catch an archer out of position and whack them with a halberd. They sort of just fall apart, it's amazing.

[DigoDragon]

I should circle back to MoO4 at some point. I really liked it's minimalist approach to the economy.

It is an easy-to-follow system (plus the Economic victory is interesting to aim for). My only significant complaint is that there's no way to look at ship stats or which leader is on board from the main map after the ship is built. You have to keep the blueprints and look those up for the stats and... well for leaders you have to put your ships in different places and then browse the Leaders screen. Quite inefficient.

[warty goblin]

It is an easy-to-follow system (plus the Economic victory is interesting to aim for). My only significant complaint is that there's no way to look at ship stats or which leader is on board from the main map after the ship is built. You have to keep the blueprints and look those up for the stats and... well for leaders you have to put your ships in different places and then browse the Leaders screen. Quite inefficient.

I remember the leaders being generally a giant micromanagement pain. A pity too, as some of them could be pretty powerful.

I never really messed around with ship design a lot. It seemed like a system that was both fiddly, and could probably break the game in some way or another. Since I prefer not breaking the game, it seemed easier to just avoid it.

I did like that you coud win by fighting the Antarians, since it meant a person could get to use their giant doom-fleets without needing to pursue a military style victory.

[PraetorDragoon]

Oh Dragon's Dogma, why is your difficulity so random? Why is there a strange high-level bandit in the posse of decent level ones? Weird times.(I did just run past him, but it bothers me there is a random high-level mob on the road to a low-level quest that disappears when you continue the story.)

[Anonymouswizard]

Well whenever I try to play something else I find myself coming back to Kerbal. Switching between using stock craft to get to grips with how everything works (managed to get a stock spaceplane into orbit and safely back on the ground, as well as getting a Kerbal X to do a flyby of the Mun*), and trying to make successful designs of my own.

Unfortunately the only way I've discovered to get my own designs even theoretically capable of reaching the Mun is massive great bossters, although I can get into orbit using only three stages of Mk1 parts. I think I need to try the 'running the main engine at the same time as droppable boosters' strategy, but I really want to try to orbit the Mun with only Mk1 parts.

On the downside Jebediah has complained. Apparently it's not okay to fill the snack cuboard entirely with cheesy Wotsits.

* I've not quite cracked orbiting it yet.

[Sian]

Sounds like you’re possibly overengineering stuff beyond your science capacity. The more stuff you toss on it, the harder it is to get it lifting. Either that or there’s something fundamentally wrong with your launch profile approach.

There’s certain elegance in using as little as possible, and when i played i sometimes packed 2-3 different minimalistic satellites on a single launch, which had the tiniest fuel tank and miniature engine and only a select few lightweight repeatable experiments

[factotum]

There’s certain elegance in using as little as possible

Yeah, that's the rocket equation in a nutshell--you want the craft that you're actually putting into orbit to be as light as possible, because every kilo you put into orbit needs multiple kilos of fuel to get it there.

[Anonymouswizard]

Sounds like you’re possibly overengineering stuff beyond your science capacity.

Considering I'm not a ticket scientist, all I'll day is that I'm slowly getting better. Got to start somewhere, and I've been looking at the stock rockets to try to understand how to get better, bit while I'm not Scott Manley I'm doing better than, say, Nerdcubed in that I'm fairly certain that I just need to shave off a few hundred delta-v when getting into orbit. Once I've got something that can make the journey I can start looking to shave off weight.

[Man_Over_Game]

Currently playing through KH3 on critical and I would advise to not play it on that difficulty if you don't want to be super frustrated. Basically everything in the game one or two shots you for the first ~10 hours of the game, you get very limited healing early on for when you don't get oneshot, and the slow loading times of the PS4 can cause this to be super tilting if you have to replay a boss a bunch of times or walk through a horrible area because the reload point isn't in the greatest spot. In spite of this, I am enjoying the game, though I wish there were less times that I got 100-0 in a single frame from off screen...

And I would disagree about critical mode being easier than the other difficulties. Fights might go faster, but you will almost certainly have to replay fights many times on critical mode to get used to the attacks of enemies. The other difficulties might take a little longer to do a battle, but you won't be in nearly as much danger of dying.

@Man_Over_Game Hmmm, I could've sworn I got information on that in a tutorial early on. Maybe I only know about that because I checked the control settings early on...

Can confirm, I tried Critical Mode for the first time.

I tried playing a balanced character (with average HP and mana). The first real fight has you against a skirmish of basic enemies you should be familiar with, and one of the big roly-poly dudes with the big belly slides at me and kills me in one hit from maximum HP.

Learning enemy moves will definitely matter, but sometimes stun-locking them with a lot of hits works too. All-in-all, though, Critical Mode is a massive pain in the rear.

I can't wait to do the Aero-Thunder combo in Critical. Aero draws all the enemies into a gravity well, Thunder causes them to be electrified to deal damage to other adjacent enemies, stepping on the Aero well will launch you up in the air to do a slam attack. In Proud, everything died too easily to really have it be worth it, but I might have a chance to do it now.

[jdizzlean]

tabletop:

d&d 3.5 and Star Wars Force and Destiny

PC:

Battlefield 5 and Starcraft 2.

have a pile of installed games i'm thinking of deleting that i just stare at the icons anymore....