What Are You Playing, Part 3: The Assassination of my Wallet by the Cowardly Sale

[Haruspex_Pariah]

As a general rule, if you want to be remotely effective in higher difficulty levels, you need to synergise your skillset as much as possible--so going for pets will only work if you're making a dedicated pet build and putting everything toward that aim. If you're never intending to take the character beyond Normal difficulty then go ahead. If the worst comes to the worst and you find you've made a mistake, you can always respec by paying the relevant NPC some gold.

As for the DLC, I can definitely recommend Ashes of Malmouth--get that one ASAP, you get to Malmouth from the Homestead area so you're right in the right place to do it. Forgotten Gods I didn't find as fun, but it's probably worth getting. Crucible is an arena-style thing where you're just killing endless waves of enemies, which is fun for a bit and can gain you some nice loot, but is definitely not critical by any means.

I might just get everything, but thanks for the input. Yeah, I think I should stick with what I'm currently doing, splitting skill points between damage and durability (since you need durability to stay in melee range).

There's just something...deeply satisfying about clicking on a chest and seeing a bunch of colorful lines of text explode out of it. And it's not just the Diablo 1 and 2 nostalgia talking.

[Rodin]

I just learned that I'm not a lot better at RTS games than when I was a kid.

Granted, I didn't know about maintaining economy and building expansions and I probably never built enough worker units. Even so, something felt...off.

It turns out that Battle.net edition Warcraft II (which I never played before) has a nasty bug in it. An AI-breaking, game-breaking one.

Information on the Internet is spotty about it, as you would expect from a 20 year old re-release of a 25 year old game. Best theory I've seen is that saving and loading the game breaks the AI. Which is just...spiffy.

I just did the Blackrock Spire mission, and I got attacked once. They sent a single Ogre at the start of the mission, and that's it. They didn't build any units for the rest of the game, and allowed me to casually stroll through wrecking everything.

I think I'm going to skip the final Dark Portal mission and start fresh on the Orc expansion campaign...this time in Ironman mode. Save on the victory screen, then don't touch that dial until the next victory screen.

Given that I never beat Through The Dark Portal as a kid, I can't see this going well. Unless the AI breaks again.

[Man_Over_Game]

Been playing a lot of Slay the Spire lately. Pretty entertaining; I think the Defect and the Watcher are my two favorite characters. Now that I've beaten the true ending with all four characters I'm starting to run out of steam, but I think that's partially my fault for defaulting to the same strategies, especially with D and W. The amount of entertainment that can be derived from getting as many innate Storms as possible and then just spamming powers while quoting Emperor Palpatine is large, but finite (ironically). As for the Watcher, I typically go for a "stance dancer" build, but my most successful run also made heavy use of the Divine stance, so maybe I'll focus on that next time.

If you enjoy Slay the Spire, check out Rogue Adventure on Android. Very similar feel, while definitely feeling like its own game, and completely free. It's probably been the best experience I've had with free Android deckbuilder games. The developer has spent a lot of work updating it with new content, as they've added a class, a weekly curated high-score mode with different modifiers each week, and like 50 skills (buffs that help through a run) just within the last 6 months alone.

My personal favorite class is the Necromancer, who exiles his own cards from a battle and then gets more powerful the more cards he's exiled, although I've only been able to turn up the difficulty to 6/10.

[Cespenar]

I mean, that doesn't sound very damning, to be honest. Given that I thought X-Com 1 and especially 2 were great, so "not quite the same, more very like it, maybe not quite as good" isn't necessarily a problem for me.

I mean, we're not in an era of XCOM scarcity, thankfully, so it should sound a bit damning, at least.

As others mentioned, I'd suggest Gears Tactics instead, for example. Or XCOM: Chimera Squad, if you want more XCOM.

Kind of wish we had more Fallout Tactics like games. Six man groups and the otpion to jump between turn-based and sort of turn-based.

Don't get me wrong, I love FT, but its real time mode was a bit too fast and unreliable, in my opinion. I sort of didn't use it for 95% of the game, apart from ambushes or as the occasional "fast forward" button.

So far I've found Gears Tactics to be much more enjoyable. (also on Gamepass) It's not a hard game (so far at least) but it plays well and is faster paced.

Yep, played a little of it so far, but that's my take as well.

[factotum]

Information on the Internet is spotty about it, as you would expect from a 20 year old re-release of a 25 year old game. Best theory I've seen is that saving and loading the game breaks the AI. Which is just...spiffy.

I just did the Blackrock Spire mission, and I got attacked once. They sent a single Ogre at the start of the mission, and that's it. They didn't build any units for the rest of the game, and allowed me to casually stroll through wrecking everything.

Sounds like UFO: Enemy Unknown (aka X-Com: UFO Defense). There was a massive bug in that game which meant, no matter what difficulty you selected at game start, after the first UFO mission it would reset to the easiest setting. Shows just how difficult that game was generally that most people never noticed!

[Narkis]

Sounds like UFO: Enemy Unknown (aka X-Com: UFO Defense). There was a massive bug in that game which meant, no matter what difficulty you selected at game start, after the first UFO mission it would reset to the easiest setting. Shows just how difficult that game was generally that most people never noticed!

Story I heard was that people did notice and complain that the game was too easy even on hard. Which lead the devs making Terror from the Deep punishingly hard before the bug was discovered.

[warty goblin]

As others mentioned, I'd suggest Gears Tactics instead, for example. Or XCOM: Chimera Squad, if you want more XCOM.

I also would recommend Gears Tactics. It's way less restrictive than XCOM, to the point where going back to a game where you can't shoot then move just sounds painful.

My only complaints would be too many side missions, and managing dudes' inventories is a pain. Which it is in XCOM as well, I'm just sort of at a point where I would prefer not to have to worry about what scope Bob Shootguy puts on his rifle, or if I should give it to Alice Gungal instead.

Don't get me wrong, I love FT, but its real time mode was a bit too fast and unreliable, in my opinion.

I generally think turn based and real time combat are different enough that trying to cram both into a single game isn't going to work all that well. If nothing else, turn based combat is generally a lot slower, so should probably be balanced around fewer fights than real time.

[Aotrs Commander]

I mean, we're not in an era of XCOM scarcity, thankfully, so it should sound a bit damning, at least.

As others mentioned, I'd suggest Gears Tactics instead, for example. Or XCOM: Chimera Squad, if you want more XCOM.

Not heard of the former (but I'm not a... Gears of War? person? Didn't get a mention, when I explictly looked for X-Com alikes, which is... Something?).

The latter lost me explictly in not having customisable squadmates. That was a good half or more of the fun of X-Com. I'll genuinely take a not-so-polished game with better customisation than one with more fixed characters in thar genre (as if a want an RPG, I'll play an RPG).

Firaxis can call me about a year or so after X-Com 3 comes out (when the inevitable expansion drops), otherwise.

(Or not at all, if they decide to not let you do that, though why they would, when a feature like the propaganda posters was such a stroke of genius; it would be a decision beyond comprehension and I don't expect it.)

[Man_Over_Game]

Story I heard was that people did notice and complain that the game was too easy even on hard. Which lead the devs making Terror from the Deep punishingly hard before the bug was discovered.

Oh man, would that have been awkward to explain.

[DigoDragon]

Got back into Minecraft now that 1.16 is put and my mods have updated to it. I am... actually impressed by this update. They made the Nether world more interesting, deadlier, and dumber all at once. XD

That third part is just my amusement that the fights breaking out between the Piglins and the... giant boar critters aren't always instant. Sometimes they sit around staring at each other for a minute before remembering they're enemies. They all keep falling off cliffs fighting and I can't help but laugh.

[Cespenar]

Not heard of the former (but I'm not a... Gears of War? person? Didn't get a mention, when I explictly looked for X-Com alikes, which is... Something?).

The latter lost me explictly in not having customisable squadmates. That was a good half or more of the fun of X-Com. I'll genuinely take a not-so-polished game with better customisation than one with more fixed characters in thar genre (as if a want an RPG, I'll play an RPG).

Firaxis can call me about a year or so after X-Com 3 comes out (when the inevitable expansion drops), otherwise.

(Or not at all, if they decide to not let you do that, though why they would, when a feature like the propaganda posters was such a stroke of genius; it would be a decision beyond comprehension and I don't expect it.)

Gears have been mentioned before in this thread, but not as much as say, XCOM, so you might have missed it. I'm totally not a Gears person myself as well, but the game is pretty slick nonetheless. I'd definitely say give it a try if you want more of that genre.

[oxybe]

How's Borderlands 3?

I see that it's on sale in the Epic store and I have a 14$ voucher, so I could pick it up for 26$ Canadian or 46$ for the super deluxe (a bunch of cosmetics and the season pass, ie: 4 story DLC) version.

I really liked borderlands 1 & 2 but haven't really looked into 3 yet, so if someone has played it, is it worth the 30-50$ purchase?

[GloatingSwine]

It plays better than Borderlands 1 & 2 but the jokes are stale, the references were old when dinosaurs walked the earth, and all of the characters are annoying. Which means that the villains, whose main character trait is "really annoying", don't stand out.

[Rynjin]

I second that a lot. Gameplay fun (real fun. Better than 2 by a mile, and more streamlined than 1) and story bad. New playable characters good, plot relevant characters bad.

Amara best girl.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

Yeah, I like having games with hard options and settings at least. Another problem is that for strategy games; it tends to require good ai to make an interesting hard challenge; but doing good ai is hard. So you mostly just get piles of ai bonuses to compensate for a poor ai. The number of people who want a smart ai challenge and are willing to pay for it, are just too few to support the cost.

I'm sure the big game execs think this is the case, but I'm not convinced it's true. A properly hard strategy game would probably not make as much money as, say, Civ6 but I believe it could be profitable if costs were kept down by cutting on, say, graphics. Not everything has to be a blockbuster.

Not quite the same genre, but the AI for Halo Wars 2 is actually pretty fascinating. I also love the game in general; it's one of the best things to come out of the Halo franchise lately.

[Triaxx]

FT's 'real-time' mode was more of an... And ACTION! button, than how you really wanted to play the game. I tried Individual turn based once and hated it. The initiative system wasn't well thought out. Squad Turn-based was where it was at though. That said turn-based could also be cheaty. Turrets on a certain level couldn't change modes while turn-based was active.

[Man_Over_Game]

How's Borderlands 3?

I see that it's on sale in the Epic store and I have a 14$ voucher, so I could pick it up for 26$ Canadian or 46$ for the super deluxe (a bunch of cosmetics and the season pass, ie: 4 story DLC) version.

I really liked borderlands 1 & 2 but haven't really looked into 3 yet, so if someone has played it, is it worth the 30-50$ purchase?

Gameplay is excellent, definitely one of the games that I'd recommend playing with friends without it being a requirement (it just gets really fun with 4 players).

Plot is pretty bland, the worlds are fairly interesting, the playstyles are fairly diverse, and the DLCs are amazing. Not sure why, but Gearbox seems to nail their DLCs, they just happened to fall flat on BL3's main plot. Don't get me wrong, it's definitely better than some other games, but you're not going to be doing a second run for story reasons.

Not quite the same genre, but the AI for Halo Wars 2 is actually pretty fascinating. I also love the game in general; it's one of the best things to come out of the Halo franchise lately.

Tried to make sense of the video on Halo Wars 2 AI, seems that their strategy was to hire a pro RTS gamer that also was a programmer, put him in charge of figuring out what players do and then try to imitate that with code. He created the foundation for about a half-dozen micro (combat) and macro (building) strategies into the AI, and then threw up a bunch of questions that made the AI consider which of these was the most valuable. For example, enemy AI may decide to Turtle after a recent rush attempt from the player, and then transition into focusing on expansion and research developments as it expects fewer rush attempts. It also has different multipliers to determine which strategies are more likely to be chosen, based on the AI character himself (so a war general may prioritize on military strategy over science developments).

To tackle difficulty, the entire thing is programmed as the hardest difficulty for the foundation, and then they add/remove pieces of the thought process based on how low of a difficulty you pick. Which is probably insanely hard but very rewarding.

Seems pretty dang smart.

[factotum]

FT's 'real-time' mode was more of an... And ACTION! button, than how you really wanted to play the game. I tried Individual turn based once and hated it. The initiative system wasn't well thought out. Squad Turn-based was where it was at though. That said turn-based could also be cheaty. Turrets on a certain level couldn't change modes while turn-based was active.

The best real-time-with-pause system I ever played was, believe it or not, X-Com: Apocalypse. Sure, the game had plenty of issues, but one of the big strengths was that you could customise under what circumstances the game would auto-pause to a pretty hefty degrees. It gave it the strength of a turn based system (time to think about how to act) while not being quite as slow and grindy as one. I don't know why more modern games don't do the same thing--it would be great if there was an option to auto-pause Stellaris when one of your fleets came under attack, for instance, but pretty sure no such capability exists.

[Man_Over_Game]

The best real-time-with-pause system I ever played was, believe it or not, X-Com: Apocalypse. Sure, the game had plenty of issues, but one of the big strengths was that you could customise under what circumstances the game would auto-pause to a pretty hefty degrees. It gave it the strength of a turn based system (time to think about how to act) while not being quite as slow and grindy as one. I don't know why more modern games don't do the same thing--it would be great if there was an option to auto-pause Stellaris when one of your fleets came under attack, for instance, but pretty sure no such capability exists.

Likely to accommodate easier controls for multiplayer. Even in games that have both single and multiplayer gameplay, teaching someone to react quickly to an attack in the single player game will help them get accustomed to reacting in a multiplayer game (when that feature would otherwise be unavailable).

I was a fan of Mass Effect's usage of it. Not an RTS or anything, but similar vibes. Combos in ME3 were particularly easy to pull off because of it.

Also, just as a small joke, Final Fantasy XIII-Lighting Returns has the opposite: Paused Real-time. People don't age, children aren't born, women who are pregnant stay that way, human life tracks the remaining population instead of years (which I think is like 200 years or so since time broke). Stellar game, if you can get past the awkward beginning.

[Narkis]

The best real-time-with-pause system I ever played was, believe it or not, X-Com: Apocalypse. Sure, the game had plenty of issues, but one of the big strengths was that you could customise under what circumstances the game would auto-pause to a pretty hefty degrees. It gave it the strength of a turn based system (time to think about how to act) while not being quite as slow and grindy as one. I don't know why more modern games don't do the same thing--it would be great if there was an option to auto-pause Stellaris when one of your fleets came under attack, for instance, but pretty sure no such capability exists.

Stellaris is not a very good example of a wider trend, because it's the only Paradox game that doesn't allow you to do exactly that. Every other game of theirs has an overwhelming number of options for notifications and autopause, ranging from "whenever one of your armies arrives at its destination" to "whenever anyone anywhere in the world gets married".

[warty goblin]

Real time with pause is, I would say, usually my least preferred way to play between that, fully turn based, and straight real time. There are games I like that use it, and I'm more forgiving of in in the context of large scale strategy games working at severe time compression than in RPGs or tactics games, but it always feels fundamentally compromised to me.

Part of this is that a lot of the reason to pause is for more micromanagement, which means pausing is something of a kludge for the interface not being up to the job. Like I can manage a combined arms engagement in Company of Heroes, but because tour interface was developed by and for the Inscrutable Tiny Buttons Fanclub, 4 dudes is harder? Part of it is that I simply don't want the potential (hence partial obligation) to do infinite micro in the first place. Part of it is not wanting to manage pausingas another consideration. And part if it is that RTP games still can't be played while eating supper and turn based games can.

[Aotrs Commander]

And part if it is that RTP games still can't be played while eating supper and turn based games can.

As someone who doesn't watch subtitled anime for that exact reason, basically, that is an entirely valid point.

[Rodin]

Success! I have beaten the high watermark set by my childhood self.

Orc expansion 5 - The Dragons of Blackrock spire.

This mission tormented me as a teenager. A constant stream of gryphon riders combined with periodic attacks from land. A tiny starting base (a couple of farms) with only a couple of peons. A very limited starting gold mine that runs out almost immediately.

Even knowing what I was doing this mission was hell. I had to restart it 5-6 times while I got my strategy down. The hard part is just not running out of money. I finally found a winning strategy - weaponize your starting army. The starting army ordinarily means that you can't get your economy going, because you have no farms, almost no peons, and this large useless army.

So I did what never occurred to me as a kid - I attacked one of the enemy bases immediately. It was actually possible to wipe out the nearest enemy expansion at the very start of the game. The decrease in your own units meant the economy started up faster, which meant that I had recovered by the time the enemy attacked.

The mission did raise more questions about the AI in Warcraft 2. I praised Warcraft 1 for how it reacted to the player expanding across the map. If a rallying point was taken, the computer would no longer send units there.

...This was not true of the AI here. The computer clearly expected to control the base I wiped out early, and sent singleton units to a rally point deep within my base. They ran through a hail of arrows to a specific point before turning and attacking, if they were still alive.

Fail.

Even with that advantage the mission ended after EVERYBODY ran out of money. The Dalaran forces sending Gryphon riders lost their gold mine, which weakened the attacks enough for me to crush them. The Azeroth forces just plain ran out of money, leaving them with no defenses. I had to carefully marshal a force of my remaining units through the static defenses to win.

No wonder I couldn't beat this when I was younger!

[Kareeah_Indaga]

SPOILER FREE Subnautica Below Zero observation:

I forgot the only reason the original game doesn't terrify me any more is because I know what all the noises are.

[Zevox]

I find myself quite enjoying Final Fantasy 7 Remake. I believe I'm in the second half of the game at this point - just finished the Train Graveyard - and by and large, I'm fairly impressed. The combat system is pulled off pretty well, with the emphasis on knowing enemy types' weaknesses and quirks giving things an RPG feel, while the action elements are reasonably solid. I'm generally finding the combat pretty engaging and fun. Cloud is probably the most fun character to play, followed by Tifa - Barret and Aerith less so, since they just kind of spam ranged attacks until they build ATB, at which point they cast spells or use special abilities that are largely pretty straightforward. Aerith does have some neat ones at least, but Barret seems to be intended to be the party tank, so he's definitely not all that fun to play, and I usually like to relegate him to the AI. (When he's around, anyway, he's been MIA on me for like the last four chapters now...)

Which isn't to say that I don't think there's some issues with the combat though. I'm getting to the point where I'm very iffy about them tying magic and items to the ATB gauge. Magic in particular because of certain enemies that are designed to force you to alternate magic and physical attacks - it really sucks to hit a phase fighting one of them where they're immune to your physical attacks, but you nonetheless have to just spam normal attacks for a bit to build ATB gauge before you can cast any magic at them. Plus magic is already limited by you mp, so it feels a little silly to also have it require an ATB bar. Maybe higher-level magic should, for how potent it can be, but least tier-1 spells feel like they ought to be more freely available. And items just feel so much less impactful than other things you can do with the ATB bar, plus it'd be very nice to never be in a position where you really need to heal/revive someone and be unable to until you swing at the enemy enough times to build the bar to use an item. They're already less effective at that than higher-level healing magic anyway, and you have a limited number of them (though admittedly the game is pretty generous about some, but not usually until they've become a bit out-of-date to be a huge deal in battle). Maybe instead have item use on a reasonable cooldown of its own after you do it, similar to in the Tales series, to prevent potion spamming or the like?

Also, it would be nice if AI-controlled party members were less passive, and enemies weren't so heavily inclined to target the player-controlled character. Always sucks getting swarmed by enemies or wailed on by a boss while your friends sit around twiddling their thumbs, and without even any ATB gauge you can order them to use. Doesn't happen all the time, mind you, but when it does, it is quite irritating.

Story-wise, I'm enjoying it enough so far. I don't know the entire story of FF7 (only played partway through it once quite a while ago, and don't remember a whole lot from when I did), so some of the mysterious things that longtime fans probably already know the meaning of are actually mysterious to me; which is perhaps a mixed blessing, since it does get annoying exactly how much they're leaving vague about Aerith in particular. They are at least succeeding in making me like the characters though... except Cloud. I mean, he has his moments, but by and large I really feel like he has too much of the "silent" part of of the "strong silent type" he's clearly supposed to be. Also, still occasionally kind of a jackass. Besides him though, everybody's pretty fun and likeable - I like the dynamic that's emerging between Tifa and Aerith now that they've met up, Barret's hardass rebel leader/loving single father dichotomy, and even Jessie and Biggs feel like they've got some actual meat to their characters, quite unlike the original game. Wedge still has never really gone much beyond being a punch line for fat jokes though, which does suck, but eh, 2/3 on the minor not-quite-party-members is pretty good. And the side characters are entertaining as well.

Also, have to say, at least even the mini-games that I dislike in this one are a lot better than I recall the ones in the original being.

[Cespenar]

Part of this is that a lot of the reason to pause is for more micromanagement, which means pausing is something of a kludge for the interface not being up to the job. Like I can manage a combined arms engagement in Company of Heroes, but because tour interface was developed by and for the Inscrutable Tiny Buttons Fanclub, 4 dudes is harder? Part of it is that I simply don't want the potential (hence partial obligation) to do infinite micro in the first place. Part of it is not wanting to manage pausingas another consideration. And part if it is that RTP games still can't be played while eating supper and turn based games can.

Both game types are valid on their own, though. Company of Heroes works because one squad is often depicted to be as simple as one singular unit in a base-building RTS game (for example). In comparison, one character in an isometric RPG (or other pausable real time game) is often depicted to have enough tools in their toolbelt to be equivalent to maybe a whole company in Company of Heroes. The level of detail has to be adjusted for the scope of the narrative.

Also, no offense, but while it may define your preferences (and rightly so), if all games were designed for people who simultaneously are supposed to eat supper, we would live in a boring world of gaming indeed.

[Wookieetank]

Been playing through FFX/X-2 HD remake with the polycule recently. Finished up FFX last week and then jumped into FFX-2 a couple days later. I forgot how much of a tonal shift it is between games. Still greatly enjoying both, but it is a bit jarring going from a somber introspective game to a lighthearted peppy one with the same characters.

Also been playing a boatload of Heros of Hammerwatch. Its great fun, and quite the challenge at times. Sadly the characters I like best I'm worst at, but I've managed to get everyone through New game +1 or more at this point. Still need to get most of my characters through the DLC dungeons.

[factotum]

Also, no offense, but while it may define your preferences (and rightly so), if all games were designed for people who simultaneously are supposed to eat supper, we would live in a boring world of gaming indeed.

But probably a better fed one.

[Man_Over_Game]

Barret and Aerith less so, since they just kind of spam ranged attacks until they build ATB, at which point they cast spells or use special abilities that are largely pretty straightforward. Aerith does have some neat ones at least, but Barret seems to be intended to be the party tank, so he's definitely not all that fun to play, and I usually like to relegate him to the AI.

[...]

Also, it would be nice if AI-controlled party members were less passive, and enemies weren't so heavily inclined to target the player-controlled character. Always sucks getting swarmed by enemies or wailed on by a boss while your friends sit around twiddling their thumbs, and without even any ATB gauge you can order them to use.

Keep in mind, I have exactly zero experience with this game, but it almost sounds like you're supposed to swap to Barret when you're getting swarmed so that his ranged attacks and tanking abilities pull enemies to him and waste a bunch of time to buy your main character some breathing room.

[tyckspoon]

Keep in mind, I have exactly zero experience with this game, but it almost sounds like you're supposed to swap to Barret when you're getting swarmed so that his ranged attacks and tanking abilities pull enemies to him and waste a bunch of time to buy your main character some breathing room.

Pretty much, yeah. There are a few fights where I think the intended/best strategy would be to switch your controlled character frequently in order to make the enemy spend most of their time running across the battlefield when you make them change targeting, especially in the 2-person party sequences where you often have Cloud + a ranged character that will be standing off some ways away. And the character you're controlling earns ATB bar a lot faster (possibly because you as the player are probably just spamming their attack button while the AI tends to take breaks between attacks, but the active player may just actually get more ATB), so if you want one of your non-controlled party members to handle healing duties or support spells or something you will sometimes have to switch to them to make sure they're actually getting enough bar to do so.