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  1. - Top - End - #1381
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    Default Re: What are you playing 4: HD Remaster Gold Collector's Edition Thread of the Year

    Been playing Pokemon Unite. It's a free MOBA on switch. It encourages a lot of mobility and combat, has a lot of subtle nuances that rewards players that know how to play (like how jungling is a big deal, and rewards only go to the team that lands the last hit).

    It's pretty clever, and not a badly designed MOBA, it's just tricky to find the right pokemon to play since a lot of them have unique playstyles and combos that aren't obvious until you've played them a few times.

    It also does a pretty good job of making no position boring. For instance, the starter support you can get focuses on landing sticky bombs that heal allies if they're caught in the explosion, or sending out a terrain effect that speeds up allies and slows enemies, so you're encouraged to still be aggressive and stay active in the game.

    I'd put it in the same category as Heroes of the Storm. While other MOBAs are made for the top 15% of gamers, these focus on the other 85%, prioritizing fun over competition.
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  2. - Top - End - #1382
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    Default Re: What are you playing 4: HD Remaster Gold Collector's Edition Thread of the Year

    Quote Originally Posted by Man_Over_Game View Post
    Been playing Pokemon Unite. It's a free MOBA on switch. It encourages a lot of mobility and combat, has a lot of subtle nuances that rewards players that know how to play (like how jungling is a big deal, and rewards only go to the team that lands the last hit).

    It's pretty clever, and not a badly designed MOBA, it's just tricky to find the right pokemon to play since a lot of them have unique playstyles and combos that aren't obvious until you've played them a few times.

    It also does a pretty good job of making no position boring. For instance, the starter support you can get focuses on landing sticky bombs that heal allies if they're caught in the explosion, or sending out a terrain effect that speeds up allies and slows enemies, so you're encouraged to still be aggressive and stay active in the game.

    I'd put it in the same category as Heroes of the Storm. While other MOBAs are made for the top 15% of gamers, these focus on the other 85%, prioritizing fun over competition.
    I've heard there are pay to win elements, which makes it an immediate non starter for me. How true is that?

  3. - Top - End - #1383
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    Default Re: What are you playing 4: HD Remaster Gold Collector's Edition Thread of the Year

    Just started playing ARK: Survival Evolved. Don't m ow how many times I have spawned just below a T-rex of Titanoboa who then promptly tear off my unexpected and unprepared upper half.

  4. - Top - End - #1384
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    Default Re: What are you playing 4: HD Remaster Gold Collector's Edition Thread of the Year

    Quote Originally Posted by Anteros View Post
    I've heard there are pay to win elements, which makes it an immediate non starter for me. How true is that?
    It's more of a 'pay to get advantage now' rather than full P2W.

    The currency needed to upgrade held items can be bought with paid gems, but the game is decently generous with how much it gives out, so you'll catch up with time.

    And the held items don't give that much of an advantage overall. There's a minimal difference between a lvl 20 item and a maxed lvl 30 item for example.

    Only thing I've noticed that can be considered P2W at least.
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  5. - Top - End - #1385
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    Default Re: What are you playing 4: HD Remaster Gold Collector's Edition Thread of the Year

    Quote Originally Posted by Rodin View Post
    Even with the meme building this run has been simple enough that I'm very tempted to finally try a Maddening run. Maybe Maddening Casual so I can throw bodies at a problem without totally boning myself in future missions?
    Haven't tried Three Houses yet, but Maddening Casual or Hard Classic would be fine for a FE veteran, I'd assume.

    On a very tangential note, FE5 certainly seems to have a difficulty spike in some missions while being perfectly manageable in others. Just the chapters 4x and 5 costed me 4 softlocks worth of thief deaths (the AI sure loves to go after your weak units!), while the rest of 1-8 combined don't even come close to it so far. Weird stuff.

    From the devs' perspective, giving even ~20 HP instead of the starting ~14 to your thieves/priests would have been enough to put them out of most "one shotted out of the fog of war" territory, but I know... it was the 90s.
    Last edited by Cespenar; 2021-07-24 at 12:09 PM.

  6. - Top - End - #1386
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    Default Re: What are you playing 4: HD Remaster Gold Collector's Edition Thread of the Year

    Quote Originally Posted by Cespenar View Post
    Haven't tried Three Houses yet, but Maddening Casual or Hard Classic would be fine for a FE veteran, I'd assume.

    On a very tangential note, FE5 certainly seems to have a difficulty spike in some missions while being perfectly manageable in others. Just the chapters 4x and 5 costed me 4 softlocks worth of thief deaths (the AI sure loves to go after your weak units!), while the rest of 1-8 combined don't even come close to it so far. Weird stuff.

    From the devs' perspective, giving even ~20 HP instead of the starting ~14 to your thieves/priests would have been enough to put them out of most "one shotted out of the fog of war" territory, but I know... it was the 90s.
    Hard Classic is pretty much the "default" difficulty for the modern FEs. You can get through Normal difficulty by rolling your face against the controller.

    My reluctance for Maddening mostly comes from flashbacks to Awakening's Lunatic mode. It was doable eventually, but the early levels were hell and I only managed it with a ton of grinding. Even then the final boss required a healthy dose of luck to defeat (Not even Lunatic Grima can withstand 3 Astra procs in a row it seems). Maddening's reputation isn't as fearsome as Awakening Lunatic, but on the flip side it doesn't have infinite grinding and the leveling rate is cut in half. This means regimenting your experience gains and even tossing units to the wolves (sorry Ashe) are required, and you're also heavily limited on who you can recruit since there isn't enough experience to go around.

    I booted up a New Game+ Maddening run, but when I looked at what you get from NG+ I couldn't do it. . Instant max professor rank, full support on your characters, AND you get to unlock skills and class masteries early? No, this is not on.

    I am going to try Maddening on Casual though, because my current run is getting boring. I'm at the point where I can send Flayn and Marianne into the enemy and laugh as foes charge into the meat grinder.

  7. - Top - End - #1387
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    Default Re: What are you playing 4: HD Remaster Gold Collector's Edition Thread of the Year

    I gave Into the Breach another try. Unlocked the Blitzkrieg (lightning mechs), and those are a lot of fun. Actually ended up winning with them, and got the achievement for hitting 10 squares at once with the lightning chain (the AI in the second bossfight was quite literally lining up for me; easiest boss ever).

    I also learned that while said lightning chain passes harmlessly through buildings with the upgrade, it does no such thing for defense objectives like the train or Renfield bombs... which kind of stinks. Lost a couple of points because I unwitting toasted my own train (twice) thinking it counted as a building.
    Last edited by PoeticallyPsyco; 2021-07-29 at 04:40 PM.
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  8. - Top - End - #1388
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    Default Re: What are you playing 4: HD Remaster Gold Collector's Edition Thread of the Year

    Quote Originally Posted by Antonok View Post
    It's more of a 'pay to get advantage now' rather than full P2W.

    The currency needed to upgrade held items can be bought with paid gems, but the game is decently generous with how much it gives out, so you'll catch up with time.

    And the held items don't give that much of an advantage overall. There's a minimal difference between a lvl 20 item and a maxed lvl 30 item for example.

    Only thing I've noticed that can be considered P2W at least.
    It can take a while to unlock pokemon without real cash, but otherwise I agree. The game itself is fun and fast enough (like 10 minute rounds) that you don't really care all that much about the grind. Each Pokemon essentially has 4 different playstyles to mess around with, and the balance between them is fairly good.

    My biggest complaint is that apparently some Pokemon use Special Attack for their basic attacks, while others use normal Attack, and there is no other benefit to upgrading your Special or basic Attack and there's no way to tell what pokemon uses what. So you could, for example, use one of your equipment slots on a pokemon for a special attack item before the round started just for it to not have any effect.

    Would have been a lot better if they just had normal Attack apply to basic attacks and Special Attack apply to your CD powers, but that's none of my business.
    Last edited by Man_Over_Game; 2021-07-29 at 07:07 PM.
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  9. - Top - End - #1389
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    Default Re: What are you playing 4: HD Remaster Gold Collector's Edition Thread of the Year

    Quote Originally Posted by Man_Over_Game View Post
    It can take a while to unlock pokemon without real cash, but otherwise I agree. The game itself is fun and fast enough (like 10 minute rounds) that you don't really care all that much about the grind. Each Pokemon essentially has 4 different playstyles to mess around with, and the balance between them is fairly good.

    My biggest complaint is that apparently some Pokemon use Special Attack for their basic attacks, while others use normal Attack, and there is no other benefit to upgrading your Special or basic Attack and there's no way to tell what pokemon uses what. So you could, for example, use one of your equipment slots on a pokemon for a special attack item before the round started just for it to not have any effect.

    Would have been a lot better if they just had normal Attack apply to basic attacks and Special Attack apply to your CD powers, but that's none of my business.
    As far as I know, aside from Charizard and Lucario whose powered attack (3rd auto)*, all other auto attacks physical attack.

    Agreed about the abilities though. They could definitely have made it easier to figure out who uses what. Only upside is, they're either all Sp. Attack or Phys Attack. No 'ability 1 is Sp Att, ability 2 is Phys Att' stuff going on.

    *They apparently have something special attached to their boosted attack. Charizard's burn passive seems to use Sp. Attack for example.
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  10. - Top - End - #1390
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    Default Re: What are you playing 4: HD Remaster Gold Collector's Edition Thread of the Year

    Blaseball is finally finished and what a grim but beautiful finale that was. So long and thanks for all the fish!

  11. - Top - End - #1391
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    Default Re: What are you playing 4: HD Remaster Gold Collector's Edition Thread of the Year

    I've been playing some rimworld lately. While I love the chill colony building aspect, I absolutely despise the random "haha your favorite colonist is dead with nothing you could have done" type events. I think I'll finish the current hardcore run I'm on and then mod the game heavily, or only play on casual going forward.

    Also, the Steam Cloud doesn't work right lately so I can only play my save from my desktop. Which is annoying to say the least.
    Last edited by Anteros; 2021-08-02 at 10:36 PM.

  12. - Top - End - #1392
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    Default Re: What are you playing 4: HD Remaster Gold Collector's Edition Thread of the Year

    Quote Originally Posted by Anteros View Post
    I've been playing some rimworld lately. While I love the chill colony building aspect, I absolutely despise the random "haha your favorite colonist is dead with nothing you could have done" type events.
    Ah man, I too love and am playing Rimworld Ideology right now. IÂ’m currently playing a squad of WW1 soldiers trying to caravan across the continent in five years or less, cause if we donÂ’t the planet will blow up.

    Regarding the “sudden death” events, almost all are preventable or manageable (except meteorites), but only if you prepare for it well in advance. A lot of their solutions are non-obvious but make sense.

    If you want a chill base builder I strongly recommend playing it on Phoebe Chillax at the lowest difficulty. At the default settings with Cassandra, the game is designed to ensure your base will end in disaster because the stated goal of the game is not to be winnable, but to generate stories of ridiculous circumstances. Since you can adjust the difficulty in game, you can always turn up the challenge if you want a threat and turn it back down when you donÂ’t. ItÂ’s the same way my wife plays the game and she loves it. Typically, bases fall apart because thereÂ’s no breathing room between disasters.

  13. - Top - End - #1393
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    Default Re: What are you playing 4: HD Remaster Gold Collector's Edition Thread of the Year

    Yeah, I as well first got bored out of Rimworld because while I was hoping to make use of all the fun sim parts of the game, the game really seemed to be in a rush to play like a tower defense.

  14. - Top - End - #1394
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    Default Re: What are you playing 4: HD Remaster Gold Collector's Edition Thread of the Year

    Quote Originally Posted by Antonok View Post
    As far as I know, aside from Charizard and Lucario whose powered attack (3rd auto)*, all other auto attacks physical attack.

    Agreed about the abilities though. They could definitely have made it easier to figure out who uses what. Only upside is, they're either all Sp. Attack or Phys Attack. No 'ability 1 is Sp Att, ability 2 is Phys Att' stuff going on.

    *They apparently have something special attached to their boosted attack. Charizard's burn passive seems to use Sp. Attack for example.
    So it turns out that all Attack Pokemon use their Attack stat for most of their attacks and moves, while all Special Attack Pokemon use Special Attack for the same reasons. Some Attack Pokemon (like Charizard or Lucario) deal Special Attack damage with their boosted attacks, but otherwise Pokemon stay in their lane.

    For instance, even though Zeroara's moves all involve electricity, and his Ultimate is called Plasma Gale and shoots a pulse of energy that chases you, all damage that he does is Attack damage.

    And it's stupid, because there's no way to find out any of this without looking it up from nerds who've done the math.
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  15. - Top - End - #1395
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    Default Re: What are you playing 4: HD Remaster Gold Collector's Edition Thread of the Year

    My Three Houses Maddening run is going about as I expected. The first few stages where the developers know your power level are sheer hell. The initial class battle probably only has one way to beat it from what I saw - since they know permadeath is off they can make it Ultra Uber Hard with required unit trading. It sucked.

    Now that I'm out of Early Game Hell though? It isn't too bad. I'd still hate to do it on Classic, but on Casual you can usually get by with trading a unit here and there. The first Death Knight mission in particular was vastly easier because I could just chuck a weak character into his jaws and then nuke him on the following turn.

    The DLCs have also been a godsend. The higher level Auxiliary missions are required to keep yourself within shouting distance of enemy levels, and the Renown bonuses Cindered Shadows gives you has helped me get the experience bonuses from the Saint Statues early. Instead of -50% experience I'm getting around -25% experience instead. It helps a lot.

    Oh, and fishing. Lots and lots of fishing.

    If I were to do Classic I'd probably do it as New Game+. The extra Divine Pulse charges alone are needed to get you through the early missions where whiffing an 80% hit means a guaranteed unit death. It would also mean I don't have to fish for hours.

    I have two remaining fears for my current run. The first is the timeskip - the first timeskip mission is notoriously hard if your Byleth sucks, and my Byleth is one of the worst I've ever had. Ashe is doing better than Byleth, and he's the kid the guides recommend sticking in the corner with a dunce cap on! The second is dealing with the final boss. Lunatic Grima in Awakening was virtually impossible to beat even with infinite level grinding. How I'll manage in the limited experience Maddening doesn't bear thinking on.

  16. - Top - End - #1396
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    Default Re: What are you playing 4: HD Remaster Gold Collector's Edition Thread of the Year

    Quote Originally Posted by NRSASD View Post
    Ah man, I too love and am playing Rimworld Ideology right now. IÂ’m currently playing a squad of WW1 soldiers trying to caravan across the continent in five years or less, cause if we donÂ’t the planet will blow up.

    Regarding the “sudden death” events, almost all are preventable or manageable (except meteorites), but only if you prepare for it well in advance. A lot of their solutions are non-obvious but make sense.

    If you want a chill base builder I strongly recommend playing it on Phoebe Chillax at the lowest difficulty. At the default settings with Cassandra, the game is designed to ensure your base will end in disaster because the stated goal of the game is not to be winnable, but to generate stories of ridiculous circumstances. Since you can adjust the difficulty in game, you can always turn up the challenge if you want a threat and turn it back down when you donÂ’t. ItÂ’s the same way my wife plays the game and she loves it. Typically, bases fall apart because thereÂ’s no breathing room between disasters.
    Well, the game typically scales challenges based on how much your colony is worth, so I've always found the trick to be making sure I don't place too much of my colony's value in things that don't actually help you survive. All those marble floors/artworks/etc look pretty, but they jack up the value of the colony and Cassandra will murder you for having them. Typically I've found that any major project besides building defenses, or hospitals aren't worth it if you want to survive. That said, I still eventually tend to get bored and do them anyway. I've also never technically beaten a run of Rimworld, but that's typically more because the end game is so tedious that I eventually get bored and stop playing than actually losing a colony.

    By unavoidable deaths I'm talking more about things like social fights that kill your perfectly healthy colonist, or a throwing rock that just so happens to hit your colonist's brain through their 8,000 dollar power armor. Or the time in my current run where a mechanoid swarm landed literally one square away from miner.

  17. - Top - End - #1397
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    Default Re: What are you playing 4: HD Remaster Gold Collector's Edition Thread of the Year

    Quote Originally Posted by Anteros View Post
    By unavoidable deaths I'm talking more about things like social fights that kill your perfectly healthy colonist, or a throwing rock that just so happens to hit your colonist's brain through their 8,000 dollar power armor. Or the time in my current run where a mechanoid swarm landed literally one square away from miner.
    Hah, fair point. I’ve never had random deaths due to improbable shots or social fights, but I know that’s something that happens. Typically those deaths happen to surgery failures : )

    Mechanoid swarms are real rough though. The only way to deal with them in my experience is either impeccable defenses and great soldiers, or, my preferred method, tons of allies.

    I’ve won like four times? But yeah, I tend to get bored or slip up dramatically near year 7 most times. I also play on Randy because Cassandra is too predictable in her cycles of misery.

  18. - Top - End - #1398
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    Default Re: What are you playing 4: HD Remaster Gold Collector's Edition Thread of the Year

    I just bought Subnautica on the Switch this past Friday and have already sunk 20 hours into it. I adore the atmosphere and the crafting/survival elements are a good challenge -- they do a really great job of making you feel like you're progressing, without ever completely trivializing the early stuff!

    Plus the story is super compelling, in that "stumble across little bits and pieces" style. Even though the audio logs are very Bioshock, the freeform nature of the game and the way you're not really forced to take many of them helps it to feel more like the Dark Souls style storytelling.

  19. - Top - End - #1399
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    Default Re: What are you playing 4: HD Remaster Gold Collector's Edition Thread of the Year

    Subnautica is my favorite game of all time. I really envy you getting to go through it for the first time.

    Quote Originally Posted by NRSASD View Post
    Mechanoid swarms are real rough though. The only way to deal with them in my experience is either impeccable defenses and great soldiers, or, my preferred method, tons of allies.
    I usually plink at them from outside their range with sniper rifles and kite.
    Last edited by Anteros; 2021-08-04 at 08:04 PM.

  20. - Top - End - #1400
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    Default Re: What are you playing 4: HD Remaster Gold Collector's Edition Thread of the Year

    Quote Originally Posted by Rodin View Post
    My Three Houses Maddening run is going about as I expected. The first few stages where the developers know your power level are sheer hell. The initial class battle probably only has one way to beat it from what I saw - since they know permadeath is off they can make it Ultra Uber Hard with required unit trading. It sucked.

    Now that I'm out of Early Game Hell though? It isn't too bad. I'd still hate to do it on Classic, but on Casual you can usually get by with trading a unit here and there. The first Death Knight mission in particular was vastly easier because I could just chuck a weak character into his jaws and then nuke him on the following turn.

    The DLCs have also been a godsend. The higher level Auxiliary missions are required to keep yourself within shouting distance of enemy levels, and the Renown bonuses Cindered Shadows gives you has helped me get the experience bonuses from the Saint Statues early. Instead of -50% experience I'm getting around -25% experience instead. It helps a lot.

    Oh, and fishing. Lots and lots of fishing.

    If I were to do Classic I'd probably do it as New Game+. The extra Divine Pulse charges alone are needed to get you through the early missions where whiffing an 80% hit means a guaranteed unit death. It would also mean I don't have to fish for hours.

    I have two remaining fears for my current run. The first is the timeskip - the first timeskip mission is notoriously hard if your Byleth sucks, and my Byleth is one of the worst I've ever had. Ashe is doing better than Byleth, and he's the kid the guides recommend sticking in the corner with a dunce cap on! The second is dealing with the final boss. Lunatic Grima in Awakening was virtually impossible to beat even with infinite level grinding. How I'll manage in the limited experience Maddening doesn't bear thinking on.
    What route are you taking? I'm guessing Blue Lions from Ashe but you never know...

    Incidentally, after completing a Maniac mode playthrough of Path of Radiance (using foot units almost exclusively because I hate myself wanted a challenge) I've also started a NG Blue Lions Maddening playthrough as well as a Lunatic+ run of Awakening, both on classic, with the plan being to switch between the two whenever I get frustrated with the other.

    I completed the first class battle on the BL run without issue (I think my choice of Dedue, Felix, and Annette made it substantially easier than it otherwise might have been), though it was a little shocking to see how outclassed my units were stat-wise. I'm expecting the next chapter to be substantially more challenging since more than three enemy units will move at the same time.

    On the Awakening front, I'm up to chapter 3 (Sumia/Kellam chapter), having survived the horror that was chapter 2. I've given chapter 3 a few tries in an attempt to find out a viable strategy for surviving the first two waves of enemies with no luck as of yet, though I am hopeful that a solution exists (it took around 40 resets to get past chapter 2, with about half of those looking for a strategy that could work, so it will take a lot of failures before I consider restarting the run.) Amusingly, the huge number of resets for the first few chapters have given me a better appreciation for Awakening's map design, especially chapter 2.
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  21. - Top - End - #1401
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    Default Re: What are you playing 4: HD Remaster Gold Collector's Edition Thread of the Year

    Rimworld is reminding me why I dislike its late game so much. It's not that I inherently dislike the concept of enormous raids, but the way that things scale, you're basically forced to rely on kill boxes and abusing the AI unless you're willing to accept constant casualties. Sure, the AI is easy to cheese...but that's not a fun time.

  22. - Top - End - #1402
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    Default Re: What are you playing 4: HD Remaster Gold Collector's Edition Thread of the Year

    Still playing a lot of Guilty Gear Strive. I've managed to win back my place in heaven for the third time now, and faster this month than last, which feels good. The fact that I can keep doing it is making it feel more earned, particularly since the competition for it is definitely fiercer than it was right after the game launched. I've also taken up a fifth character, Millia, if only a bit. She's fun when she gets her game plan going, but damn does she die easy. I love that she has a real air combo though, unlike everyone else in this game; that's something that I do miss as a result of the changes ArcSys made to this particular title's combat system, is everyone being able to do those.

    After finishing a second run through ME2 and 3, I've also started up on the Great Ace Attorney Chronicles - aka Ace Attorney meets Sher- er, "Herlock Sholmes." I'm only on the second case, but I'm definitely enjoying it so far. The first case was probably one of the most elaborate first cases in the series, ran a bit longer than I thought it would (though admittedly the last part dragged a bit as they took way longer than should've been needed to point out one particular point that seemed obvious rather quickly), and it's interesting to see international diplomacy suddenly playing a role in how an Ace Attorney story plays out. And while I haven't seen much of him so far, Sholmes has been quite amusing. Seems like they're going for his deductive abilities being just a bit exaggerated by the stories (which are a thing in-universe, "The Adventures of Herlock Sholmes" is published by "Doctor Wilson" as biographical stories about his escapades), but still enough there that with a little help from Ryunosuke (the protagonist, supposedly an ancestor of the series' usual lead, Phoenix Wright), they can get to the point of actually being good, which seems like it'll make for some fun sequences. And naturally the series' blend of drama and goofiness is very much present and still enjoyable, so I am greatly looking forward to seeing the rest of it.
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    "When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty, I read them openly. When I became a man, I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up." -C.S. Lewis

  23. - Top - End - #1403
    Ogre in the Playground
     
    ElfPirate

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    Default Re: What are you playing 4: HD Remaster Gold Collector's Edition Thread of the Year

    Got the last achievement for SNKRX (win with a full set of Nukers); probably done with the game for awhile unless another big update comes out.

    Been playing a lot of Baba is You. Now that's a brain melter. I've had to look up the answers a couple of times, and to the game's credit only one of those was because of a mechanic it hadn't properly demonstrated (that you can use "NOT" paired with a noun to affect all objects other than that noun, as in "Not-Rock is Push" to be able to push anything other than rocks).

    Just played (and won) another game of Into the Breach, as the Flame Behemoths. I really like that squad; every single one of them has a forced movement weapon, making it relatively easy to shuffle the Vek around so their attacks miss while they slowly burn to death, and I got all three achievements, beat all four islands, and completed the final showdown all on my first playthrough with them. Barely even lost any civilians; like four buildings total. I think I've finally gotten the hang of this game. Next up is something completely different, the direct-damage focused Hazard Mechs.
    Last edited by PoeticallyPsyco; 2021-08-08 at 03:21 AM.
    Quote Originally Posted by Darths & Droids
    When you combine the two most devious, sneaky, manipulative, underhanded, cunning, and diabolical forces in the known universe, the consequences can be world-shattering. Those forces are, of course, players and GMs.
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  24. - Top - End - #1404
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    GnomeWizardGuy

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    Default Re: What are you playing 4: HD Remaster Gold Collector's Edition Thread of the Year

    Quote Originally Posted by Battleship789 View Post
    What route are you taking? I'm guessing Blue Lions from Ashe but you never know...

    Incidentally, after completing a Maniac mode playthrough of Path of Radiance (using foot units almost exclusively because I hate myself wanted a challenge) I've also started a NG Blue Lions Maddening playthrough as well as a Lunatic+ run of Awakening, both on classic, with the plan being to switch between the two whenever I get frustrated with the other.

    I completed the first class battle on the BL run without issue (I think my choice of Dedue, Felix, and Annette made it substantially easier than it otherwise might have been), though it was a little shocking to see how outclassed my units were stat-wise. I'm expecting the next chapter to be substantially more challenging since more than three enemy units will move at the same time.

    On the Awakening front, I'm up to chapter 3 (Sumia/Kellam chapter), having survived the horror that was chapter 2. I've given chapter 3 a few tries in an attempt to find out a viable strategy for surviving the first two waves of enemies with no luck as of yet, though I am hopeful that a solution exists (it took around 40 resets to get past chapter 2, with about half of those looking for a strategy that could work, so it will take a lot of failures before I consider restarting the run.) Amusingly, the huge number of resets for the first few chapters have given me a better appreciation for Awakening's map design, especially chapter 2.
    Yeah, Blue Lions. I've only done their path once and haven't spent that much time with their students as compared to the other houses. I also wanted Dedue and Felix for the early game - Dedue is the only character who can tank multiple enemies in the early game with his passive and Felix makes the backswing hit a lot harder.

    The bandit chapter is the one I had the most trouble with. Even with multiple restarts and abusing Casual it took at least a dozen attempts before I had enough units left over after clearing the central plateau to consider going for the boss.

    Chapters 2 and 3 of Awakening are some of the absolute hardest you can run into. They're before you start getting random battles on the world map and before you unlock any Paralogues to start building your levels over the main plot missions.

    On my run, I've found the difficulty to be highly variable. I smashed the hell out of the monastery defense mission, to the point that Dedue tanked two crits from the Death Knight without even being concerned. I tried playing "who hits the lightest" with Edelgard to let Dimitri get the kill, but Felix has been taking lessons from the MitD. The next mission is the reunion, and holy crap is that mission insane. It took a bunch of restarts before I found a location where Byleth and Dmitri could hang out without getting swarmed under by thieves and assassins with Pass. Instead of Dedue's awesomeness I had Gilbert, and his maximum hit rate on the mission was around 30%. I've been attempting to play "Classic" while only using Casual as a seatbelt - this mission was the first in a long while where I gave up and let Ashe snuff it because Gilbert was hopelessly incapable of protecting him.

    Even with all that I still only got Dmitri out thanks to him chaining 6 40% dodges in a row. Poison arrows are THE biggest difficulty difference between Hard and Maddening, and that mission had 4-5 archers capable of doubling attacking with a wall of thieves in front of them to ensure you couldn't hurt them.

    After that nonsense I'm not expecting another difficult mission for...well, a while. Maybe the next Death Knight mission? The next set of missions don't have a time limit and I have my full class available.

  25. - Top - End - #1405
    Ogre in the Playground
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    Default Re: What are you playing 4: HD Remaster Gold Collector's Edition Thread of the Year

    Quote Originally Posted by PoeticallyPsyco View Post
    Been playing a lot of Baba is You. Now that's a brain melter. I've had to look up the answers a couple of times, and to the game's credit only one of those was because of a mechanic it hadn't properly demonstrated (that you can use "NOT" paired with a noun to affect all objects other than that noun, as in "Not-Rock is Push" to be able to push anything other than rocks).
    I both love and hate this game, I've put almost 30 hours into banging my head against it. Haven't quite gotten to where I'll look up full solutions (thanks to an agreement with a couple of friends also working through it), but thanks to a friend found out about Baba is Hint, which has obscure hints, along the lines of what you need to do, but not how, or referencing which earlier levels will help you figure out the one you're working on. The game is great for anyone who likes puzzles, but it does not hold your hand in the slightest.
    Quote Originally Posted by Rockphed View Post
    Dwarf Fortress would like to have a word with you. The word is decorated with bands of microcline and meanaces with spikes of rose gold. On the word is an image of the word in cinnabar.
    Quote Originally Posted by kpenguin View Post
    This is an image of Wookietank the Destroyer of Fortresses engraved in sandstone. Wookietank the Destroyer of Fortresses is leaving Trotknives. Trotknives is on fire and full of goblins. This image refers to the destruction of Trotknives in late winter of 109 by Wookietank the Destroyer of Fortresses.

  26. - Top - End - #1406
    Titan in the Playground
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    Default Re: What are you playing 4: HD Remaster Gold Collector's Edition Thread of the Year

    Quote Originally Posted by Wookieetank View Post
    I both love and hate this game, I've put almost 30 hours into banging my head against it. Haven't quite gotten to where I'll look up full solutions (thanks to an agreement with a couple of friends also working through it), but thanks to a friend found out about Baba is Hint, which has obscure hints, along the lines of what you need to do, but not how, or referencing which earlier levels will help you figure out the one you're working on. The game is great for anyone who likes puzzles, but it does not hold your hand in the slightest.
    Pretty much my feelings as well. It's a brilliant game, but I feel like it could have been relaying that brilliance better with fewer "eff you if you don't get this" moments. I wish I knew that site back a couple years ago, honestly.

    On a very tangential note, Fire Emblem 5 is really kicking my behind. I've devolved the ironman into a far more manageable, "true death occurs when a character dies as many times as its Con score" kinda deal, and I still rack about ~2-3 reloads every mission, and a true death every ~5-6 missions. And missing a lot of the recruitments too, because they are as ritualistic and inscrutable as you can get in a video game.

    The funniest case is a traitor general you can "recruit" in the later chapters, whose path apparently goes like this: he has a cadre of 6 imperial knights, and 6 named knights. You rescue 6 civilians from a cell in a separate portion of the map, which move towards the named knights via incredibly tight and hard to navigate corridors. The imperial knights can attack and capture/kill the civilians at their whim, but the named knights don't. If a civilian somehow doesn't get stuck, survives, and can manage to get to the very particular named knight that they are tied to, they can speak to them and convert that particular named knight into friendly mode. When in friendly mode, they attack all enemies, and can kill/get killed by all other enemies. If a friendly named knight dies, you can still recruit the traitor general, but if a named knight dies before it gets converted, the recruitment is blocked forever.

    Yeah, guess what, I passed that recruitment.
    Last edited by Cespenar; 2021-08-09 at 11:08 AM.

  27. - Top - End - #1407
    Ogre in the Playground
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    Default Re: What are you playing 4: HD Remaster Gold Collector's Edition Thread of the Year

    Quote Originally Posted by Cespenar View Post
    Pretty much my feelings as well. It's a brilliant game, but I feel like it could have been relaying that brilliance better with fewer "eff you if you don't get this" moments. I wish I knew that site back a couple years ago, honestly.
    I felt it was less "eff you" and more of a throwback to early computer puzzle games where figuring anything out was a large part of the game. The lack of handholding is both refreshing and infuriating.
    Quote Originally Posted by Rockphed View Post
    Dwarf Fortress would like to have a word with you. The word is decorated with bands of microcline and meanaces with spikes of rose gold. On the word is an image of the word in cinnabar.
    Quote Originally Posted by kpenguin View Post
    This is an image of Wookietank the Destroyer of Fortresses engraved in sandstone. Wookietank the Destroyer of Fortresses is leaving Trotknives. Trotknives is on fire and full of goblins. This image refers to the destruction of Trotknives in late winter of 109 by Wookietank the Destroyer of Fortresses.

  28. - Top - End - #1408
    Titan in the Playground
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    Default Re: What are you playing 4: HD Remaster Gold Collector's Edition Thread of the Year

    Quote Originally Posted by Wookieetank View Post
    I felt it was less "eff you" and more of a throwback to early computer puzzle games where figuring anything out was a large part of the game. The lack of handholding is both refreshing and infuriating.
    It's definitely refreshing and infuriating at the same time, but it could have been somewhat less of the latter with very, very little compromise, would be my nitpick.

    In comparison, for example, Legend of Grimrock 2 has a lot of oldschool, "figuring out as you explore" types of puzzles as well, but manages the inscrutability better, in my opinion. Not the same genre of course, but there is definitely some thematic overlap.
    Last edited by Cespenar; 2021-08-09 at 11:16 AM.

  29. - Top - End - #1409
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    Rynjin's Avatar

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    Sep 2016

    Default Re: What are you playing 4: HD Remaster Gold Collector's Edition Thread of the Year

    Quote Originally Posted by Wookieetank View Post
    I felt it was less "eff you" and more of a throwback to early computer puzzle games where figuring anything out was a large part of the game. The lack of handholding is both refreshing and infuriating.
    Considering early computer puzzle/adventure games were designed by people who had absolutely no idea what they were doing and often contained "puzzles" that had no logical solution and were made to be solved with sheer trial and error in the best case, that makes this game sound like it would also be channeling that same "**** you" spirit, yeah.

  30. - Top - End - #1410
    Titan in the Playground
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    Default Re: What are you playing 4: HD Remaster Gold Collector's Edition Thread of the Year

    Quote Originally Posted by Rynjin View Post
    Considering early computer puzzle/adventure games were designed by people who had absolutely no idea what they were doing and often contained "puzzles" that had no logical solution and were made to be solved with sheer trial and error in the best case, that makes this game sound like it would also be channeling that same "**** you" spirit, yeah.
    To be clear, Baba Is You's difficulty isn't much like the early Sierra nor the Myst levels of difficulty, but more like increasingly harder and harder logic puzzles, with several curveballs on the way.

    My "eff you" analogy might not have been perfectly apt, in retrospect. It was more in the sense of "it's really difficult and you don't get any hints".

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