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

[factotum]

Yeah, but Subnautica takes it to extremes. It would be like a version of Minecraft where you can't make doors or torches until you find the right gizmo somewhere in the world to look at. Don't get me wrong, fantastic game, but some of the design choices are occasionally annoying.

[Eldan]

I mean I assume if a game gives me a scanner it means scan everything. But maybe that's just having played Metroid Prime and the like.

Yes, but a lot of items you need to progress in the game occur in, like, two places in a huge game world. Half your game is just searching random wreckages and boxes hidden in caves, of which there are hundreds. In the dark, while your air is running out.

It's still a fun game, but there could have been a bit less of that.

[Anteros]

Yes, but a lot of items you need to progress in the game occur in, like, two places in a huge game world. Half your game is just searching random wreckages and boxes hidden in caves, of which there are hundreds. In the dark, while your air is running out.

It's still a fun game, but there could have been a bit less of that.

That's like.... the entire thing that makes the game fun.

Subnautica isn't minecraft. It's exploration/suspense/horror. If you just want to build things you can always use the console, or exploration mode where everything is unlocked.

[Zevox]

So, uh, I guess I'm done with Age of Calamity. Unlocked Calamity Ganon, he's fun - has a little bit of the Great Fairies issue of size, but less so than them, so it's a lot more manageable, and he feels appropriately monstrous with his playstyle. But I also just seem to have run out of things to do, aside from collecting all of the Korok Seeds to max out my weapon slots, which seems tedious and pointless. There's no more incomplete battles, I've gotten everyone's upgrades, and most the regions are complete (aside from the central one, which I assume just needs those weapon slots unlocked - and annoyingly one thing in the bottom left, and I'm not sure what that is since there's nothing incomplete there). All that I haven't done is the Blood Moon fights, but those only seem to pop up at random after I do other fights, so no, too tedious to get all of those; or excessively completionist things that I'd never do like maxing out character levels or weapons.

Very surprised that I got to this point, actually, since I've never done so in the other Warriors titles I've played. It feels like there's a lot less post-story stuff to do in this Warriors game than the others that I've played for some reason. Maybe they were just really focused on it mainly being there to act as a Breath of the Wild prequel or something. Oh well, fun game.

[warty goblin]

Trine is a pretty harmless and enjoyable franchise altogether. Just beat 4 recently, and sure, it doesn't add much onto the formula aside from some fancy graphics, but it's still nice open-ended puzzle fun. And puzzle games with more than one solutions are quite a rare breed, now to think about it.

Ayup. I can't really think of anything they could add, since the central mechanics are quite good and offer plenty of fun. More Trine is just a good thing.

Which reminds me, I'm now onto Trine 2. It is a proven source of Vitamin Trine, except now with giant mushrooms you can bounce on.

I have actually played Legend and Underworld before, years ago, although I can't find Underworld in any of my game libraries now, not sure why. Legend I still have in my "Played" list on Steam, though, so may well give it a try, thanks for the idea!

I reinstalled Legend just to make sure it worked OK with an XBox controller, and promptly got rehooked. There's a lot more, for wont of a better word, friction, with Legend than more modern action platformers, and I'm concluding I rather like that about it. Like it isn't always 100% obvious where you need to go, and the platforming, while not exactly hard, is much less forgiving than the most recent set of Tomb Raiders. The combat is worse, but also so completely alien to modern game design it honestly feels quite fresh. It's not exactly super engaging, but it's really just a seasoning mixed in with the exploration.

And the lack of progression mechanics just has a profound effect on the game. There's collectables, sure, but all those unlock are different outfits, which are fun but have no gameplay effect. So the primary driver of the game is player system mastery, instead of just unlocking stuff until your problems go away. There's something almost liberating about a game with entirely intrinsic motivation; it's not promising me more fun once I make the next step on the Progression Stairmaster, or blocking stuff off because I haven't ground out enough XP, it just gives you a moveset and lets you go to town.

[Anonymouswizard]

I've reinstalled The Sith Lords, and will dig the Restoration Patch (sans planet) out of the Steam Workshop again so I can get back to playing it. Because I wanted a good Star Wars game that runs on my computer, and I don't want to go through the hassle of trying to get later Dark Forces games working again.

[Eldan]

That's like.... the entire thing that makes the game fun.

Subnautica isn't minecraft. It's exploration/suspense/horror. If you just want to build things you can always use the console, or exploration mode where everything is unlocked.

I mean, I get that. I never got into the base-building in Subnautica much. My problem is the opposite of it not being minecraft (given that I also never liked Minecraft.)

What I mean is that I played the game for the exploring, but I occasionally found it tedious to have to go systematically search pieces of seafloor to find wreckages, instead of just going into interesting-looking caves. I wanted less resource mining and gathering and building.

[Triaxx]

Sounds like you want that one endless ocean game from Nintendo then.

[Kitten Champion]

The game Abzu - while being linear - does the whole cosmic undersea adventure concept quite well without the crafting/survival mechanics.

[LibraryOgre]

Just got through Act 3 of Dragon Age 2. I'm really liking the story, but I'm having to fight the urge to restart... again... because I didn't get the Isabella result I wanted.

[Lord Raziere]

Nioh 2:
After a few time calling in help from phantoms and whacking at Mezuki, I've come to the second mission where I've managed to pick up ninjutsu, ninja gear, and by using it the game opens up in its combat options, allowing me to prepare a bunch of ninjutsu items that refresh at every shrine I save at, from poisons to bombs to throwing weapons that are just vital, because the first rule/advice of souls-like games in my opinion: don't fight fair. use every advantage, every edge you have to win. the enemies certainly won't fight fair, so why should I?

however it doesn't seem to be working against Enenra. tight space, phantom keeps dying, ninjutsu only does minor stuff even luring Enenra to the columns doesn't do much, but I think if I just keep leveling up and stacking my advantages, I'll win sooner or later. this includes using omnyo magic, even though I personally don't really plan on leveling it up, just getting it for the talisman to deal more ki damage to yokai which has proven more effective against Enenra than most things and is probably a good thing to have to face more yokai in the future.

[Yora]

I mean, I get that. I never got into the base-building in Subnautica much. My problem is the opposite of it not being minecraft (given that I also never liked Minecraft.)

What I mean is that I played the game for the exploring, but I occasionally found it tedious to have to go systematically search pieces of seafloor to find wreckages, instead of just going into interesting-looking caves. I wanted less resource mining and gathering and building.

I'm actually finding myself surprised that the game doesn't thrill me as much as I thought it would from what I've seen of it over the years.
The first few hours on the corral reef were great, and it was interesting to go into a kelp forest and to a red gras plain for the first time. But now that I've started with the base and have a dozen lockers of raw materials, the excitement is fading.
I think my main issue is the difficulty to find silver. I think it took me 10 hours to get the base building tool because of it. Now I got the scanner room and figured out that it can show me the locations of sandstone chunks around my base. And there's a lot of those nearby. Maybe when I get back and start to seriously harvest those, things will go better again.

Another thing is the length of days. I don't like being outside when its dark, so I've fallen into a good pattern of scavenging during the day and processing my haul during the night. I tend to be done with the later around dawn. The problem is that the days are really short, which means I'm constantly in a hurry and spend a lot of time moving back and forth. Which leaves relatively little time for actual exploring.
Building secondary bases is probably the key to that. But then I'll have different resources in different places, which probably won't be much fun with the tiny inventory. Is there some kind of bulk cargo transport later in the game?

[Anteros]

Silver isn't all that rare once you know how to look for it. As a general rule, go deeper if you're feeling stuck. The type of outcrop that gives it looks different from the one that gives copper. You can find out which outcrops give which resources by scanning.

If you're finding the game too dark try turning off filmic mode in the options. Filmic makes some things prettier, and not being able to see adds suspense, but I find it makes the game almost impossible to navigate at night. It's not worth it.

[Eldan]

The game Abzu - while being linear - does the whole cosmic undersea adventure concept quite well without the crafting/survival mechanics.

Abzu didn't really do it for me, though I did play through it once years ago. I like the exploration of a huge map, I like being hunted by monsters, I even like the story, it's just a bit too grindy for me.

Yora: try to get a submarine as quickly as you can. I found that I began to really enjoy the game when I had that and could just zip around the map. Plus while the starting submarine can't go very deep, it makes a very decent airbase. You park your submarine five meters above its depth limit and then do your diving expeditions from there.

Also, later in the game, let's just say the day-night cycle isn't much of a concern anymore when everything is dark anyway, down in the deeps.

Edit: also yes to bulk cargo transport. There's a large submarine you can build in the midgame which is big enough that you can build inside of it. And it comes with two rows of lockers.

[Triaxx]

The best early place to find silver and diamonds is along the shelf that the Aurora sits on.

[factotum]

But then I'll have different resources in different places, which probably won't be much fun with the tiny inventory. Is there some kind of bulk cargo transport later in the game?

You can add cargo pods to the Seamoth and Prawn Suit, but the big boy is the Cyclops Submarine. Which, needless to say, you need approximately 437 separate blueprints and *tons* of resources to actually build. It's not optional if you want to pursue the story, though, because you're not really able to operate effectively at the deepest places without one. (I suppose you *could* just amount manage it in the prawn suit, but I dread to think how slow that would be).

[DeadMech]

Still playing Dyson Sphere Program. Since last time I completely tore down my old factory and replaced it with a more scale-able set up. Not necessarily in that order. Currently working on finishing up the production chain for the 5th (green) science token item. After which I think I'll begin on the launching of components for the construction of the actual goal of the game. The dyson sphere. Could have started earlier after the 4th (yellow) science item but I wanted to research some mining efficiency upgrades asap since there is a finite amount of resources across the star cluster.

Oh actually one of the things that delayed this whole process was that I had to redesign my redesign of the oil production and refinement section of my factory. It was proving too slow and the allotted area of land for it ran out. I eventually got lazy and just ran some lines off it's back end at an angle to continue further with a free patch of land. If this workaround runs out of room... I'll procrastinate and deal with it later.

In good news about the development of the game the devs seem to have addressed the issue with transport ships trying to reach other solar systems without jump fuel. There is now a set of controls on their hub buildings like maximum distance and a checkbox for requiring the fuel item before leaving. So that's good.

[Spacewolf]

You can add cargo pods to the Seamoth and Prawn Suit, but the big boy is the Cyclops Submarine. Which, needless to say, you need approximately 437 separate blueprints and *tons* of resources to actually build. It's not optional if you want to pursue the story, though, because you're not really able to operate effectively at the deepest places without one. (I suppose you *could* just amount manage it in the prawn suit, but I dread to think how slow that would be).

I did it all without a Cyclops and didn't find it hard at all I just swung around all over the place. The only area a seamoth cant get to after all is the very last zone and you don't really need to do anything except pass though that area. You can even lasso the big boy and make it even easier.

[Anonymouswizard]

Playing KotOR2 now, and unfortunately I seem to have got into a state of being neutral with the Exchange with few sidequests left. I have one where I can't complete it without killing an exchange boss, and I'm trying to avoid combat, and theonly other option that would help swing it that way being paying that one NPC. For swinging it the other wayI think I can do the 'break into Vogga's rooms' mission and sending Lootra to the Exchange, but I'm not sure if there's enough to get the next part of the story to trigger without spending 4000+ credits.

[Cespenar]

Just got through Act 3 of Dragon Age 2. I'm really liking the story, but I'm having to fight the urge to restart... again... because I didn't get the Isabella result I wanted.

I remember getting exactly the Isabella result I wanted back in the day: "Oopsie, you started a war because you're so headstrong and quirky and stuff? Guess what, actions have consequences. Off to the qunari prison with you."

[Taevyr]

I remember getting exactly the Isabella result I wanted back in the day: "Oopsie, you started a war because you're so headstrong and quirky and stuff? Guess what, actions have consequences. Off to the qunari prison with you."

I didn't care at all for Isabela in my first run through DA2, and as a result she never even came back with the damn book. Giving her to the qunari may be a bit extreme considering what they do to captives/non-comformists, but I always felt it was justified considering she'd let a city burn for her freedom unless she happens to like/feel obliged to you.

[Brookshw]

I didn't care at all for Isabela in my first run through DA2,

I didn't care for DA2 my first run through of DA2, running through the same location for the nth time on some stupid quest got old, fast. Never could bring myself to replay it.

[Yora]

Yora: try to get a submarine as quickly as you can. I found that I began to really enjoy the game when I had that and could just zip around the map. Plus while the starting submarine can't go very deep, it makes a very decent airbase. You park your submarine five meters above its depth limit and then do your diving expeditions from there.

Yes, that's been working pretty well even just to get to some of the deeper escape pods.

I think my problem with the game is the lack of any guidance on how to progress it. Currently I have checked out all the known escape pods and fixed the damaged reactor. And there's not really any indication what I am trying to accomplish next.
All I can think of is to aimlesly cruise around in my mini sub through the murky depths, hoping to randomly run into new debris or resources to make new construction options availabe. And with no map, it's really very random. I placed four beacons 750m North, East, West, and 500m South of my escape pod to have some general sense of direction but I still find it hard to explore with any kind of plan or system.
Another thing is that I don't really know what I will gain if I be able to construct new things. With the mini-sub and radiation suit, I knew how they would be great addition to my equipment. But now I am waiting for something to happen to me. I am not working towards any goal that I want to make happen.

I think the game would probably be much more fun if I had a goal that I can try to work up to. "Unlock more rooms" isn't much of a motivation if I don't know what they can do for me.
And with the seafloor having few distinguishing features it's hard to "uncover" the environment. I know there's a kelp forest down the cliff west of my base and a red grass plain beyond that. There's the giant shipwreck in the South and another red grass plain east of my base. And there are two islands. But beyond that everything blurs together. Kelp forests and red gras plains are all over the place and look identical. Unless I place a beacon, there is no way I could ever find anything more than 250m from my base again. Short visibility and effectively flying all the time don't help things either.

Playing the game is certainly engaging. There's always something to do for 5 more minutes, even if it's just popping out of the base and grabbing a few fish to cook and top off the hunger meter. But I think it could be a lot more fun with more clarity about what you are trying to accomplish. With peepers, boomerangs, and bladderfish in plentyful numbers right next ro my escape pod, my survival after being shipwrecked on an ocean planet is already secured. I don't need to make my life easier to improve my odds of survival.

[Zombimode]

Finished Of Orcs and Men. Great characters, voiceacting, environments (if you can see them instead of the dull level corridors), soundtrack and a refreshing understated but ruthless brutality.

Sadly the game was apparently made by artists and writers and not many level and game designers. But for the rather short runtime of about 30h the dull and uninspired levels and gameplay was bearable and outweighted by the good.


Then, I was carving for a big classic character-based party RPG. Problem is: I kinda played most of them by now...

I don't care for DragonAge beyond Origins, also for the reasons the above poster has outlined. Then there is Pillars of Eternity... it is sitting there, on my desktop for 7 years. I made two attemps of a playthrough, together clocking in about 100-120 hours.
I tried to pick up my last save from 3 years ago.

I just can't do it. I kinda hate that game. I understand that it's difficult to get back into a game you've left hanging for years but in PoE's case I never cared in the first place: I don't care about the characters, the story, the setting, the enemies, the spells, the mechanics.
Most of it feels uninspired, and everything else is just bad: especially the gameplay. And it is almost insulting since it is very clear the game modled itself (and its gameplay) after the Infinity Engine games but with no understanding why the IE games worked so well.

In PoE every combat is just a huge mess. Everything happens so quickly, but I have no idea WHAT is happening or WHY. I have also no idea what to do: I really can't place my fighters to block enemies since they run all over the place anyway. Spells are so uninteresting and reduntant: most of the follow the formula "some damage + some minor status effect you don't care about". They fail anyway since everything has an attack roll in this game.

I wan't to stress that I have no issue with the concept of the Realt Time with Pause. It works great for me in most games.
But the implementation in PoE is just so bad.

I understand then PoE has its fans and that is great! I really want to like it, too.
But for me it simply doesn't work.


So question then: should I even try PoE2? I mean it has turn-based combat so that might fix my issues with the gameplay.
But if I could not care about stroy and characters in PoE1, will I be able to enjoy what PoE2 has to offer?

[Eldan]

Playing the game is certainly engaging. There's always something to do for 5 more minutes, even if it's just popping out of the base and grabbing a few fish to cook and top off the hunger meter. But I think it could be a lot more fun with more clarity about what you are trying to accomplish. With peepers, boomerangs, and bladderfish in plentyful numbers right next ro my escape pod, my survival after being shipwrecked on an ocean planet is already secured. I don't need to make my life easier to improve my odds of survival.

Yeah, I think that's the part of the midgame I was talking about above, where you just do a lot of seafloor scanning. That's basically what you need to do now: scan the seafloor, find more debris. You'll get a clearer idea what to do later.

I assume you have a radio and are following all the messages? Eventually, those should progress you further.

If you have run out of clear goals to follow, I can just recommend loading your inventory up with as much cooked food and water as possible, picking a direction and just trying to get a bit further than you did last time. Try and find a new biome, maybe.

Edit: one tip, to not be entirely mean about it: the Aurora is near the border of the map, in the South-eastern quadrant of the map. Meaning almost everything interesting you care about is, from the safe shallows, between South-west and North-east.

[factotum]

Speaking of the Aurora, have you explored it yet, Yora? I recall there's a radio message suggesting you do that but I can't remember how far into the game it arrives, or whether you've just checked the place out anyway.

[GloatingSwine]

In PoE every combat is just a huge mess. Everything happens so quickly, but I have no idea WHAT is happening or WHY. I have also no idea what to do: I really can't place my fighters to block enemies since they run all over the place anyway. Spells are so uninteresting and reduntant: most of the follow the formula "some damage + some minor status effect you don't care about". They fail anyway since everything has an attack roll in this game.

Combat Auto-Slow is the way to go. It makes the whole thing a lot more manageable.

I generally used damage and buff spells for preference, but on large enemies the wall type spells are all really good because it's easy to keep a big enemy in the effect area (Wall of Many Colours does a lot of damage and a lot of different statuses which gives you time advantage against big hard things like dragons).

[Triaxx]

Plot acceleration tip: Take the Seamoth to the surface and look for the cloud on the horizon, and head for it.

[Rynjin]

Finished Of Orcs and Men. Great characters, voiceacting, environments (if you can see them instead of the dull level corridors), soundtrack and a refreshing understated but ruthless brutality.

Sadly the game was apparently made by artists and writers and not many level and game designers. But for the rather short runtime of about 30h the dull and uninspired levels and gameplay was bearable and outweighted by the good.


Then, I was carving for a big classic character-based party RPG. Problem is: I kinda played most of them by now...

I don't care for DragonAge beyond Origins, also for the reasons the above poster has outlined. Then there is Pillars of Eternity... it is sitting there, on my desktop for 7 years. I made two attemps of a playthrough, together clocking in about 100-120 hours.
I tried to pick up my last save from 3 years ago.

I just can't do it. I kinda hate that game. I understand that it's difficult to get back into a game you've left hanging for years but in PoE's case I never cared in the first place: I don't care about the characters, the story, the setting, the enemies, the spells, the mechanics.
Most of it feels uninspired, and everything else is just bad: especially the gameplay. And it is almost insulting since it is very clear the game modled itself (and its gameplay) after the Infinity Engine games but with no understanding why the IE games worked so well.

In PoE every combat is just a huge mess. Everything happens so quickly, but I have no idea WHAT is happening or WHY. I have also no idea what to do: I really can't place my fighters to block enemies since they run all over the place anyway. Spells are so uninteresting and reduntant: most of the follow the formula "some damage + some minor status effect you don't care about". They fail anyway since everything has an attack roll in this game.

I wan't to stress that I have no issue with the concept of the Realt Time with Pause. It works great for me in most games.
But the implementation in PoE is just so bad.

I understand then PoE has its fans and that is great! I really want to like it, too.
But for me it simply doesn't work.


So question then: should I even try PoE2? I mean it has turn-based combat so that might fix my issues with the gameplay.
But if I could not care about stroy and characters in PoE1, will I be able to enjoy what PoE2 has to offer?

By every account I've heard, 2 is way better than the first.

[Taevyr]

Then there is Pillars of Eternity... it is sitting there, on my desktop for 7 years. I made two attemps of a playthrough, together clocking in about 100-120 hours.
I tried to pick up my last save from 3 years ago.

I just can't do it. I kinda hate that game. I understand that it's difficult to get back into a game you've left hanging for years but in PoE's case I never cared in the first place: I don't care about the characters, the story, the setting, the enemies, the spells, the mechanics.
Most of it feels uninspired, and everything else is just bad: especially the gameplay. And it is almost insulting since it is very clear the game modled itself (and its gameplay) after the Infinity Engine games but with no understanding why the IE games worked so well.

In PoE every combat is just a huge mess. Everything happens so quickly, but I have no idea WHAT is happening or WHY. I have also no idea what to do: I really can't place my fighters to block enemies since they run all over the place anyway. Spells are so uninteresting and reduntant: most of the follow the formula "some damage + some minor status effect you don't care about". They fail anyway since everything has an attack roll in this game.

I wan't to stress that I have no issue with the concept of the Realt Time with Pause. It works great for me in most games.
But the implementation in PoE is just so bad.

I understand then PoE has its fans and that is great! I really want to like it, too.
But for me it simply doesn't work.


So question then: should I even try PoE2? I mean it has turn-based combat so that might fix my issues with the gameplay.
But if I could not care about stroy and characters in PoE1, will I be able to enjoy what PoE2 has to offer?

I'd say PoE2 is more streamlined than PoE1, and less restricted by its emulation of classic Isometrics, but considering your reasons for disliking 1 I doubt you'd get very far before encountering the same roadblocks. If you disliked the metaphysical metaplot of PoE1, you'd probably dislike the (albeit very limited, about 4 quests) critical path of PoE2 even less. And it's still crunchy in terms of mechanics, though without Vancian casting unless you choose an additional difficulty challenge.

Personally, I love the game. Has all the mechanical crunch, long-term planning of resources with Vancian casting and items, and strategic lowering of specific defenses to get that one big debuff through that I like in older RPG systems, without reaching the ridiculous optimization requirements late-game Kingmaker required above the base difficulty. And I loved the endurance/health split, though they unfortunately removed that alongside Vancian casting in the sequel. Can't deny that made it more accessible though.

And narratively/settingwise, it's a breath of fresh air: the first still stick to traditional fantasy with the forested villages and main city hub, but if you look around a bit the Age of Discovery elements are everywhere, and the second just goes full-blown Age of Sail with its archipelago in the process of being colonized. And it does some rather nifty stuff in terms of gods, metaphysics and the relation to class abilities as well. Of course, if metaphysics isn't your thing and/or you're not a fan of early-modern fantasy settings, you'd be better of not picking it up.