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

[factotum]

You stop have to aim and just have to hold the trigger while looking at the enemy and they just... Go pop.

Sounds a bit like the Spray and Pray gun from Fallout 4, only that thing also makes anyone standing near the enemy go pop as well...which could be unfortunate if, for example, they're Brotherhood...

[Zevox]

So, found out today that there's a phase 2 to that Hades fight. Which was a frustrating surprise, if I'm being honest, but I'm already doing pretty well against it. Actually came close to beating it twice now, only to finally die with him at 10-20% health. The last few attempts have all at least reached Hades (even without the Daedalus self-healing boon to lean on for easy survival), and I'm feeling pretty confident against most things leading up to him. Also, I'm discovering that a lot of Demeter's boons are very effective, now that I can get them - that chill status of hers seems to be perhaps the most helpful of all of the various status effects the boons can give. And I've picked up the final resurrect upgrade, so that's a big boost.

Probably won't take many more tries to get there. Unless there's a phase 3 to the fight. And damn them if there is.

[oxybe]

So while It's not a milestone it is a kilostone: Finally got my 1000 day cumulative login bonus in DBZ Dokkan.

it's been a long and surprisingly fun ride since I started this f2p puzzle game late march 2017. it's hardly perfect, but it's home in a sense, as i keep coming back.

Pricing for premium currency is absolute dog poo. like... seriously stay away from that.

Looking forward to the 6th year anniversary!

[Eldan]

Yeah, while voicework does add to RPG's, unless it's one with plenty of cinematic parts, you generally don't need much of it outside of the critical path. In an isometric, I'd say only the critical path and key companion dialogue really need it, especially with how it inflates the costs.

And while a voiced MC is beneficial for a Shepard or Geralt, with a broadly pre-set personality, I find non-voiced is better when it's a less fleshed-out character. I've had some cases where the voice, or the available voices, just didn't fit the character I had in mind, and it's a lot less costly.

I mean, HDB is a pretty fleshed out character, even if the player also has a lot of input. But the game thankfully has the best of both worlds, with an option to switch between three voice acting modes. (All text spoken, all dialogue spoken, only first few lines of each dialogue spoken.)

[Cazero]

Unless there's a phase 3 to the fight. And damn them if there is.

Only in hard boss mode. You'll see what I mean once you beat him.

[Zevox]

Only in hard boss mode. You'll see what I mean once you beat him.

Um, maybe? I assume you're referring to one of those handicaps that unlocks for future runs, but am not sure which.

Anyway, yeah, finally beat Hades for the first time today - on my 15th run, in total. Wound up with the Daedalus self-healing upgrade and some potent synergy with it (Hermes' basic attack speed boost, another Daedalus upgrade that makes my basic attack two swift slashes that endlessly repeat, Demeter's basic attack boon...), and thus wound up winning without even using a single resurrection. Then started experimenting with other weapons... and quickly cleared the whole thing with the spear and fists (also had a failed run with the shield, that one'll take more getting used to I suppose). And I actually also won without a single resurrection on that spear run, despite not having the easy self-sustain that I did with the sword (though I did have a legendary Athena boon that gave me a shield that would absorb one hit every 20 seconds, but I actually don't think that was the reason, the spear run just felt very powerful). Kind of surprised by that, honestly, I was figuring it would take at least a couple of attempts to familiarize myself with each weapon's playstyle before I succeeded with them.

So, yeah, shield, bow, and gun to go I guess. Though I wonder if I'll even enjoy the bow or gun, they don't strike as nearly as interesting to play with as the melee weapons. I'll try them out though.

I am finding that I'm gravitating towards the same gods' boons every time now, though - and they still seem to work just as well with other weapons as with the sword. Which I hadn't expected, I'd figured that different boons would be preferable for different weapons - but maybe they are, and it's just me gravitating towards what I've found works for me so far? In general, I put the highest priority on picking up Demeter and Dionysus boons, followed by Hermes, then Athena (mostly for deflect-dash, which I'd rather have than any other dash boon), then Ares and Poseidon (who I think are okay for some things, but would usually prefer the others' boons to). The other gods tend to get relegated to "well, I guess I'd rather take a boon than gold/darkness here..." status. Especially Artemis, whose abilities I haven't been impressed by at all. Oh, and Daedalus upgrades take priority over any god's, those almost always seem to be very good.

[Rynjin]

The bow I quite like, and the shield is probably my favorite.

The gun...is certainly a gun, I'll give it that.

[Anteros]

Um, maybe? I assume you're referring to one of those handicaps that unlocks for future runs, but am not sure which.

Anyway, yeah, finally beat Hades for the first time today - on my 15th run, in total. Wound up with the Daedalus self-healing upgrade and some potent synergy with it (Hermes' basic attack speed boost, another Daedalus upgrade that makes my basic attack two swift slashes that endlessly repeat, Demeter's basic attack boon...), and thus wound up winning without even using a single resurrection. Then started experimenting with other weapons... and quickly cleared the whole thing with the spear and fists (also had a failed run with the shield, that one'll take more getting used to I suppose). And I actually also won without a single resurrection on that spear run, despite not having the easy self-sustain that I did with the sword (though I did have a legendary Athena boon that gave me a shield that would absorb one hit every 20 seconds, but I actually don't think that was the reason, the spear run just felt very powerful). Kind of surprised by that, honestly, I was figuring it would take at least a couple of attempts to familiarize myself with each weapon's playstyle before I succeeded with them.

So, yeah, shield, bow, and gun to go I guess. Though I wonder if I'll even enjoy the bow or gun, they don't strike as nearly as interesting to play with as the melee weapons. I'll try them out though.

I am finding that I'm gravitating towards the same gods' boons every time now, though - and they still seem to work just as well with other weapons as with the sword. Which I hadn't expected, I'd figured that different boons would be preferable for different weapons - but maybe they are, and it's just me gravitating towards what I've found works for me so far? In general, I put the highest priority on picking up Demeter and Dionysus boons, followed by Hermes, then Athena (mostly for deflect-dash, which I'd rather have than any other dash boon), then Ares and Poseidon (who I think are okay for some things, but would usually prefer the others' boons to). The other gods tend to get relegated to "well, I guess I'd rather take a boon than gold/darkness here..." status. Especially Artemis, whose abilities I haven't been impressed by at all. Oh, and Daedalus upgrades take priority over any god's, those almost always seem to be very good.

I'd take Artemis over just about anything since it's the highest dps boost and the gimmick that comes along with the other gods are rarely worth it. Dionysus in particular is one I never actually find much use for. I'd rather just hit something hard enough to kill it instead of stacking up a dot and waiting for it to die.

In general, Daedalus and Hermes are so powerful that I don't really rank them with the other gods. You're guaranteed to get them on every run anyway.

I enjoy the gun if I get the shotgun upgrade combined with multiple dashes from Hades since you can just continually dash around and double tap everything. Bonus points if you get the Athena dash. The gun is probably the easiest weapon to consistently win with.

[Cespenar]

About the gun: I think my easiest time was just buffing the heck out of the mortar part. Launch them off, and you'll have all the time in the world to dance around while the mortar shells fall down and wreak utter havoc.

That time discrepancy between shooting and actually doing damage is a very overlooked and sneaky bonus on your overall defense.

Of course, there are many builds which can outdamage the mortar by far, but the mortar just offers a chilled, comfy evening.

[Zevox]

I'd take Artemis over just about anything since it's the highest dps boost and the gimmick that comes along with the other gods are rarely worth it. Dionysus in particular is one I never actually find much use for. I'd rather just hit something hard enough to kill it instead of stacking up a dot and waiting for it to die.

Oh, I don't agree with that at all. Artemis' abilities just give you a small chance to get a crit, and I do not care for anything so RNG-based in the slightest. Give me something that's powerful and always works over something that's even more powerful but only sometimes works, thanks. If I were going for raw damage, it looks like Aphrodite would be the way to go, she seems to be the one who gives the biggest +damage numbers. Or maybe Poseidon. But Demeter's damage boost is not that much lower than them, and she gives something far better than raw damage alongside it: her chill effect, which I consider the best status effect in the game. Slowing down enemies so their attacks are much easier to react to and time dodges against makes it a lot easier to survive, and gives you more time to hit them in between dodging.

And while I thought that Dionysus' Hangover effect looked unimpressive at first, when I realized that 1) there's no mere "you might inflict this status effect a certain amount of the time" chance like most games with status effects, you just always inflict it with each hit, and can get several of it active at once, plus 2) any enemy that's any kind of threat has enough health to survive long enough to eat the full effect of it, my opinion of it went up dramatically. And then I saw his upgrade that adds a slowing effect to it, and that's just great - especially in combination with Demeter's chill effect. Two status effects that both slow enemies down? Yes please. Plus, there's that mirror upgrade that causes you to deal bonus damage to enemies with two different status effects on them, and oh look, here's two different status effects that work great together.

Also, Dionysus' non-Hangover boons all seem good too. He's got a number of them that help you survive, such as the one that gives free healing if your life is below a certain threshold when you finish a room (even once you're doing well against most everything I find it's handy insurance against things going wrong if you mess up), or the one that gives you extra health whenever you find nectar. His cast boon is one of my favorites easily for its crowd control effect, especially you can get the duo version it with Demeter, which is fantastic. He can turn fountains from partial healing into full healing plus a permanent damage bonus to everything. And even the one that reduces damage you take when below a certain health threshold is nice and I'm happy to take later on in a run once I've got all of the better ones he offers, it can help you clutch out wins in difficult fights without using a resurrection.

About the only boons from Dionysus that I'm not so hot on are his dash boon - because I basically only like Athena's dash boon, since it's the only one that makes it a better defensive ability - and his super. Because if I'm already inflicting hangover on things, his super is pretty unimpressive, and there's a lot of supers that are far more impactful. I think I like Demeter's and Poseidon's the best, though Athena's is great too. Haven't had the chance to try Ares' yet though - or Hermes', if he has one? Not sure if he does, since he's a bit unlike the others, being all about speed boosts and support type effects.

[Razade]

So, found out today that there's a phase 2 to that Hades fight. Which was a frustrating surprise, if I'm being honest, but I'm already doing pretty well against it. Actually came close to beating it twice now, only to finally die with him at 10-20% health. The last few attempts have all at least reached Hades (even without the Daedalus self-healing boon to lean on for easy survival), and I'm feeling pretty confident against most things leading up to him. Also, I'm discovering that a lot of Demeter's boons are very effective, now that I can get them - that chill status of hers seems to be perhaps the most helpful of all of the various status effects the boons can give. And I've picked up the final resurrect upgrade, so that's a big boost.

Probably won't take many more tries to get there. Unless there's a phase 3 to the fight. And damn them if there is.

He's the end boss. End bosses always have more than one phase.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

Artemis does have some very nice boons. Support Fire is awesome, shooting a homing arrow every time you do basically anything (if you've got a rapid fire weapon like the gauntlets or the blitz disk it will pour homing arrows). Her dash is a flat increase to damage; not always worth it but pretty nice on the spear, especially with the Daedalus hammer that makes your dash attack hit multiple times. Her real strength is her Duo Boons, though; she's got some of the best in the game, many to the point of being run-winners.

Speaking of rapid-attack weapons, my go-to for those is actually Zeus, because it makes them shoot lightning on every single hit, for a solid boost to damage that also has a chance to damage nearby enemies. Second choice is Demeter and hope to get the boon that causes an explosion once you reach 10 stacks of chill. Third choice is Dionysus, because 5 stacks of Hangover is still solid, even if you can't go over 5 without a Duo Boon.

Sorry got sidetracked there. But basically any god has some excellent boons even if they don't fit with your weapon, whether that's Ares' cast, Dionysus' full health refill from fountains, or Aphrodite's damage resistance.

---

I've been playing Rogue Glitch and a little Crypt of the Necrodancer, which are both proving quite challenging.

Every time you 'beat' RG, it unlocks a new level and increases the difficulty of all the previous levels. I unlocked the 5th level (out of 6 total) yesterday with a brokenly powerful run, but haven't even made it to the 3rd level since. This seems like a game that would become a bit more strategic with 2 players (which it does support, both local and online; I'm just playing solo), choosing which one got which upgrades such that they synergized.

CotN is kicking my butt, and will probably continue to do so until I finish wrapping my head around the enemy patterns. I did make it to the first boss, but then my glass bow shattered and I was left standing there stupidly as he beat me to death. (Pretty much exactly what I expected to happen when I picked up a glass weapon).

[Zevox]

Alright, beat Hades with each of the different weapons now. The gun wound up being another first-try success - running with a mostly Poseidon/Zeus combo, and damn if Poseidon's knockback effects don't make infinitely more sense on a ranged weapon like that than they do on the melee weapons. The shield run success I credit almost entirely to me accidentally discovering the Aphrodite/Ares duo boon that causes Doom to become a continuous damage-over-time effect on opponents you've inflicted with weak. I picked up Ares' special boon since that seemed like it made sense for the weapon, then sort of wound up with Aphrodite's regular attack boon just because the game kept not offering me the regular attack boon of other gods, and then happened upon that and was quite happy I did.

The bow... is the weapon I like the least, and definitely the one I struggled the most with. I did wind up succeeding on my second attempt with it, but I credit that mostly to Demeter's cast boons. Tried them again after being unimpressed with them the first time I did because I thought they might make more sense on a ranged weapon than the melee ones, and they do; but they also get a lot more powerful when you get their upgrade boon, which increases their duration and lets them inflict chill, which I never had the first time I tried them. I swear those did far more damage for me than my actual weapon, especially against bosses. The bow's attacks are just so awkward and feel universally weak, I don't like it.

So, yeah, with a win knotched with each weapon, I guess we'll see how much longer I'm interested in playing this.

Artemis does have some very nice boons. Support Fire is awesome, shooting a homing arrow every time you do basically anything (if you've got a rapid fire weapon like the gauntlets or the blitz disk it will pour homing arrows). Her dash is a flat increase to damage; not always worth it but pretty nice on the spear, especially with the Daedalus hammer that makes your dash attack hit multiple times. Her real strength is her Duo Boons, though; she's got some of the best in the game, many to the point of being run-winners.

I had not seen Support Fire until just my last run, when Charon happened to have an Artemis boon that was all I could spend my last 150 gold on before the Hades fight. Picked it, and yeah, that definitely seems good.

Don't believe I've seen any of her duo boons, since I usually don't pick her boons anyway. Guess I should look them up in the game's codex, see if any seem interesting.

Speaking of rapid-attack weapons, my go-to for those is actually Zeus, because it makes them shoot lightning on every single hit, for a solid boost to damage that also has a chance to damage nearby enemies. Second choice is Demeter and hope to get the boon that causes an explosion once you reach 10 stacks of chill.

Really? I've actually been pretty unimpressed with Zeus for the most part, personally - the damage he gives just doesn't seem that great, considering he offers nothing else. The little chain lightning blasts just don't seem very impactful, except against like, the minor skull enemies in the first area. And for Demeter I actually did not like the chill-explosion one, since it removes the chill effect once it goes off. I'd rather have those enemies stay slowed than have the extra damage - them suddenly getting to act faster than I expect is not good for my health.

[Spacewolf]

Yea I'm not really a fan of Zeus main attack boon as I don't really care about minions I want to burst down the bosses which is why I go for Artemis. I will say you should play until you unlock the 4th form for each weapon as they play radically differently than even the main three. Personally the spear 4th form is possibly my favourite weapon in the game (Although I do like Zags base twin fists combined with Hermes feather) and the Bow 4th helps alleviate some of the issues I have with it. I'd also recommend at least trying out all levels of I think it's called extreme measures? (The boss pact of punishment one as again they change the fights radically.)

[oxybe]

So Fortnite C2S6 is ending in ~2 week, scheduled for the 8th of june.

It's been an interesting season. The map hasn't really undergone many changes since the season start but the changes we did have were interesting.

NPCs are back offering quests and tasks to complete, rewarding us in the form of gold bullion we can use to buy or upgrade weapons, or even hire some NPCs. new to the series are also tameable melee mobs in the form of boars, wolves and velociraptors. boars like corn and veggies while wolves and raptors prefer the veal. these mobs, when killed drop meat and bones.

while meat is largely use to heal or tame, bones lead us to the arguably biggest change: crafting was added. with the choice of upgrading makeshift guns to high risk/reward primal ones or the standard accurate mechanical guns it gives us casuals an interesting mid-game, though early game fights can feel very scuffed. I like it, if only because of the various bows they've added.

Overall the ranges people fought in were much smaller, thanks to the weapons vaulted. we really only had a few rifles and the bows for longer range combat and none scoped. lots of mid-range engagements did make for a bit more excitement IMO.

Seasonal skins are overall neat. None are flatout terrible, though the standouts are Lara Croft and Teen Titan's Raven. The "secret" skin is a soccer/football player, Neymar Jr. I don't follow the sport so how it meshes with the primal or prehistoric theme of the season is lost on me. compared to last season's Predator skin and Wolverine, Aquaman and Deadpool before him : "star footballer" kinda feels underwhelming. I know I'm just not the target audience for it though and it did add a cute soccer ball toy you can kick around in game.

all in all I'd say a solid season. not the best, not the worst.

[Gnoman]

Been back to Satsifactory since the update, and I made an extremely rookie error in setting up from scratch. I was running my entire operation off of one overclocked Pure Iron deposit. Which wouldn't have been too bad at that stage, if I hadn't completely forgotten to upgrade the conveyer belt from level one. I later realized that my ingot production had run into a similar bottleneck because the belt under a splitter hadn't upgraded at the same time everything else did, but I blame myself less for that.

[Anteros]

Oh, I don't agree with that at all. Artemis' abilities just give you a small chance to get a crit, and I do not care for anything so RNG-based in the slightest. Give me something that's powerful and always works over something that's even more powerful but only sometimes works, thanks. If I were going for raw damage, it looks like Aphrodite would be the way to go, she seems to be the one who gives the biggest +damage numbers. Or maybe Poseidon. But Demeter's damage boost is not that much lower than them, and she gives something far better than raw damage alongside it: her chill effect, which I consider the best status effect in the game. Slowing down enemies so their attacks are much easier to react to and time dodges against makes it a lot easier to survive, and gives you more time to hit them in between dodging.

The crit scales better than anything else damage wise. On enemies with enough hp you're going to crit eventually, and the damage will end up outperforming all but the most specialized of builds. It also has synergy with almost anything else you run across, so it works with most builds.

Aphrodite does have the largest raw damage numbers, but her secondary effect is worthless, so I still don't value her that much.

[Cespenar]

CotN is kicking my butt, and will probably continue to do so until I finish wrapping my head around the enemy patterns. I did make it to the first boss, but then my glass bow shattered and I was left standing there stupidly as he beat me to death. (Pretty much exactly what I expected to happen when I picked up a glass weapon).

Yeah, CotN has a lot to do with getting familiar with the enemy patterns. Besides just "playing more", though, it helps to retreat from most unfamiliar enemies for a round (or ten) before actually trying to finish them off. Especially if you have just a dagger.

Besides that, yeah, don't waste your time with glass weapons, would be my advice.

[Man_Over_Game]

Alright, beat Hades with each of the different weapons now. The gun wound up being another first-try success - running with a mostly Poseidon/Zeus combo, and damn if Poseidon's knockback effects don't make infinitely more sense on a ranged weapon like that than they do on the melee weapons.

Try learning how to Slide-Special with the Sword. Press Special, Dash right before the impact. If you do it right, you'll displace the positioning of the AoE similar to what happens when you dash while charging your Spear. This allows you to stay mobile while spamming your Special on the Sword.

With something like Poseidon on your Special, you can just destroy things so casually.

You can also try investing into Poseidon's Cast stuff. Since they dislodge when the target dies, you can just launch 3 shots into a group, have each shot explode for massive damage that kills most things, pick up your shots and do it again. Combine that with the Poseidon's aspect for the sword (which dislodges your Cast when you use your Special on them), and you can just melt rooms in seconds.

All combined, it creates this weird synergy where Poseidon's Sword somehow works really damn well with a bunch of Poseidon boons, mostly just by focusing on your Special and your Cast. Currently at 10 heat, most of my best runs have been with this setup.

[Zevox]

Aphrodite does have the largest raw damage numbers, but her secondary effect is worthless, so I still don't value her that much.

I wouldn't quite say worthless, but worth less than the others typically, yes. Though she does have some additional boons that modify it to be more valuable, especially that potent duo boon with Ares.

Really though, I'm starting to feel like it doesn't matter whose boons I take, anything will work. I'm on 13 consecutive successful escapes now, some with rather wonky setups, and aside from when using the bow (and sometimes shield) I almost never get anywhere near losing all of my resurrects anymore. Hell, I think I've gotten good enough at dealing with Hades that Theseus and the Minotaur are almost as tough as he is just by virtue of being a 2-on-1.

Try learning how to Slide-Special with the Sword. Press Special, Dash right before the impact. If you do it right, you'll displace the positioning of the AoE similar to what happens when you dash while charging your Spear. This allows you to stay mobile while spamming your Special on the Sword.

With something like Poseidon on your Special, you can just destroy things so casually.

You can also try investing into Poseidon's Cast stuff. Since they dislodge when the target dies, you can just launch 3 shots into a group, have each shot explode for massive damage that kills most things, pick up your shots and do it again. Combine that with the Poseidon's aspect for the sword (which dislodges your Cast when you use your Special on them), and you can just melt rooms in seconds.

All combined, it creates this weird synergy where Poseidon's Sword somehow works really damn well with a bunch of Poseidon boons, mostly just by focusing on your Special and your Cast. Currently at 10 heat, most of my best runs have been with this setup.

Interesting. I've certainly noticed that Poseidon's cast is quite good, it's probably my second favorite of his abilities after his super move. Haven't tried his version of the sword yet though, I keep going for whichever weapon has the bonus resource effect on it since that showed up, and so far it's only gone to the sword once.

[Man_Over_Game]

I wouldn't quite say worthless, but worth less than the others typically, yes. Though she does have some additional boons that modify it to be more valuable, especially that potent duo boon with Ares.

Really though, I'm starting to feel like it doesn't matter whose boons I take, anything will work. I'm on 13 consecutive successful escapes now, some with rather wonky setups, and aside from when using the bow (and sometimes shield) I almost never get anywhere near losing all of my resurrects anymore. Hell, I think I've gotten good enough at dealing with Hades that Theseus and the Minotaur are almost as tough as he is just by virtue of being a 2-on-1.


Interesting. I've certainly noticed that Poseidon's cast is quite good, it's probably my second favorite of his abilities after his super move. Haven't tried his version of the sword yet though, I keep going for whichever weapon has the bonus resource effect on it since that showed up, and so far it's only gone to the sword once.

I will say that, after learning the slide-special, I have completely stopped using the basic attack on the sword. In that last run, I didn't even have a boon on my basic attack until the last segment, and that was mostly just because the other two options would have replaced something I already had.

Since colliding things into walls adds both extra damage and hitstun, it just became a lot easier to kill things by just jamming them into walls. The AoE also has the benefit of clearing out projectiles and pushing other threats away, so it's just been hard to find an actual reason to use the sword's basic nowadays.

Wall slam damage is apparently really complex, taking into account things like your momentum, the distance the target was to the wall, the amount of momentum your attack applied to them, but it basically comes down to “Sword Dash-Special move kills things into walls good”.

[Cespenar]

Really though, I'm starting to feel like it doesn't matter whose boons I take, anything will work. I'm on 13 consecutive successful escapes now, some with rather wonky setups, and aside from when using the bow (and sometimes shield) I almost never get anywhere near losing all of my resurrects anymore. Hell, I think I've gotten good enough at dealing with Hades that Theseus and the Minotaur are almost as tough as he is just by virtue of being a 2-on-1.

You might think about cranking up the Extreme Measures thing up a notch or four, then, if the bosses start getting too easy. It doesn't just make them have X% more HP or whatever, but give them more actual moves, phases, banter... more content, really.

[Man_Over_Game]

You might think about cranking up the Extreme Measures thing up a notch or four, then, if the bosses start getting too easy. It doesn't just make them have X% more HP or whatever, but give them more actual moves, phases, banter... more content, really.

The heat additions that dramatically change how you play are:

Benefits Package: Normal Armored enemies now come with special perks. Examples include creating chain lasers to other elites with chain lasers, occasionally turning invisible, and having the Elysium heroes spawn several exploding decoys when they lose their weaponized forms. Basically adds miniminibosses to your normal encounters.

Middle Management: Mid-bosses for each area are enhanced. Asterius is the odd-one out – he gets his midboss perks when you have Extreme Measures at level 3 or higher (which also enhances Theseus during their boss fight).

There’s also a fate reward for slaying enemies of each Benefits Package perk, so I’d recommend upping that first and work on getting that reward cleared sooner.

[LibraryOgre]

Got my 6 year old Minecraft. Been watching him play it. Convinced him to try Creative Mode after a couple bad starts in Survival, and he's been building amazing structures.

His first two in his base were a library and a McDonalds. He thought those important.

[Man_Over_Game]

Playing a plethora of games I haven't touched in a while, or at all.

Furi: Kinda hard to describe. Imagine Supergiant Games made a sci-fi action game where all you do is fight really awesome boss fights. It's got bullet hells, sword dueling, and multiple tools for you to use to create your own strategies on how to defeat most bosses. All you have to do to win is git gud. The music design is pretty stellar, too - very reminiscent of Supergiant Games - as it changes segments based on each stage of every boss fight. The game overall does a great job of making sure you know why you messed up, while rewarding you for being aggressive when you're confident in that segment.

Wargroove: Like Advance Wars, but...cuter? It uses an interesting Critical system that requires you to leverage the positioning of your units that kinda reminds me of some japanese tactics games. it has the benefit of making your opponent's strategies more predictable, so you are encouraged to plan around their weaknesses. For instance, archer units crit when they attack without moving, pikemen crit when they're adjacent to an allied pikemen, and hounds crit when another allied hound is adjacent to their target. Commanders are also powerful boss units that can be controlled, and only have abilities that effect the immediate area near them.

Dead Cells: Probably one of the best roguelikes and action platformers out there. There's just something so responsive and crisp about it that just makes the character do everything you want him to, exactly how you wanted to do it. Even something like Hades feels clunky in comparison. Doesn't have much of a plot, but it's hard to rival it in terms of gameplay.

[Brookshw]

Got my 6 year old Minecraft. Been watching him play it. Convinced him to try Creative Mode after a couple bad starts in Survival, and he's been building amazing structures.

His first two in his base were a library and a McDonalds. He thought those important.

Well he's right, food and education are some of the cornerstones of society, or something like that.

[Man_Over_Game]

So, found out today that there's a phase 2 to that Hades fight.

Yep. Happens to everyone.

"Yeah, suck a d$&#, DAD! Wait....why is your health bar going back up..."

Then you scramble for a few moments, trying to figure out what the heck those green urns do as he channels a laser directly into your face.

What really gets me is that he's using the same mechanic you do - the Death Defiance - but it still feels like he's cheating.

I am not ballsy enough to attempt that fight on Extreme Measures 4. It's basically the same fight, another lifebar, except there's a fog that blocks your vision of the entire map. Oh, and there's Cerberus this time. I'd rather take on Charon (who I have yet to survive more than 10 seconds against).

[Zevox]

You might think about cranking up the Extreme Measures thing up a notch or four, then, if the bosses start getting too easy. It doesn't just make them have X% more HP or whatever, but give them more actual moves, phases, banter... more content, really.

I've done that for the first two so far. Honestly, they're not much tougher - if at all, in the Bone Hydra's case (I think it's the easiest boss in the game, barring maybe solo Meg). Heck, I might prefer "Extreme Measures" Furies to the solo versions of either of Meg's sisters. I was scared of that one when I first saw what it was, but since the other two don't actually need to be fought, they just pop in for an attack every now and then, it's mostly like fighting solo Meg. And I think I'm actually finding it easier to adjust to their occasional support fire than I do adjusting to their entirely different movesets when they're the opponent. (Not that either one is all that hard, I've never lost to them, but sometimes they eat a good chunk of health, where Meg never does anymore.)

But since the game's rewards system encourages only slowly cranking up the Pact of Punishment options, I've yet to turn that up any further. The most I've done is 4 heat on the spear and gun so far. (Again, just using whichever weapon gets the reward bonus, so my progress has been spread out considerably.)

The heat additions that dramatically change how you play are:

Benefits Package: Normal Armored enemies now come with special perks. Examples include creating chain lasers to other elites with chain lasers, occasionally turning invisible, and having the Elysium heroes spawn several exploding decoys when they lose their weaponized forms. Basically adds miniminibosses to your normal encounters.

Middle Management: Mid-bosses for each area are enhanced. Asterius is the odd-one out – he gets his midboss perks when you have Extreme Measures at level 3 or higher (which also enhances Theseus during their boss fight).

There’s also a fate reward for slaying enemies of each Benefits Package perk, so I’d recommend upping that first and work on getting that reward cleared sooner.

Yeah, I've used Benefits Package a lot, and already got that Fates reward. Honestly, I usually don't even notice the benefits though, aside from the ones with obvious visual indicators like the lasers. Doesn't seem to make things much tougher.

Haven't used Middle Management yet.

I'd rather take on Charon (who I have yet to survive more than 10 seconds against).

Really? I beat him on the first try. Granted, he took off a couple of resurrections, but that'll happen with a fight I've never seen before, don't know his attack patterns yet. Don't fight him often enough to feel confident I could beat him without losing a resurrect yet, but I'm sure I'll get there.

I do get the impression that he's the same power level no matter when you fight him, though, so it's probably smarter not to try to take him on in Tartarus, when you have barely any boons yet.

[NeoVid]

Dead Cells: Probably one of the best roguelikes and action platformers out there. There's just something so responsive and crisp about it that just makes the character do everything you want him to, exactly how you wanted to do it. Even something like Hades feels clunky in comparison. Doesn't have much of a plot, but it's hard to rival it in terms of gameplay.

I'm told Dead Cells has something along the lines of adaptive or predictive controls, that make it more likely your character will do what you intended for them to do, instead of what you actually fatfingered when you were jamming on the controller. I wish I could find the article about that again, it was damned interesting... and made me wish every game could do that. I'd probably still be a dedicated fighting game fan if I could count on my character doing what I want instead of my aging reflexes getting in the way.

[Iruka]

Still playing HoMM 3, now on the very last campaign from the Shadow of Death campaign.Theoretically there is still Heroes Chronicles, but I guess I will take a little brake after +100 hours played. Those 2 € were well invested.

I'm told Dead Cells has something along the lines of adaptive or predictive controls, that make it more likely your character will do what you intended for them to do, instead of what you actually fatfingered when you were jamming on the controller. I wish I could find the article about that again, it was damned interesting... and made me wish every game could do that. I'd probably still be a dedicated fighting game fan if I could count on my character doing what I want instead of my aging reflexes getting in the way.

I was thinking of that as well. Here is a game designer who worked on Dead Cells talking about how they did that.