What Are You Playing 5: New Thread+

[Anonymouswizard]

While that definitely sounds kinda condescending, it's ironically not a half bad advice. I did the same thing halfway through the game myself. It simply has too much bullet hell.

On the other hand it is telling somebody that they shouldn't engage with a key aspect of the game. It's not a solution to 'I want to play Undertale', making the choices and failing because you're learning how the encounter works are important parts of games.

[Spore]

Picked Dark Souls 3 in the Steam Sale, rolled up a Mercenary and died twice to the first boss, rerolled as a Knight and beat the boss in one go. That 100% physical resist shield is a great safety net, although Ithink I do do it with the mercenary if I hadn't been playing at 11 in the evening.

The faster gameplay is a great plus compared to 1 and 2, but having either more health or more estus would be lovely (although seeing as how I'm not a spellcaster I can probably get rid of that ashen flask). Although honestly it still needs an easy mode for us disabled players.

I out myself as a Dark Souls scrub, and if you can get your hands onto a Dark Sword, Knight is indeed the way to go (it is also the default class for any build not invested heavily into Faith) so either way it is the best choice.

If you want a faster weapon though, the assassin starts with an Estoc which is also bomb.

[Cespenar]

On the other hand it is telling somebody that they shouldn't engage with a key aspect of the game. It's not a solution to 'I want to play Undertale', making the choices and failing because you're learning how the encounter works are important parts of games.

Yep, I already agreed with that. I was trying to underline the irony in that I myself eventually had arrived at that ill-advised non-solution, in my own "Undertale experience". Which doesn't mean that that advice was good, but funny in its irony.

I like to think that we can appreciate dualities.

[Anteros]

While that definitely sounds kinda condescending, it's ironically not a half bad advice. I did the same thing halfway through the game myself. It simply has too much bullet hell.

I dunno. I'm not above watching a stream if I find the gameplay unfun or tedious, but ultimately the point of most games is to play them. I can understand the frustration of wanting to play something and not being able to.

[Anonymouswizard]

Yep, I already agreed with that. I was trying to underline the irony in that I myself eventually had arrived at that ill-advised non-solution, in my own "Undertale experience". Which doesn't mean that that advice was good, but funny in its irony.

I like to think that we can appreciate dualities.

Eh, the 'not half bad advice' bit made that a bit unclear, sorry.

It is amusing, but eh. I'm just tired of seeing attempts to exclude others. Honestly I'm going to be sorting out a way to mess with Dark Souls 3's speed, I'll shunt it into offline mode so I don't have to worry about the effects of softbans, and I'll find a sweet spot that works.

[Triaxx]

I am... Torn on Souls likes. I am quite bad at them but they teeter on the edges of Badly, to non-existantly tutorialized. It's hard to get good when the games seem to enjoy watch you suffrrm.

[Rynjin]

I am... Torn on Souls likes. I am quite bad at them but they teeter on the edges of Badly, to non-existantly tutorialized. It's hard to get good when the games seem to enjoy watch you suffrrm.

Every game but the first has a pretty thorough tutorial, though. Dark Souls 2 has the best one, but that makes sense for the best Souls game.

[Yora]

I did it! I played Bloodborne without dying up to Rom the Vacuous Spider! Some extremely close calls that were dumb luck, but I made it.

Now I am curious how many deaths I'll get in the second half of the game, but I don't think I could do that in Yahargul and the Nightmare Frontier. Especially Huey, Dewey, and Louie in the Hypogean Goal building.
But this is as far as I think I can make it, and I did make it.

[Wookieetank]

I did it! I played Bloodborne without dying up to Rom the Vacuous Spider! Some extremely close calls that were dumb luck, but I made it.

Now I am curious how many deaths I'll get in the second half of the game, but I don't think I could do that in Yahargul and the Nightmare Frontier. Especially Huey, Dewey, and Louie in the Hypogean Goal building.
But this is as far as I think I can make it, and I did make it.

Congrats! That's quite impressive. I've yet to make it to the first boss without dying myself (let alone beating him in one go). Good luck with the back half!

[Rodin]

I did it! I played Bloodborne without dying up to Rom the Vacuous Spider! Some extremely close calls that were dumb luck, but I made it.

Now I am curious how many deaths I'll get in the second half of the game, but I don't think I could do that in Yahargul and the Nightmare Frontier. Especially Huey, Dewey, and Louie in the Hypogean Goal building.
But this is as far as I think I can make it, and I did make it.

There's two good ways to deal with Huey, Dewey, and Louie.

The easiest requires prep work - you need to have visited the Hypogean Gaol previously by letting one of the bagmen whack you over the head. Even though you technically die I wouldn't count it since they clearly don't kill you in-game - they knock you out, stuff you in a sack, then you wake up in a cell.

From there, all you have to do is open the shortcut door on the far side of the dais. When you return later in the game, you can walk slowly through and not aggro any of the 3 Stooges, or you can just leg it and you'll be out the door and gone before they can react.

The other involves killing them with cheese. First you kill the bell woman in the outdoor section and murder all the dudes out there. Once the area is clear, go in and aggro Huey. Run all the way back up the stairs outside - they will eventually leash back to their original positions. However, their original starting positions are not equal! They each have a different leash distance as a result, meaning you can lure them all out, wait until the others leash, and then fight them one at a time. Still risky since they're individually dangerous, but better than trying to take all 3 down at once.

As for the rest of Yahar'gul...

Spoiler

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[LibraryOgre]

I think I'm avoiding Endgame in Pathfinder: Kingmaker. I went through the portal and instantly failed Beneath the Stolen Lands (which I don't really care about; if I need to, I'll play it as a stand-alone) and the Magical Prison (which is an annoying quest)... but then I'm just... "I don't know if I want to do this."

So I played some Darkest Dungeon yesterday, which my son REALLY liked watching. He likes my Houndmaster, because of course he likes the dog class.

[Zevox]

Wrapped up the post-game stuff in Neo: The World Ends With You. Which does explain much of what I was wondering about, although in some cases the answers a little... well, if you played the first game, they probably shouldn't have been as surprising as they were to me.

Spoiler

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Joshua didn't intervene at any point in the game because the whole scenario was some kind of contest between him and Kubo, played out through their respective "proxies" - Rindo for Joshua, and Shiba for Kubo. Both were supposed to not intervene directly... although Kubo actually broke that immediately, since he set Rindo up with the pin that could turn back time in order to cause the events that unfold towards the end of the game. And that little revelation is ultimately the line that he crossed that prompted Haz, who is, as I'd guessed, the Composer of Shinjuku, to erase him.

Which... well, I guess I shouldn't have expected better of Joshua than that, after his role in the first game, but I kind of did anyway. And there's still no explanation of why Haz didn't intervene in the first iteration of the final day (maybe he was about to, but Rindo turned back time first? That would be a cruel irony...), nor why Joshua didn't intervene after it was clear that Kubo had broken that rule. But eh, given the strange nature of the Composers and how they don't seem to think like any ordinary person would, I guess enough's cleared up for me to be happy with it all in the end. Which is good, because damn, aside from those confusing bits towards the end, I really enjoyed just about everything about the game, its story, and all the new characters.

And now I've gone back to Guilty Gear Strive, due to the release of Happy Chaos as its newest DLC character. Dude looks like he'll have a serious learning curve - I'm getting my ass handed to me repeatedly with him right now - but damn it, I want to learn this guy, he can do some very interesting things, and I just like the character. He's like if Deadpool was a villain, and more laid-back. Even his intro sequence with himself is the best.

[Zombimode]

I think I'm avoiding Endgame in Pathfinder: Kingmaker. I went through the portal and instantly failed Beneath the Stolen Lands (which I don't really care about; if I need to, I'll play it as a stand-alone) and the Magical Prison (which is an annoying quest)... but then I'm just... "I don't know if I want to do this."

I can understand that sentiment. Some of the end-game humanoid fey enemies are quite annoying.
But for me it was worth it. The lasting effect that your kingdom building endeavours have on the region and the fate of your companions are to me what really matters in this game and the ending IS the payoff for that. And it delivers in that regard.

[Taevyr]

I think I'm avoiding Endgame in Pathfinder: Kingmaker. I went through the portal and instantly failed Beneath the Stolen Lands (which I don't really care about; if I need to, I'll play it as a stand-alone) and the Magical Prison (which is an annoying quest)... but then I'm just... "I don't know if I want to do this."

So I played some Darkest Dungeon yesterday, which my son REALLY liked watching. He likes my Houndmaster, because of course he likes the dog class.

That's understandable: it both signifies the clear ending of a pretty great journey, which is always bittersweet, and it can unfortunately also be one hell of a slog against the fey enemies. For the second, I recommend seeing how you do on your run through the zone, and just turn down the difficulty if it's too annoying. For the first: just bite the bullet. You started the entire journey to build your kingdom, aid your companions and beat this thing. The payoff is certainly worth it in my opinion, and you deserve to get that ending.

One of these days I'll have to try Darkest Dungeon, considering it tends to pop up every now and then around here.



As for me, I headed back into Wrath of the Righteous a while ago with a brand-new laptop in a desperate attempt to forget about what the thing cost me, even though I need a good graphics card for work anyway. Trying to get back to where my last run got bricked (neutral evil Longbow Slayer) since I hadn't gotten tired of her yet, and I do feel I have a better handle of her character right now.

There was this one enemy in the Lost Chapel area that can apparently cast Blasphemy. Had about 2 seconds of internal "oh crap" before I saw that only Seelah got affected and the rest of my party essentially butchered the guy. For a game about crusades, you'd expect less evil party members.

[LibraryOgre]

So, last night, I had a bit of time between the end of my movie and my finishing for the night in Kingmaker, so I sat down to look at character creation in Wrath of the Righteous.

Holy ****.

There are like nine billion classes, each with a couple million subclasses. I just spent time slowly trawling through the options. I'm probably going to wind up picking more or less what I did in Kingmaker (Archaeologist 6/DD 8/Archaeologist+), but, sweet monkey, that's a ton of options to keep in your head.

It's like they took my 5e wish ("I wish that there were subclasses for most classes that were like multiclasses for other things"), and decided "No, we need to make every possible option a class or subclass."

[Anteros]

Character customization is definitely the one thing WoTR does right, even if it does turn into a bit of a slog eventually when you're levelling all your companions.

[warty goblin]

Continuing to work through Solasta. I really wish the story was better, or at least better delivered. The core of it is completely competent if unremarkable fantasy stuff, but boy oh boy the execution is a mess, to the point where some scenes and quests teeter on the edge of incoherence. It doesn't effect the gameplay at all, I always know where I'm going and what I'm doing, but people frequently say things that make no sense or reference things that they only learn a couple lines of dialog later. I suspect the semi-dynamic conversation system they were going for exceeded their grasp a little bit, which is too bad because when it does work it's actually pretty fun.

One very positive thing about the story is that even fairly far in, nobody has turned onto a chosen one, or had some rando proper noun jammed at the end of their name or anything. The party are just, like, normal people. Since I am just bone weary of being The Warden or The Guardian or The Champion or The Designated Driver or whatever over the top title the game uses, I really like this.

Also, the combat and exploration continue to please. Since these comprise like 90% of the game, on net this is a clear win. The game could probably use a bit more variety and complexity in its puzzles (although no Sudoku or Towers of Hanoi is certainly pleasant!) but it's iron commitment to highlighting all interactive bits of the environment remains very appreciated. And I'm still quite impressed at how well all the combat bits work, even in very complex environments with lots of enemies things remain readable and the interface exceptionally usable.

Unless things fall off a major quality cliff, this is shaping up to be my favorite RPG of the last couple years. I'm actually looking forwards to replaying it, which basically never happens.

[LibraryOgre]

Character customization is definitely the one thing WoTR does right, even if it does turn into a bit of a slog eventually when you're levelling all your companions.

It didn't feel like customization so much as "Here are 75 slight variations on a theme. Some of them suck, but we won't tell you which ones."

[Resileaf]

Well, as with most things TTRPG-related games, you often need a deep understanding of the source material when you're face with everything you have available to you.

[Yora]

The other involves killing them with cheese. First you kill the bell woman in the outdoor section and murder all the dudes out there. Once the area is clear, go in and aggro Huey. Run all the way back up the stairs outside - they will eventually leash back to their original positions. However, their original starting positions are not equal! They each have a different leash distance as a result, meaning you can lure them all out, wait until the others leash, and then fight them one at a time. Still risky since they're individually dangerous, but better than trying to take all 3 down at once.

That's what I always try to do. And even in my last playthrough, I died maybe 5 times in the process.

I believe I died four times since I killed Rom. All four times in the Nightmare Frontier from getting hit by a thrown boulder. The first one was not paying attention. The third one was "okay, I'm sure he can't hit me here".
I got 30 Vitality and the boulders still deal more damage than I have health.

Strangely enough, I killed all the three beholder ladies in the areas without the slightest trouble. I think not using all Madman's Knowledge the moment I find it, and consequently having 15 Insight instead of 45 at this point does make quite the difference.

But overall, I think beating Bloodborne without dying is actually not that difficult. I only beat the game four or five times so far, and seeing other people getting into the game, I think I was actually really terrible when I first played it, and merely doing okay the second time. I'm not a great player and overall it all seems quite doable.
Instead of simply playing through the whole game over and over and trying to get my Death Count lower and lower, I actually restarted every time I died, and the hardest part is really getting to and beating Father Gascoigne. Most of my deaths where in the first 30 minutes getting the Hunter's Outfit and then the Madman's Kowledge by the crows (which you can get by jumping down the beams by the Hunter's Set and then climbing up the ladders on the other side). Once you have armor, a +2 weapon, and can upgrade vitality, things become much safer. Usually my next death was at Papa G after that. I guess you could do the Speedunner Cheese to deal with him easily, but I fought him normally and it's easy to get in a situation where he just keeps attacking faster than you can heal. And I'm not good with parrying him. At least I've become good at not getting stuck in the gravestones anymore. Those are really the hardest part of the whole fight.
Old Yarnam, Cathedral Ward, and Hemwick are all pretty easy if you have decent Vitality and Endurance and your weapon as highly upgraded as you can. Blood Starved Beast and Vicar Amelia are both total jokes if you use fire paper and beastblood pallet. It's easy to have them near death before their music has really started, though getting the last bit off the Blood Starved Beast down has often been quite panicky.
Forbidden Woods is also not that tough if you have a weapon with long reach like the saw spear to deal with the Snake Head Guys, and Shadows of Yarnam are not that hard. The scariest part for me was always the Choir hunter in Byrgenwerth, but taking the fight outside after clearing the monsters made that work as well.
And well, Rom is Rom. Fire Paper and Beastblood helps a lot, but if you ignore the little spiders then getting at Rom becomes difficult, and dodging the meteor took me way too long and cost me all my blood vials. There's probably better ways than that.

As I said, in Nightmare Frontier all my deaths were from getting hit by boulders, and those are actually easy enough to avoid if you pay attention, which at this point I no longer did. From what I remember of my last regular playthrough, Amygdala and One Reborn were both done on first try without too much sweat, and I was so highly leveled that I did Celestial Emissary and even Ebrietas on first try. The later really surprised me, but going all fire and beastblood and killing her before she used laser stars absolutely helped. I died once to Mergo's Wetnurse, and that was just embarrassing. I think I simply assumed she's not a threat.
I'm sure there are reliable ways to beat the final boss, and I believe it should not be too difficult to restock on blood vials with Bold Hunter's Mark if you also want to do the bonus boss as well.

Now Chalice Dungeon bosses, that's a whole different story.

[Lacco]

Had some gaming time during last 3 weeks. Gave a try to:

Medieval Dynasty
Yeah, I'm hooked. I love the look and feel of the game and although there are some things I'd change (e.g. more interaction with your villagers), overall it's very enjoyable experience. I'm also big on emergent gameplay and this one delivers quite well. 8/10, should have placed my village elsewhere.

DayZ
Died within first twenty minutes to another player. Was already half dead due to running around in cold weather in a T-shirt, being hungry and getting caught by three zombos in one narrow space (my mistake) - and when I finally found a firearm (with 3 rounds), I got ambushed by hammer-wielding guy. Messed him up too, hit all three shots - but he had a helmet. My second attempt was better, I moved a bit more inland and am no longer starving or freezing to death, so overall: good experience. 8/10, would die again.

Phasmophobia
So far only single-player mode, but I am having a blast getting scared. The game nails the buildup of dread and jumpscares very nicely. So far no deaths, but I'm VERY careful and have some knowledge of the game already (which is not the case for the first two games on this list). 9/10 - I'm scared to give it less

Also, showed TTDX to my 4y/o son. He loves building railroads.

[Rynjin]

Been playing Bullets Per Minute. Thought easy sounded wimpy, so I started on Hard.

Despite my first several runs feeling like prolonged CBT, I finally got into the groove of it, literally. Beat the game as the starting character Goll, and after a few tries beat it on Hard as Njord as well; he was super cool and fun.

Doing that unlocked Odr.

If I thought the start of the game was torturous, Odr is worse. Dies in one hit and cannot under any circumstances gain more HP or Armor (temporary HP).

This is the kind of character I would not consider playing in any game I didn't love.

I've gotten basically nowhere as Odr, especially as the RNG seems particularly unkind when I play him. No good weapons at the Blacksmith (hell, one RARELY spawns), bullet hell rooms even on the first floor, random ass enemies from later stages keep showing up for no apparent reason...argh. On top of that I hate his starting weapon, the double barrel sawed off. You can't reliably pick off enemies at a distance (which is how I beat most of my first run without taking hardly any damage), so it's a bit frustrating in that regard. Runs always improve the instant I can pick up literally any other weapon, but I often get screwed by boss RNG with the first boss being Cloned; any other boss this is basically a non-issue, but the first boss has a pretty specific dance you need to do to avoid getting hit and there being two of him can easily "checkmate" you.

Excellent game, though.

[Anteros]

Playing some more Ruined King. Even as someone who doesn't play LoL, I like the game. It stands well enough on its own merit. That said, I'm using a cheat to play things at 3x speed and it's still quite tedious at times when it comes to things like elevators, fishing, or battle animations. I have no idea how anyone could have the patience to sit through the game at the intended speed.

Digging back into FFXV a little bit. The gameplay and exploration on this game are just...so good. If they would have bothered to attach even a mediocre story to it, the game would be an all time great. I know story is never the strong point of a Final Fantasy game, but this one is a fragmented mess even by their standards. Still, the gameplay is good enough that the game is worth a playthrough.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Digging back into FFXV a little bit. The gameplay and exploration on this game are just...so good. If they would have bothered to attach even a mediocre story to it, the game would be an all time great. I know story is never the strong point of a Final Fantasy game, but this one is a fragmented mess even by their standards. Still, the gameplay is good enough that the game is worth a playthrough.

How far along are you? ARR isn't great, but HW and ShB are really good, SB is just ok. EW is early release, so I won't say anything about it.

[Anteros]

How far along are you? ARR isn't great, but HW and ShB are really good, SB is just ok. EW is early release, so I won't say anything about it.

I'm playing 15. I think you're talking about 14?

[GloatingSwine]

Man, remember when stories actually were the thing we remembered about FF games?

And yeah, FFXV is a serious offender given that in order to understand the primary thing the main character spends most of the game conflicted about you have to have watched a movie that was so boring I turned it off five minutes in.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I'm playing 15. I think you're talking about 14?

Man, remember when stories actually were the thing we remembered about FF games?

And yeah, FFXV is a serious offender given that in order to understand the primary thing the main character spends most of the game conflicted about you have to have watched a movie that was so boring I turned it off five minutes in.

Ah yeah. Oops. I basically agree about 15.

[DigoDragon]

I tried out Minecraft 1.18 this past weekend, and I don't think that I enjoy the cave update.

The world is significantly hollowed out, which is detrimental to my preferred way of mining through large solid chunks of stone for resources. Here, I keep digging into huge caverns (many which are underwater) so I spend a lot more time fighting angry mobs and trying to find a good digging spot than actually digging.

It also does weird things to underground structures. I found an abandoned mineshaft that was long expanses of wooden bridges in large otherwise empty caverns. It doesn't feel like a mine anymore (at least I can bring an axe and collect all the free wood).

I dunno, I'm not feeling it. I went back to 1.17 and it feels more my style. I do like digging way under Y=0, and there are still plenty of caves to find. I think 1.18 just gets overzealous about cave gen.

[Ignimortis]

Man, remember when stories actually were the thing we remembered about FF games?

Honestly, XIV does a better job in that department than any single-player title.

ARR is meh, but it lays a thick foundation of worldbuilding and plot threads to follow and characters that are only starting out on their paths. HW is quite good, on par with the best FF stories, even though it does suffer in places due to the game being an MMO and thus unable to lock you out of any significant location you've already been to. SB is...very up and down, Ala Mhigo parts are meh, the Steppe is good, Doma/Ruby Sea are middling. But after those three come Shadowbringer and Endwalker. And those...those are simply amazing, start to finish.

Having finished the latter a few hours ago, I can say - this is the best story I've ever seen in videogames. CRPGs have their upsides, but they have never weaved a narrative so expertly and created a world so troubled yet vibrant and colourful to want to save.

Since the story is now somewhat finished, I would advise anyone who doesn't mind JRPGs' quirks like not having a lot of choices to make or ways to affect the plot unpredictably to absolutely try XIV out. I know it's an old adage, but it does get better. It gets immensely better. You could probably buy the whole game, pay for a few months and just play it like a single-player FF game, although doing side content like raids (normal difficulty is fine, no need for savage) and alliance raids does improve the impact of the main quest in places.

Endwalker in particular made me cry, chuckle, grin like an idiot and feel unexplained happiness for the last four days. Shadowbringers also had a great impact back in 2019. What a ride, what a marvelous ride.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Honestly, XIV does a better job in that department than any single-player title.

ARR is meh, but it lays a thick foundation of worldbuilding and plot threads to follow and characters that are only starting out on their paths. HW is quite good, on par with the best FF stories, even though it does suffer in places due to the game being an MMO and thus unable to lock you out of any significant location you've already been to. SB is...very up and down, Ala Mhigo parts are meh, the Steppe is good, Doma/Ruby Sea are middling. But after those three come Shadowbringer and Endwalker. And those...those are simply amazing, start to finish.

Having finished the latter a few hours ago, I can say - this is the best story I've ever seen in videogames. CRPGs have their upsides, but they have never weaved a narrative so expertly and created a world so troubled yet vibrant and colourful to want to save.

Since the story is now somewhat finished, I would advise anyone who doesn't mind JRPGs' quirks like not having a lot of choices to make or ways to affect the plot unpredictably to absolutely try XIV out. I know it's an old adage, but it does get better. It gets immensely better. You could probably buy the whole game, pay for a few months and just play it like a single-player FF game, although doing side content like raids (normal difficulty is fine, no need for savage) and alliance raids does improve the impact of the main quest in places.

Endwalker in particular made me cry, chuckle, grin like an idiot and feel unexplained happiness for the last four days. Shadowbringers also had a great impact back in 2019. What a ride, what a marvelous ride.

I haven't finished Endwalker (stupid work getting in the way) yet, but I agree with this.