What Are You Playing 5: New Thread+

[Dire_Flumph]

Didn't even know DLC for the Outer Wilds was coming until I saw a blurb about it today.

Took awhile to find the new content but the puzzle you solve to access the new area was fun...then I get to the new planet and why I love this game just came flooding back.

Not sure how much new content there is, but having fun exploring it so far.

Keep thinking of starting Wrath of the Righteous, but all the bugs I've been hearing about keep me from playing it for now. It will still be there after a few months of patches and player workarounds.

I forgot to mention I was playing Doom Eternal. Oopsies. Finished the game and its DLC campaigns tonight. I've ripped and tore and now I am done.

The Icon of Sin is one of the best final bosses in videogame history and I'll hear no one say otherwise.

Doom Eternal is one of the best FPS games I've played, period.

The DLC campaigns though....I still haven't finished them. The new enemies force you into a specific tactic to take each one down, and it just feels limiting. Nowhere near as fun as the main game, and I haven't been able to push myself to complete them yet.

[NeoVid]

tried to start and play Psycho on Borderlands 2. it kinda works? the fact that getting knocked into fight for your life mode knocks you out of your berserker rage sucks so you can easily waste the ability, and I only got the rush I want to feel from it once. I think I have more fun playing sniper, because the psycho's playstyle is going to take me some getting used to, so I'm jsut gonna go back to sniping until I feel like give psycho more of a try.

Krieg is horrifically powerful and insanely fun when fully built... and practically non-functional before you get one of his capstone abilities. Definitely a character who's better off skipping to the second playthrough.

[Rynjin]

I really enjoyed the build where you get a free refresh of your skill and can go Badass Psycho mode when you're low on health, combined with a shield that lowers your health. 100% uptime on your action skill.

[Resileaf]

Started playing One Piece Pirate Warriors on the PC. It's fun, but it would be so much better if it was ported with a functional control scheme. However, it doesn't work with PC controllers at all.

[Rodin]

I've just spent around three hours playing Diablo II: Resurrected. Must be fifteen years since I last played the original game and I'd forgotten just how good it is! The updated graphics are good but not mind-blowing, although if you press G to switch back to original game mode that locked-in 25fps frame rate becomes very obvious very quickly--more so than the poorer resolution, interestingly.

Hard same. DII has become the game of choice for my nightly pandemic gaming sessions with my sister, and our combination of Javazon and Dentist have just hit Act IV and are well on the way to beating Diablo on Normal.

My morning gaming time is trying to do a Hardcore Arctic Blast Druid. This is not going near as well, it looks like they didn't fix any of the old bugs for Resurrected so Arctic Blast still does pretty poor damage. The build works...kinda. I slow everything down with Arctic Blast and let my hireling and Dire Wolves mop up.

This lead to Duriel being a real pain in the keister. Since he deals 10x damage to summons and hirelings, he squashed everyone pretty much instantly. I beat him with summon spam and periodically running away back to town to resurrected my hireling and summon a fresh batch of wolves.

Hopefully Mephy won't be as rough, and by the time I'm fighting Diablo/Baal I hope to have gotten Hurricane.

[Cespenar]

Does the old "players 8" command still somehow work in Resurrected?

[factotum]

I just got halfway through Act 3 with the summoner Druid I started with, and I'm beginning to think there's maybe a point where a remaster is a bit *too* faithful to the original game. They've managed to completely carry over the interminable, identical jungles of Act 3, which is the one part of the game I think could have done with a major bit of tweaking! And I didn't even have to go through the Great Marsh (it just being an offshoot of the Flayer Jungle in my randomly-generated map, not on the way to it)...

@Cespenar: I can absolutely confirm that /players 8 works in offline single player. Haven't tried in any other mode because I won't be playing the game in any other mode.

[Zevox]

I completed Kena: Bridge of Spirits earlier this week. Aside from it being (predictably) short, I was very happy with it. Solid, well-made adventure game of a style you just don't see much anymore. I was particularly impressed with the boss fights, too, which managed to vary things up quite a bit despite the game's simple mechanics, and were legitimately never easy (I didn't beat a single one on the first try; or even second, I think), yet were also never too frustrating. The story had a few touching moments as well. Very nice little game, I hope to see more like from that developer in the future.

Also, at my sister's recommendation since I haven't been paying much attention to it, I picked up Psychonauts 2, and just completed that (story-wise, anyway, I'm working on 100% it). That was everything I could've wanted in a sequel to Psychonauts - it feels like you very quickly have all of the abilities from the first game, and they then add onto them. Gameplay's solid, lots of fun platforming and fights. And of course, it's silly, bizarre, and creepy moving around people's minds. Story's pretty solid too. Definitely one I'd recommend if you at all liked the first game, or like 3D platformers in general.

[factotum]

Another Diablo 2 observation: decided to keep my druid parked in Lower Kurast for a bit while I started out with a Bone Necro--so, the eventual plan is obviously to use Bone Wall and Bone Prison to corral enemies away while I shoot them full of little holes using the likes of Teeth, Bone Spear etc. Problem is, I forgot just how difficult it is to get started as a character relying on magic damage, because your mana regenerates so slowly and you can't carry many quick access mana potions at the beginning of the game. This particular build is also problematic because Bone Wall doesn't appear until level 12, and you have a lot of killing to do before you get that far!

However, because Resurrection allows a free respec in every Act (you just have to speak to Akara in the Rogue Encampment), I've decided to temporarily use a clay golem as a tank to keep the enemies busy, and I've mostly been using the Amplify Damage/bludgeon to death with my wand approach. I suspect my Rogue merc will probably be doing a lot of the heavy lifting between here and Lut Gholein, though...

[Rodin]

Another Diablo 2 observation: decided to keep my druid parked in Lower Kurast for a bit while I started out with a Bone Necro--so, the eventual plan is obviously to use Bone Wall and Bone Prison to corral enemies away while I shoot them full of little holes using the likes of Teeth, Bone Spear etc. Problem is, I forgot just how difficult it is to get started as a character relying on magic damage, because your mana regenerates so slowly and you can't carry many quick access mana potions at the beginning of the game. This particular build is also problematic because Bone Wall doesn't appear until level 12, and you have a lot of killing to do before you get that far!

However, because Resurrection allows a free respec in every Act (you just have to speak to Akara in the Rogue Encampment), I've decided to temporarily use a clay golem as a tank to keep the enemies busy, and I've mostly been using the Amplify Damage/bludgeon to death with my wand approach. I suspect my Rogue merc will probably be doing a lot of the heavy lifting between here and Lut Gholein, though...

Be careful with those respecs, everything I've seen online says it's one respec per difficulty, not Act. It's an additional quest reward for the Den Of Evil quest on top of the usual skill point she gives you.

Since my Bone Necro is multiplayer I'm not using Bone Wall, but fortunately the added tanking of another pleyer and their merc has mostly been enough. Extra Fast bosses are a real pain though - the Balrog boss that spawns from Diablo's seals killed me before I had a chance to move, let alone drink healing potions or run away.

I'm looking at Bone Spirit on my tree and wondering what the appeal is. It's single target while doing half the damage of Bone Spear and only a little bit more damage than Teeth (which cover the entire screen at this point). Oh, and it costs more mana too. I guess you have to put a lot of points into it to catch the spell up? Either that or the display isn't giving Bone Spirit the benefit of the synergies the other skills are getting.

So far I've really been enjoying the different utility between Teeth and Bone Spear. Bone Spear is great for indoor work and against bosses, and Teeth will clear the screen in outdoor areas where monsters like to fan out. It's like having a sniper rifle and a shotgun.

[Morgaln]

After finishing Season One of Telltale's The Walking Dead a few days ago, I started on Season 2 today. It's hard to see just how depressed Clementine is all the time, I feel so sorry for her.

Spoiler

Show

I miss Lee...

[factotum]

Be careful with those respecs, everything I've seen online says it's one respec per difficulty, not Act.

I'm looking at Bone Spirit on my tree and wondering what the appeal is. It's single target while doing half the damage of Bone Spear and only a little bit more damage than Teeth (which cover the entire screen at this point). Oh, and it costs more mana too.

Ah, I must have misunderstood. I might just restart that necro as a skelliemancer in that case, I think it'll be more fun and I can respec over to bone spells when I'm high enough level for Bone Prison.

As for Bone Spirit, if Teeth is a shotgun and Spear is a sniper rifle, Spirit is a guided missile. It will track whatever enemy you've launched it at until it hits or the target dies, whichever comes first. It'll go a long way offscreen as well, so it can be handy against bosses--you can launch a few, run away, and wait for them all to hit!

[Rodin]

Ah, I must have misunderstood. I might just restart that necro as a skelliemancer in that case, I think it'll be more fun and I can respec over to bone spells when I'm high enough level for Bone Prison.

As for Bone Spirit, if Teeth is a shotgun and Spear is a sniper rifle, Spirit is a guided missile. It will track whatever enemy you've launched it at until it hits or the target dies, whichever comes first. It'll go a long way offscreen as well, so it can be handy against bosses--you can launch a few, run away, and wait for them all to hit!

I discovered what I was missing with Bone Spirit. If you have no levels in a skill, the display doesn't show synergy bonuses. So it was missing some 300% bonus damage compared to the other skills.

At the moment it's still crap tier though. It deals around 150-200 for a single target hit, while Bone Spear is dealing 250-300. I can see that it will curve away eventually, but with Bone Spear getting the bonuses from Bone Spirit it's going to be a while before Bone Spirit catches up.

I tend to be in the role of crowd control anyway, so opportunities to use Bone Spirit will be limited for probably most of Nightmare. It'll really only be worth firing it off against End-of-Act bosses probably until I reach Hell difficulty.

[Frozenstep]

Didn't even know DLC for the Outer Wilds was coming until I saw a blurb about it today.

Took awhile to find the new content but the puzzle you solve to access the new area was fun...then I get to the new planet and why I love this game just came flooding back.

Not sure how much new content there is, but having fun exploring it so far.

Recently played and beaten the DLC. Love the themes of it, sad that I can't talk to my friends about it because they haven't gotten around to playing it yet.

[NRSASD]

Recently played and beaten the DLC. Love the themes of it, sad that I can't talk to my friends about it because they haven't gotten around to playing it yet.

Playing through it with the wife myself. I am astounded at how they managed to completely through us for a loop. I didn't know what to expect, but the new planet was certainly not what I was expecting!

[factotum]

I discovered what I was missing with Bone Spirit. If you have no levels in a skill, the display doesn't show synergy bonuses. So it was missing some 300% bonus damage compared to the other skills.

Interesting to know. Been playing the Necro a bit more myself (got as far as the Halls of the Dead in Act 2) and I can see a big problem looming--I just like playing the summoner style so much I doubt I shall ever bother respeccing this one! Much more fun than the summoner Druid. Yet to meet Duriel and no corpses means no skellies, so will probably have to rely on clay golem and merc to get past him, but Decrepify should do some good work to help there.

[Anonymouswizard]

Finally got something I can call ac'gaming PC' with a straight face, set it up with Windows and Steam and booted DMC5.

Great game. Still only played the first three missions, but it's amazingly fun to stab the demons in the face. The major issue is that you can't switch between Devil Breakers, which means that I have a tendency not to use them at the moment. Maybe that'll change, I've certainly got to practice more so I can learn when's best to try to charge them and avoid getting hit.

Now if lady could just put some clothes on we'd be ready to go. (I do like her redesign though, much better than 4).

[LibraryOgre]

My go-to build for Diablo 2 is the Ravenmaster. All points go into Ravens. The ones that can't go into Ravens (you get a couple) go into wolf and vine summons.

No lycanthropy. Combat magics only from headdresses. Ravens all the way down. Hit things with sticks and more Angry Birds.

Aside from that, last night my son sat me down and made me show him how to play Animal Crossing. He didn't know what to do or how to upgrade his house, and was hella frustrated. So, I ran him through the basics, and now he's STOKED, especially once he bullied me into making a house and realized we would not only be in the same town (which is named after him), but that we also could play couch co-op.

Also, been playing a bit of Minecraft, but had two major setbacks and am on my third new world in as many days. First one, I was moving some things and had everything from a chest I broke despawn... and it was my chest full of cool goodies. Second, I was moving my bed inside my nascent island fortress and got killed by an Enderman. No bed, no respawn back at my fortress. Rage-quit. Since I'm not on-line, I don't have any shame about rage-quitting a world... it just affects me. I wish Minecraft had an option for single-switch worlds, though, so my son and I could work together.

[Frozenstep]

Playing through it with the wife myself. I am astounded at how they managed to completely through us for a loop. I didn't know what to expect, but the new planet was certainly not what I was expecting!

I kind of wish I'd kept like a journal and written out what I thought was happening/going to happen every so often. Would have been interesting to see how many times my expectations were subverted.

[factotum]

My go-to build for Diablo 2 is the Ravenmaster. All points go into Ravens. The ones that can't go into Ravens (you get a couple) go into wolf and vine summons.

Ravens are OK but I find them annoying due to having to recast them when their "number of attacks" expires.

I do have to commend Blizzard for their almost unhealthy obsession with making Resurrection work just like the original game--they've even carried over the odd bugs with doors in the Act 1 Cloisters (where you click to open the door and the game thinks it's open, but it still shows graphically as being closed), and the similar problem with temple doors in Act 2 (where enemies can attack you through apparently closed doors but you can't attack back unless you open the door).

[tyckspoon]

I do have to commend Blizzard for their almost unhealthy obsession with making Resurrection work just like the original game--they've even carried over the odd bugs with doors in the Act 1 Cloisters (where you click to open the door and the game thinks it's open, but it still shows graphically as being closed), and the similar problem with temple doors in Act 2 (where enemies can attack you through apparently closed doors but you can't attack back unless you open the door).

Blizzard didn't actually do the work - it was given to another studio with the specific remit of 'put new graphics on top of the old engine.' Mechanically, I think the only actual change is adding a controller-based control scheme and some extra high resolution support. And they had to walk back the resolutions some, because attacking monsters from too far outside the area defined by the original resolution broke enemy AI.

[LibraryOgre]

Ravens are OK but I find them annoying due to having to recast them when their "number of attacks" expires.

On the other hand, they're cheap as all get-out and you can spam them amazingly.

[Triaxx]

Also, been playing a bit of Minecraft, but had two major setbacks and am on my third new world in as many days. First one, I was moving some things and had everything from a chest I broke despawn... and it was my chest full of cool goodies. Second, I was moving my bed inside my nascent island fortress and got killed by an Enderman. No bed, no respawn back at my fortress. Rage-quit. Since I'm not on-line, I don't have any shame about rage-quitting a world... it just affects me. I wish Minecraft had an option for single-switch worlds, though, so my son and I could work together.

Open to LAN is your answer. As long as you two are on the same version it'll work.

[LibraryOgre]

Open to LAN is your answer. As long as you two are on the same version it'll work.

I'll have to look into it; we've only got one Switch, so it won't be couch coop, though if I can get it on my computer...

We'll see what we can do.

[Anonymouswizard]

I've now been Mission 10 in DMC5, and this have had a chance to try out all the characters.

Honestly, while I understand that I'm still missing one of Dante's mechanics and most of his weapons, my favourite is actually V. The developers seen to have pretty much mailed the petmaster combat, and while it's going to take another run or two of the game to nail getting Shadow and Griffon to perform combos, but the need to keep an eye on three health bars, combined with the fact that you keep having to throw yourself into danger to finish enemies off, make it incredibly fun. V's combat could carry an entire game on it's own.

But yeah, hallway through already. It's not a bad thing though, the game is still going to be a solid ten hours for a single playthrough and ten hours of amazing content is probably better than twenty hours of good content (although if I'm in the right mode sixty hours of okay content is equal). Then there's the higher difficulties and Bloody Palace mode to try, and if I do get bored I'll certainly come back to it in a month or two because it's short enough to feel like a break and not a commitment.

[Rynjin]

Meanwhile, I stopped playing DMCV for the night one day, booted it back up to see the next level was a V level, felt a bone-deep weariness and shut the game off.

He's such a chore to play.

[Zevox]

So, today we found who the final Super Smash Brothers Ultimate DLC character is, and I was wrong - it is very much not Waluigi, it's someone far, far better. Good way to close out the game's DLC, no question there. Even though I'm not the biggest fan of his series (only played the first two), I'll probably pick him up. Also, Doom Slayer Mii Costume, for those of you who like that.

And speaking of, what I'm playing today is the newly-released Smash knock-off, Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl. Which, well, it's obviously a very low-budget game, which is unsurprising if you've ever played a Nickelodeon game before. But the devs definitely did their best with the budget they had. It's got a solid, varied roster (which to my delight includes three Avatar characters: Aang, Korra, and most surprising and pleasing of all to me, Toph); plenty of stages (one per character, in fact) with quite varied layouts; and combat mechanics that are similar to Smash's yet differ in some obvious and significant ways, and are quite satisfying to play around with. It'll take some serious getting used to some of those differences though - lack of any kind of dodge mechanic especially, since that's a huge game-changer in how you defend yourself, especially in the air. Probably doesn't help that I want to main Toph, and she's a bit like a less extreme Little Mac in Smash - supposed to be good on the ground, but weaker in the air. Which makes sense, of course, but still, going to give me a bit of a steeper learning curve.

I haven't gone online with it yet, but supposedly it's got rollback netcode, too, so fingers crossed, it should fare massively better online than Smash itself.

As far as other areas where that low budget shows, well, besides visuals being nowhere near on par with Smash in most respects, there's a fairly low number of modes. For single player you've got Arcade Mode (with sadly no boss fight at the end, it's just a series of eight fights with regular fighters that get steadily more difficult), versus mode with stock and timed matches, some kind of sports mode I haven't played around with so I'm not sure what it is yet... and that's it. Besides that, you go online. Also, there's no alternate character colors - not even a second color for when two players pick the same character, you just have to distinguish yourself based on the colored "player 1" etc icons above your heads. Also, no voice acting, and the music seems to be pretty unremarkable.

Still, it's a promising start, and hopefully if it sees good success sales-wise Nickelodeon might wise up and consider giving the devs a better budget for a sequel. I'm not holding my breath on that, since it's Nickelodeon, but it'd be nice to have another big platform fighter on the market, rather than just Smash Brothers and a handful of indie games. Maybe it'll convince Sony to give their version another try, if we're extra lucky.

Meanwhile, I stopped playing DMCV for the night one day, booted it back up to see the next level was a V level, felt a bone-deep weariness and shut the game off.

He's such a chore to play.

Yeah, I found V to be the weakest part of the game, personally. He's just too weird and doesn't feel right to control. Dante's amazing once you get all of his weapons, and Nero's a lot of fun too, but V I actively did not want to play. Fortunately, there's only I believe two or three V-only stages in the entire game, so it's not that tough to just get through his parts to play as the others.

(I have not yet played with Vergil since he was added as DLC. Been intending to wait until I can get the PS5 version and try out that new difficulty mode it has along with him.)

[Rynjin]

DMCV surprised me by how fun they made Nero to play without actually fundamentally overhauling his core gameplay from 4. Dante was always infinitely more fun in 4, but I found myself gravitating toward Nero more in the new one. He just feels solid in V.

[Anteros]

I don't much care for Smash or Sora, but some of those stage designs are beautiful. Also it means we'll probably get donald and goofy in some way.

[Zevox]

DMCV surprised me by how fun they made Nero to play without actually fundamentally overhauling his core gameplay from 4. Dante was always infinitely more fun in 4, but I found myself gravitating toward Nero more in the new one. He just feels solid in V.

Nero certainly got a lot better in DMC5, both gameplay wise and in the overall presentation of his character. In DMC4 he just felt like a weak substitute for Dante for the first half of the game to me, but in 5 he really felt more like his own character, and was generally more fun to both watch and play.

I don't much care for Smash or Sora, but some of those stage designs are beautiful. Also it means we'll probably get donald and goofy in some way.

Oh no, no Donald or Goofy. The full presentation included detailed looks at Sora's moveset, stage, and even the spirits that are coming with him, and aside from the Mickey Mouse head keychain hanging off the Keyblade, they studiously avoided any Disney stuff. Most likely because that would've cost an arm and a leg extra. I mean, the big reason he's so surprising is precisely because being co-owned by Square-Enix and Disney means there must have been a gordian knot of legal issues to sort out to get him into the game at all.