What Are You Playing 6: DLCs of Kevin Bacon

[LibraryOgre]

New thread, same as the old thread.

So, I'm continuing with Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous. Again. Sweet Monkey, but I have played my way to Drezen half a dozen times, almost always with exactly the same character. This time, my real difference is a slight change to Daeran... he's picking up a level of Court Poet. I usually sit he and Ember in the back, throwing spells (and him throwing crossbow bolts, when spells would be a waste), him being able to add +2 to Charisma and +2 to spell penetration for 8 rounds per day is going to be a big help.

[Triaxx]

Got inspired to boot Factorio back up and... Man it's been so long. I've forgotten so much.

[Resileaf]

I've been having fun in Elden Ring. Beat Godrick recently, then managed to defeat the Flying Dragon Azheel (the one who invades the marsh near the beginning). Proceeded to get had by the trap in the ruins that sends to a high-level dungeon off in the taint, but I was high level enough to navigate it successfully, though I didn't try to beat the boss, just explored the whole thing for items, then found the entrance and left.

[factotum]

Feels like I'm finally starting to get some decent weapons in Elex. Maybe I might have a chance of being able to kill something with slightly less than 300 arrows...but not holding out a huge amount of hope, game is *hard*.

[Alabenson]

I've just about finished digging out and flooding an amethyst geode I located under my base in Minecraft, and what's more I've designed a shulker box unloading system that should let me put a shulker box full of amethyst bits inside and have its contents extracted and sorted, with the box itself deposited back at the bottom of the geode for reuse when finished.

[warty goblin]

Feels like I'm finally starting to get some decent weapons in Elex. Maybe I might have a chance of being able to kill something with slightly less than 300 arrows...but not holding out a huge amount of hope, game is *hard*.

Seriously this. Elex is brutalizing in a weird way. The ultimate solution is to level up, but leveling up is painfully difficult, because you have to travel around the world to do quests, and the world is full of enemies that can mulch you instantly. And there is no starter zone you can stick to. Never have I had a game force me to get so good at running the hell away.

How hard is Elex you ask, oh innocent reader who sticks to kind and non-eurojank games? Fights against three bandits are tremendously difficult, requiring planning and multiple tries, and that's with a companion. Recently I had a massive and severely difficult fight with five giant rats. The archetypal first fight in an RPG is hard as nails at level eight. With a companion.

Which is why the jetpack is such good design. It means there's almost always another route, some clever way to dry-hump yourself up a cliff to get around the latest deranged mutant with murder on its mind. Combat becomes a way to solve problems, not the universal solution to all problems.

I think this is why Elex is grabbing me where Elden Ring didn't. The optimum thing to do about a hard fight in Elden Ring is just go farm some levels, because combat is highly rewarded. In Elex you get way more XP from quests, so the optimum solution to needing to level up is to work around the thing you can't kill.

Example, there's an early fetch quest to find some dude's bow. Said bow is guarded by a couple very powerful mutants, who will wreck my face in like two hits, while their massive armor and HP mean I basically can't hurt them. Solution, fins high ground, aggro them with the bow, jump in, grab bow, and jetpack the hell out of dodge. It isn't exactly Sun Tzu, but it requires some basic lateral thinking.

[Anonymouswizard]

I'm still playing Inquisition, doing some boring grinding so I can go straight from the endgame to the DLC. I eventually got fed up and checked the level ranges of the areas, to find that there are two(!) which'll actually give me decent XP. So I unlock one of them, go to it, start doing the main quest, and then have to go back to Skyhold as this game is incredibly tight with it's inventory size.

So that's several Red Templar encounters I'll probably have to redo.

[Erloas]

I just recently started Don't Starve Together. We made it to about 16 days before being overran by hounds, but we had sort of food spiraled down in the day or two before that so just wasn't ready for them this time. With only two players, and one of them being very new to gaming of any type, the learning has been slow. The focus to get the science machine up and going quickly worked well, and we started to get things together, then one or two little mistakes near night and a bit of insanity creeping in caused our supplies to disappear quickly.

[Zevox]

I'm back to playing Guilty Gear Strive due to the release of its last season 1 DLC character, Testament. Who was actually the character I wound up playing when I dabbled in Guilty Gear XXAC+R for a bit, so they were a great surprise to get. Even though their play style has been changed to fit better into the new game, I'm having a lot of fun with them. Despite no longer having any of their old special moves, they oddly still have a similar feel - big normals, good zoning, but also great pressure once you can get their game plan going, and very situational combos and options. It's just that now instead of that being because of their old trap moves and curse mechanic, it's the succubi their projectile leaves on screen opening up options for other moves, and stain state making any hit from them an almost guaranteed combo conversation, and enabling blockstrings that otherwise don't work. I could see them ending up as one of my favorites, though I don't know if they can dethrone May as my main. Probably end up competing with Happy Chaos for my second-favorite, at this rate.

It's also just nice coming back to Guilty Gear after playing KoF for a while. I may be getting my butt handed to me as I readjust, but everything in Guilty Gear just feels so much better than KoF. I want to like KoF, and there are some things that I do like about it, but damn if it isn't a stark reminder of how other companies' fighting games rarely feel as good to me as Arc System Works'.

Speaking of, DNF Duel got another surprise beta announced for this weekend, so I know what I'm going to be spending as much of my weekend doing as possible. The last one was an absolute blast. When it worked, anyway, but I guess handling issues like that is what a beta is for.

Also still working my way through Assassin's Creed Valhalla, just not much to say that I haven't before. Think I'm getting pretty late in the story though, so I may be finishing it soon-ish. Depending on how much time I end up spending with Guilty Gear and DNF, anyway.

[Rynjin]

Playing Metro: Last Light. I gave it a try last year after finishing 2033, as the Metro series (along with the Darksiders series, and a few others) is one I've steadily gained a copy of every single game in the series, but never played.

2033 was great, a solid hybrid horror/FPS in the vein of Bioshock. I bounced off of Last Light because from playing the first couple hours it felt...significantly more generic. Where 2033 felt like its own thing, as a shooter from 2010 that felt like a shooter from 2006 with a bunch of survival horror mechanics tacked on, Last Light is VERY much a shooter from 2013 in every respect, and man I did not like that era of games very much. It contains some of my least favorite FPSes of all time (Battlefield 4 and Bioshock Infinite for two), and the whole vibe of the genre in that time period is just...off. I dunno how to describe it.

Hopefully I can get through it this time, because the atmosphere is still quite good.

[factotum]

How hard is Elex you ask, oh innocent reader who sticks to kind and non-eurojank games? Fights against three bandits are tremendously difficult, requiring planning and multiple tries, and that's with a companion. Recently I had a massive and severely difficult fight with five giant rats. The archetypal first fight in an RPG is hard as nails at level eight. With a companion.

I'm level 16, accompanied by Caja (who is obviously best girl ) and it still takes three arrows to get rid of basic critters. Stuff like jackals and mutants are still near instant death. The quests that actually require you to kill things take some planning--if you can lure the target into range of the practically immortal NPCs then you'll do a lot better!

Oh, and don't make the mistake I did of upgrading a weapon without checking what the requirements of the upgraded version are--I upgraded my chain sword a couple of levels ago only to find I didn't have enough strength or dexterity to actually wield it anymore, so I had to go and buy a wrench from the Fort to tide me over!

[Bohandas]

Currently playing Ion Fury, which is one of the best FPS games I've played in a long time.

Recently finished Hyperbolica which is currently one of only two serious games to use a non-euclidean map (the other being Hyperrogue) but whose new game engine will hopefully allow that number to increase in the near future. The game is a bit rough around the edges and basically just exists to show off its engine, but the same could be said of Half-Life 2 and everybody loves that game.

[Cygnia]

Got the gold box sets on Steam of all the classic D&D games. Trying to decide between Blacksad or Inspector Waffles to play next when FF8 is done (and if I can FINALLY finish Plague Tale).

[Rynjin]

I think this is why Elex is grabbing me where Elden Ring didn't. The optimum thing to do about a hard fight in Elden Ring is just go farm some levels, because combat is highly rewarded. In Elex you get way more XP from quests, so the optimum solution to needing to level up is to work around the thing you can't kill.

This is such an odd sentiment to me, since the optimal solution to most combats in Elden Ring is to just...get better at the game. Because you'll hit a hard wall eventually if you think just leveling is going to save you.

[warty goblin]

This is such an odd sentiment to me, since the optimal solution to most combats in Elden Ring is to just...get better at the game. Because you'll hit a hard wall eventually if you think just leveling is going to save you.

It's still combat and my fundamental boredom with boredom with Elden Ring is that it's all combat. I pretty quickly realized I no longer had any desire to go see what was over the horizon, because it was just going be some meaninglessly Gothic scenery, and more combat.

If I want a large slab of terrain full of endlessly respawning enemies, I'll just replay Far Cry 2, which has more fun, dynamic (and chaotic!) combat. Since I want to explore an actually interesting world, I'm playing Elex.

[Rynjin]

My primary concern is that games be fun, so I bounced off of Elex after...*checks Steam* 56 minutes of gameplay where the only thing fun about it was the jetpack. But I also didn't find the setting to be particularly interesting after the initial premise of "world with both magic and scifi technology". It's still divided along the same lines was every other generic WRPG, where your NPCs come in the flavors of Bandit Faction, Good Guy Faction, Weird Culty Faction, and Faction made of the Leftover Concepts the Others Didn't Use.

[warty goblin]

My primary concern is that games be fun, so I bounced off of Elex after...*checks Steam* 56 minutes of gameplay where the only thing fun about it was the jetpack. But I also didn't find the setting to be particularly interesting after the initial premise of "world with both magic and scifi technology". It's still divided along the same lines was every other generic WRPG, where your NPCs come in the flavors of Bandit Faction, Good Guy Faction, Weird Culty Faction, and Faction made of the Leftover Concepts the Others Didn't Use.

I'm basically here for fun as well, I find Elex's combination of combat, quests, exploration and choices to be pretty fun. The combat isn't anything above passable, but there's more going on, and I find that .

Elden Ring has better combat than Elex by a mile, no argument there. I don't find that style of slow melee combat dynamic or engaging enough to hang a game on, and in like seven hours that'sthe only thing Elden Ring offered me. If I want nothing but combat, I'll play World of Warships, which I find offers stiffer, more engaging challenges.

Also WoWS has zero boss battles. I at best tolerate boss battles as an unfortunate wart in an otherwise good game. Elden Ring is nowhere near good enough to get me to put up with that.

[MCerberus]

Found a Series X at retail price. Will need some recommendations. especially, hold on a second
*turns on the Zevox signal*

The newest KoF any good?

[Bohandas]

Got the gold box sets on Steam of all the classic D&D games.

Those are good games. Especially the Krynn games. I've got them on GOG and I also had a couple of them on floppy disk way back when they first came out. The interface (as well as the fact that most of the text is in a seperate thingy outside of the game program itself) has aged poorly but otherwise they're still hold up.

[Zevox]

Found a Series X at retail price. Will need some recommendations. especially, hold on a second
*turns on the Zevox signal*

The newest KoF any good?

Depends on your tastes and what you're looking for. I have mixed feelings about it, personally, as I feel its strict cancel windows make execution of basic strings and combos harder than it really should be, and there's certain details of the gameplay that aren't to my personal tastes. But I do really like a lot of the characters, and when you've got meter, I find a lot of the combos cool and satisfying when I actually pull them off. The online is pretty good, it's got rollback netcode, and while it's not the best out there, it usually works pretty well. It has both the traditional ranked mode and lobbies, and both are perfectly functional, if unremarkable. And if you're playing it on an X-Box Series X, reportedly that performs the best out of the console versions, so you'll have that going for you - though it doesn't have cross-play, and I don't know how big the player base is on the X-Box side of things.

If you're a longtime KoF fan and don't expect the execution or the like to bother you, it should be great - aside from the occasional grumpy types complaining about their preferred characters not being in the roster, it's been very well received among that audience. Seems most consider the roster strong, changes to the gameplay and visuals to be a distinct step up from KoF14, and it's generally considered to be an overall strong title for the series. There's a few characters on either end of things that stand out balance-wise (Vanessa, Ralf, and Terry being generally considered a bit overpowered while Whip and Ramon are generally considered too weak), but outside of those the balance is pretty good.

If you're looking for single-player offline content, there's unfortunately not much to it there. There's a "story" mode that is basically an Arcade mode with a couple of cutscenes and team-specific endings (though admittedly there's a lot of those), and of course the requisite versus, training, trials, and tutorial modes, and that's about it. Like most of the genre, it's mostly about online play (or offline versus if you have people to play in person), so a lot of its value is in how much you want to do that.

[MCerberus]

Hmmm, I actually play almost completely off-line. Fighting games I like to have at least one per console so I have something that I can zone out with. So I end up playing characters like SC's Talim (because a 30 hit combo is only as good as the donkey kick at the end). I hate to say that I don't have much closer reference because my SNK exposure has been... not really existent.

[Zevox]

Hmmm, I actually play almost completely off-line. Fighting games I like to have at least one per console so I have something that I can zone out with. So I end up playing characters like SC's Talim (because a 30 hit combo is only as good as the donkey kick at the end). I hate to say that I don't have much closer reference because my SNK exposure has been... not really existent.

Ah, yeah, hard to give it a strong recommendation then. Though to be fair, most fighting games these days aren't heavy on single-player content. Capcom and ArcSys games have had actual Story modes in addition to their arcade modes, but even those focus mainly on multiplayer - and most of those aren't on X-Box anyway (aside from Dragon Ball FighterZ).

The main exception is Mortal Kombat. While that series' gameplay is very much not to my personal tastes, it always has plenty of single-player content, including large and high-budget story modes. If you don't already have it on a previous console (and aren't put off by MK's whole ultra-violence and gore thing, of course), Mortal Kombat 11 might be worth looking into for that purpose.

[Anonymouswizard]

This is such an odd sentiment to me, since the optimal solution to most combats in Elden Ring is to just...get better at the game. Because you'll hit a hard wall eventually if you think just leveling is going to save you.

Or in my experience with Soulsborne games you hit a hard wall where you can't get better because of your disability, and then remember that the developers are ableist. I've played every Dark Souls game and each is less accessible than the last one.

And yet everybody tells me 'level grinding is easy mode'. Good to know that it's as much hot air as I assumed.

Seriously, **** boss fights that force me to make 200 perfect dodges or lose half my health. The Gaping Dragon was the one time I felt like I experienced the intended difficulty level and it's apparently one of the wimp bosses. Dark Souls(/Elden Ring/Git Gud or whatever the next hand is called) needs some kind of accessibility options, even if it has to be taken into account within the matchmaking system.

[Spore]

Or in my experience with Soulsborne games you hit a hard wall where you can't get better because of your disability, and then remember that the developers are ableist. I've played every Dark Souls game and each is less accessible than the last one.

And yet everybody tells me 'level grinding is easy mode'. Good to know that it's as much hot air as I assumed.

Seriously, **** boss fights that force me to make 200 perfect dodges or lose half my health. The Gaping Dragon was the one time I felt like I experienced the intended difficulty level and it's apparently one of the wimp bosses. Dark Souls(/Elden Ring/Git Gud or whatever the next hand is called) needs some kind of accessibility options, even if it has to be taken into account within the matchmaking system.

I gave up after O & S because it was simply luck by throwing myself at a stone wall until one attenpt worked.

DS PVE is not so much git gud, as it is exploiting AI behavior. But I ****ing love the atmosphere and world, thats why I played DS 1-3 for over 200 hours.

[Rynjin]

And yet everybody tells me 'level grinding is easy mode'. Good to know that it's as much hot air as I assumed.

Leveling makes the game easier but yes, at a certain point, if you are literally incapable of getting better at the game (which you have made it clear you are), no amount of leveling is going to make the game a cakewalk; nor should it.

Seriously, **** boss fights that force me to make 200 perfect dodges or lose half my health.

I agree. Thankfully, none of these exist (though Malenia comes close; good thing she's entirely optional).

I've played every Dark Souls game and each is less accessible than the last one.

You have often made valid complaints, {Scrubbed}
about this game series.

This particular statement is {Scrubbed} just objectively incorrect. Each game in the series has had more and more QoL features added to help people play the game at their pace. Elden Ring is by far the most accessible of the games, which is why it's outsold the previous games by a landslide; because the game has made things less obtuse and easier for people to get into, to the point that people that previously refused to touch the series or bounced off of previous games due to frustration have played and beaten it.

I feel for you, that you seem to genuinely want to play these games and are unable to do so. That sucks.

{Scrubbed}

[Lord Raziere]

I agree. Thankfully, none of these exist (though Malenia comes close; good thing she's entirely optional).

Though a lot of Elden Ring players don't bother fighting her without some specific set up to deal with her specifically. The reason I could beat her was that I found a cooperator who spammed a spell that stunlocked her, combining with me, someone with swarm of flies that also stunlocks/bleeds her, and we basically double teamed stunlocking her with spell spam. turns out one of the ways you beat a boss full of attacks that insta kill you and heals back health every time she hits is by making sure she never gets to attack you in the first place. how "skilled" of me, taking down a boss in a 2v1, by keeping my distance and doing the arcane equivalent of glintstone pebble spam.

or those times I killed bosses like magma wyrm or erdtree avatar by standing in a place they can't reach and just unloading crossbolts into them.

or all those times I killed bosses by poisoning them and lasting long enough for them to die on their own.

or all those times I won by summoning an ever-resurrecting skeleton or a slime mimicking myself to 2v1 something to win. its practically one of my bread and butter tactics.

am I "skilled"? I'm not sure, but I'm pretty sure a hardcore dark souls player would view me as playing on easy mode. but then such players have been widely mocked by the ER community by making a meme that anything that isn't using a melee strength weapon naked, no summons, no coop is easy mode- which basically is cutting out most of the tools the game gives you.

[GloatingSwine]

Seriously, **** boss fights that force me to make 200 perfect dodges or lose half my health. The Gaping Dragon was the one time I felt like I experienced the intended difficulty level and it's apparently one of the wimp bosses. Dark Souls(/Elden Ring/Git Gud or whatever the next hand is called) needs some kind of accessibility options, even if it has to be taken into account within the matchmaking system.

People say that because, well, once you know that the Gaping Dragon will always do its drop and charge if you're far enough away, and it takes approximately a week to recover from it you just move away, wait for it to do it, run to the side well in advance and then run in and chop its back legs/tail until it dies and it can't do a thing about it.

Once you know that the only time you'll take damage is if you run in too fast after it passes you.

[factotum]

Leveling makes the game easier but yes, at a certain point, if you are literally incapable of getting better at the game (which you have made it clear you are), no amount of leveling is going to make the game a cakewalk; nor should it.

Not going to touch anything else you said with a bargepole because I'm not qualified to argue about it, but I do take issue with that "nor should it" at the end. Why shouldn't it? If somebody has the time and patience to grind out multiple levels, why shouldn't the game reward that in some way? I mean, it's not something I would do myself because time and patience are both things I'm generally short of (hence I just avoid Soulslikes in the first place), but I don't see why somebody else choosing to do that affects your enjoyment of the game in any way, shape or form.

(Where I would have an issue is if getting loads of levels made the game a cakewalk *and* you could get them without actually playing the game, by some sort of microtransactions or something--that would suck mightily).

[GloatingSwine]

PS levelling up can absolutely make Elden Ring a cakewalk. My build encounters most bosses like a bulldozer encounters a soft boiled egg and I'm not even really high level compared to some people saying they finished the game at level 160-180. I *might* hit 160 but I don't expect it.

And this is *after* they nerfed mimic tear (ps it is still amazing on high vigor strength builds).

[Rynjin]

Not going to touch anything else you said with a bargepole because I'm not qualified to argue about it, but I do take issue with that "nor should it" at the end. Why shouldn't it? If somebody has the time and patience to grind out multiple levels, why shouldn't the game reward that in some way? I mean, it's not something I would do myself because time and patience are both things I'm generally short of (hence I just avoid Soulslikes in the first place), but I don't see why somebody else choosing to do that affects your enjoyment of the game in any way, shape or form.

Because if leveling makes the game a cakewalk, it disincentivizes leveling among people who want a challenge. Since you have to level up to play with all the fun **** (spells, weapons, etc.), leveling shouldn't trivialize content, just make it more manageable.

PS levelling up can absolutely make Elden Ring a cakewalk. My build encounters most bosses like a bulldozer encounters a soft boiled egg and I'm not even really high level compared to some people saying they finished the game at level 160-180. I *might* hit 160 but I don't expect it.

And this is *after* they nerfed mimic tear (ps it is still amazing on high vigor strength builds).

Builds are definitely not created equal. High Arcane builds in general absolutely ROFLstomp a lot of the game. I enjoy the build variety a lot, reminds me of the good ol' days of Dark Souls 2 before Bloodborne and DS3 decided there were going to be "one true build paths" for each game (Skill+Bloodtinge and Quality respectively).