What Are You Playing 6: DLCs of Kevin Bacon

[Cespenar]

Hubby already did House of Da Vinci...he wasn't happy with it.

Hmm. There was also Escape Simulator, IIRC, which was shorter and much lighter in tone.

I don't feel like I'm very good at it. Some item combinations just trivialize most of the game. Like the wings and the spoon.

I don't know both of those items, but I do agree that runs differ wildly from each other due to classes and traits and which relics happen to pop up during your runs. I can't seem to get a handle on Barbarians, for example, while Chefs or Duelists just rock.

Just unlocked Boxers and Astromancers, though, I'm gonna have a look at them as well.

[Cygnia]

I'm enjoying Cats In Time by the same comp. as Escape Simulator. I'll suggest it to him.

[Wookieetank]

Does anyone have any mystery/puzzle/escape games in the style of The Room they'd recommend? Something that's also not an angst bomb (like What Remains of Edith Finch) or would cause motion sickness (Like The Talos Principle). Hubby's looking for a new game to try...

Antichamber is one of my favorites, not sure how it fairs on the motion sickness side, but the non-euclidian geometry of the layout is a very delightful change of pace.

[warty goblin]

Did...did the World of Warships designers not get that part of the definition of dreadnoughts is the all-big-gun armament? That is a ridiculous secondary armament.

It's ridiculous and kind of beautiful. Or maybe I'm just saying that because I meandered around an island the other day, found half the enemy team and got mulched in like two minutes. But before said mulching, a salvo from the Secondaries Of Insanity lit a double perma-fire on the enemy Yamato, which is like 40% of a battleships HP bar.

(Mostly I think this is a cautionary tale about how upgrade systems inevitably lead to a very gamist view of mechanics. You can start with anything but the most rivet-counting of sims, and stick in some basic tools to let people tweak things the the way they want. These van all be reasonably balanced and consistent with the game's setting or fiction, doesn't matter. Next thing you know, they'll be a segment of the player base who requires that this playstyle be catered to and protected, or they want a healer who doesn't heal but does DPS or whatever. This may not make any sense in the setting of the game, but by God the lack of it just ruins things. )

This is World of Warships where battleships are the counter to submarines and AA guns do nothing. If you can't take a joke, you shouldn't be playing warships.

AA doesn't do nothing! It gives the CV player a helpful reminder you're close, and lets them plat a fun trench run minigame. It does nothing for you, obviously, but you're basically there to entertain the Sky Gods.

Unless you're in one of the, like, five ships with good AA. Then you just make it rain flaming aircraft parts. Slap a couple AA skills on De Seiben Provincien and become a 7km Aura of Nope.

[GloatingSwine]

AA doesn't do nothing! It gives the CV player a helpful reminder you're close, and lets them plat a fun trench run minigame. It does nothing for you, obviously, but you're basically there to entertain the Sky Gods.

Unless you're in one of the, like, five ships with good AA. Then you just make it rain flaming aircraft parts. Slap a couple AA skills on De Seiben Provincien and become a 7km Aura of Nope.

Okay so it farms AA ribbons, which makes a number go up but doesn't meaningfully impact the lifestyle of aircraft carriers. And also it makes the rest of your ship worse because AA performance is included in the balancing budget.

[warty goblin]

Okay so it farms AA ribbons, which makes a number go up but doesn't meaningfully impact the lifestyle of aircraft carriers. And also it makes the rest of your ship worse because AA performance is included in the balancing budget.

AA is generally pretty pointless, yes. I play a lot of Agincourt, and the difference between that (literally zero AA) and Konig or any similar battleship is... effectively zero.

That said, I have had games where running Florida or D7P has allowed me to get a win that a worse AA ship couldn't manage because of how many planes they can eat. But these tend to be longer matches - rare even of themselves - where a late game push matters, and a game's worth of plane attrition gets the CV's squad size down to something manageable. I carried out a game in Thunderer this morning where the combination of having most of my AA intact, DFAA, and the sub-50% strength of the CV's squadrons probably kept me alive.

[Anonymouswizard]

Cleared what feels like the major Theleme sidequest in Greedfall. It's just the Bridge Alliance and Naurs I have at Suspicious now.

Combat has become a bit more fun once again, as I can now throw traps as grenades instead of setting them. It might be a slightly smaller explosion, but it's a much smaller hassle to actually do, and the power to throw bombs at full focus works great with how the AI tends to bunch up. The big downside is the bosses, they're a bit of a damage sponge (even when you're not running into them at level 10), but their large size makes their attack telegraphing more obvious and so it's actually fun to dodge roll around firing off pistol shots.

[Brother Oni]

It does nothing for you, obviously, but you're basically there to entertain the Sky Gods.

As someone who primarily drives IJN DDs, I feel this so much.

[Taevyr]

Cleared what feels like the major Theleme sidequest in Greedfall. It's just the Bridge Alliance and Naurs I have at Suspicious now.

Combat has become a bit more fun once again, as I can now throw traps as grenades instead of setting them. It might be a slightly smaller explosion, but it's a much smaller hassle to actually do, and the power to throw bombs at full focus works great with how the AI tends to bunch up. The big downside is the bosses, they're a bit of a damage sponge (even when you're not running into them at level 10), but their large size makes their attack telegraphing more obvious and so it's actually fun to dodge roll around firing off pistol shots.

Yeah, the damage sponge thing is the most annoying part: I relied heavily on the mage teleport and stasis "stunlocking" against guardians, the latter of which also makes the next melee hit more damaging. Which meant armor essentially meant zilch to my heavy weapon-specced char. I think I had the hardest time against that first one, mainly because I hardly had any mana to rely on.

At some point, I realized I was essentially playing a teleporting cleric, specialized in Hold person and maces. Great fun though.


Good luck with the Lions. Both Thélème and the Bridge have interesting quests/plotlines, but I'd say the Bridge got the stronger response from me. Compared to both, the Nauts are simply nice fellows.

[Thrudd]

Cleared what feels like the major Theleme sidequest in Greedfall. It's just the Bridge Alliance and Naurs I have at Suspicious now.

Combat has become a bit more fun once again, as I can now throw traps as grenades instead of setting them. It might be a slightly smaller explosion, but it's a much smaller hassle to actually do, and the power to throw bombs at full focus works great with how the AI tends to bunch up. The big downside is the bosses, they're a bit of a damage sponge (even when you're not running into them at level 10), but their large size makes their attack telegraphing more obvious and so it's actually fun to dodge roll around firing off pistol shots.

Just saw today, a sequel (prequel) is in the works for Greedfall.
https://wccftech.com/greedfall-2-ann...-and-consoles/

I had a lot of fun with the game, I made similar choices on my playthrough- went with the technical class, focused on charisma and science first, ended up making heavy use of firearms and traps, with a little magic added later on. I always try to play "good" on my first playthrough of games, as well as doing a max number of side quests. I made friends with everyone, tried to keep my relationship as good a possible with all the factions and allies. I know a lot of my quests were much easier because of the high charisma choices available to me.

Eventually, I abandoned pistols for rifles, the damage and range make more efficient use of ammo, and relied on melee and traps for close up. I don't remember the specifics of my build too well, but maybe I'll reinstall the game and do another playthrough. Maybe I'll try a more belligerent attitude (even though that's really hard for me, I just hate acting unreasonably lol) and a different starting class, and see what happens.

[Cygnia]

Re: GreedFall 2

Since it's a prequel I just hope

Spoiler: spoiler for the 1st game

Show

we're not playing as DeSardet's birth mother.

[Taevyr]

Re: GreedFall 2

Since it's a prequel I just hope

Spoiler: spoiler for the 1st game

Show

we're not playing as DeSardet's birth mother.

That'd be pretty hard, as the article mentions the PC character'll be a Teer Fradee native.

[Thrudd]

That'd be pretty hard, as the article mentions the PC character'll be a Teer Fradee native.

And it says it is taking place just 3 years earlier.

[Anteros]

Greedfall had potential, but the combat was just far too easy for my tastes. I'm hoping they make things a bit more interactive for the sequel. Not every game has to be Dark Souls, but Greedfall was almost completely impossible to lose.

Thinking about getting back into King Arthur. I had taken a break after a bug derailed my previous run. Has anyone here gotten to late game on it yet? General consensus from people I know is that the combat system doesn't really hold up past early game as things are too repetitive and abusable, but I'm curious what the playground thinks.

Oh, and the Evil Dead game is out. I typically don't like this genre of killer/horror games but this one is great campy fun. It's a very interesting take on playing the killer, and playing as Ash Williams cutting monsters up with a chainsaw will never fail to bring joy. Army of Darkness is the greatest movie ever made after all.

[DeadMech]

Turns out the new guy joining our dnd group is a yugioh guy. So after spending a night watching him and our existing yugioh guy play some children's card games I got in the mood to start a new file on Yugi-oh worldwide edition stairway to the destined duel.

First off. Wow is that title a mouthful.

It came out on the gameboy advanced back in 2003 so it doesn't bear a whole lot of resemblance to the duels my friends play. Which is fine. I can't say I have any interest in trying to catch up on 20 years of evolving gameplay and cards.

The starting deck you get is about as bad as I remember it being so I've spent a day grinding booster packs to make it half serviceable (Read: still bad)

My deck is currently
3x Barrel Dragon: 2600atk 2 tribute effect monster that can be activated once per turn to destroy an enemy monster 50% of the time. My old favorite card in the game since it offers some protection against things like man eater bug, cyber jar, Penguin Warrior, needle worm and other flip effect cards the opponents will use to ruin your day.

1x Summoned Skull, 1x Judge Man, 2x Ushi Oni: 1 tribute monsters useful for topping over the common monster cards opponents could wall with. The judge man and Ushi Oni could do with upgrading.

3x Dark elf, 3x Prevent Rat, 2x Giant Soldier of Stone, 1x Mystical Elf: All either have 2000 def or 2000 atk. Meant to wall enemy monsters and serve as sacrifices for the above monsters. Dark elf can attack but costs life points so is rarely used to do so unless it can confirm fatal damage and end a duel.

2x Bistro Butcher, 3x 7 Colored Fish, 2x Axe Raider, 1x Beta the Magnet Warrior: 1700-1800 atk monsters. Better cards exist I just haven't done enough booster pack grinding yet for them. Bistro Butcher in particular is pretty questionable since it lets the enemy draw 2 cards when it deals life point damage. Maybe good for a deck out build paired with some form of hand destruction. Gemini elf, Dunames dark witch, vorse raider's and the like would be nice to find and replace this junk.

1x Man Eater Bug: Always a nice troll monster. Throw it face down if the opponent summons something big to make it go away when they attack into it or the turn after if they refuse and don't otherwise clear it.

1x Fissure, 1x Trap Hole, 1x Mirror Force: Safe opponent monster removal.

1x Change of Heart:Also opponent monster removal if used immediately to tribute helping me summon higher level monsters.

1x Magic Cylinder: A troll or delay card. makes an enemy monster attack the opponent's life points instead of it's actual target. Not actually that useful but nice to have for now. Probably what I'll throw away if I can grind some better trap or magic cards.

1x Magic Jammer, 1x De-Spell, 1x Mystical Space Typhoon: Trap and magic card protection or removal. Never can have enough of it.

1x Torrential Tribute, 1x Dark hole: Unsafe monster removal. Clears the field of monsters on both sides. SO good for clearing the field if I've found momentum swinging against me.

1x White Hole: Protects my side of monsters from opponents using dark hole if it's placed down preemptively. Which happens allot. Otherwise useless deck filler. I'd probably add an anti raigeki if I could find one.

1x Monster Reborn, 1x Call of the Haunted: Opponents are very happy to remove the barrel dragons I worked hard on summoning. These bring them back to the field.

1x Robbin Goblin: Trap card that destroys a random card in opponent's hand when they are dealt life point damage. Always nice to limit the other person's options.

1x Royal Decree: A trap card that prevents other trap cards from functioning. I think this card has lost me as many duels has it has helped me win. Since my own trap cards are really nice for getting me out of a bad situation and it can't protect from everything opponents can do to ruin my day. The real weakness is that I can't remove it from play easily and have to hope I haven't already used mystical space typhoon and draw it if it becomes a liability.

It would be nice to find some equip cards as well that are compatible with the barrel dragons. Boost up their attack so that they can top or at least survive things like blue eyes white dragons or a surprise Ritual summon like magician of black chaos.

In my last booster pack I got a Total Defence Shogun. A 1 tribute monster with 2500 defense 1550atk that can attack from the defensive position. I'm tempted to replace one of my Ushi onis with it just cause I like the art work. Even if 1550 isn't enough attack to really clear most things from the field. In the long run more summoned skulls and maybe a Jinzo would be better replacements.

In the long run once I've recreated a good barrel dragon deck from my youth I'll probably start hunting for exodia deck cards since that was my other go to back in the day. If I don't get bored and lose interest in the booster pack grind. I don't want to even imagine how much money my friends have spent playing the physical cardboard card game.

[Anonymouswizard]

That'd be pretty hard, as the article mentions the PC character'll be a Teer Fradee native.

Spoiler

Show

I think they mean her other mother.

Ghost PC!

Greedfall had potential, but the combat was just far too easy for my tastes. I'm hoping they make things a bit more interactive for the sequel. Not every game has to be Dark Souls, but Greedfall was almost completely impossible to lose.

I've lost plenty of times on normal, and not just to Vasco's final quest (or bats). So while I'm all for more in-depth combat, no harder please.

[Cygnia]

I want replayability. I went for the "golden ending" on GreedFall and the only reason why I played it again was I got the DLC and so I could go for one of the less "good" endings (and specc'ed melee instead of traps/tech). Even though I could get achievements for other paths/specs/romances, nothing is driving me to play it again (unless another DLC drops).

[Cespenar]

The impression I got from all Greedfall videos that I've seen was that of a sloggy MMORPG-ish battle system put inside a 2000s-era janky European RPG chassis, but if this many people ended up playing it even in this forum, maybe I was mistaken?

[Taevyr]

[spoiler]I've lost plenty of times on normal, and not just to Vasco's final quest (or bats). So while I'm all for more in-depth combat, no harder please.

I played on hard mode: more than a few deaths in that as well (and indeed, Vasco's final quest did me in quite a few times as well. It's where I finally learned how to dodge properly).

Sure, at some point you have a certain skillset that makes failure tough, and practically impossible against normal enemies, but even with my heavy-armored "cleric" with stunlocks, making one mistake against a guardian meant the next hit might be final. Kept me well on my toes.

The impression I got from all Greedfall videos that I've seen was that of a sloggy MMORPG-ish battle system put inside a 2000s-era janky European RPG chassis, but if this many people ended up playing it even in this forum, maybe I was mistaken?

Concerning quality: I went in expecting some sort of "poor man's early dragon age", and it didn't disappoint. Exploring the island's great (quite a few amazing visuals), the factions are decently interesting, and you can create your own playstyle pretty well. I did hope for some more branching c&c and endings, but I wouldn't exactly say it's lacking either, just rather basic.

For what seems like a relatively small company, I'd say they did a pretty good job.

[Zombimode]

I want replayability.

Hm.
At this point replayability ranks pretty low for me in priority. I usually do not play games more then once. Even games that offer excellent replay value (like Age of Decadence) I almost never touch again.

There is just such a wealth of game I want to play that replaying a game is almost never an option for me.



On topic: currently I'm on Bard's Tale 4.
I remember that the game had a very sketchy release - so bad in fact that I even crossed it from my mental "to play" list.
The Directors Cut rerelease on the other hand is a very acomplished product.

The most impressing feat is that the game feels really old-school. How exactly it achieves that feeling is hard for me to pin down. But it works.

The combat system is quite interessting. First, I like it just for the variety it provides for being different.
But I also see that it is not a very robust system. It works in the exact implementation in this game, but slight changes or extensions are not easily possible.

I noticed something very interesting with how the game handles random chance. One of the main features of the games combat system is that it is in essence deterministic: all main effects, both offensive and defensive, just work. There is no to-hit, no saving throws, no variable damage.
It is not without any random chance however: some abilities have additional effects and those are tied to chance. Like "10% chance to deal +50% damage" or "50% chance to stun".
What I find interesting is the choice of these propability values: many fall into the 10%-30% bracket, some are 50%. That's it. No 65% or 90%.
The chances are either:
- low enough that you don't plan arround them happening
- 50/50 so that either outcome feels fair
- 100%

The game is also very heavy on puzzles. Which is great if you like puzzles (I do). They are not as good as for instance the ones in Talos Principle but they don't have to.

If you like old-school and puzzels, I really recommend this game

[Cygnia]

Bard's Tale 4 was fun. Loved the snark between the party members.

[warty goblin]

Hm.
At this point replayability ranks pretty low for me in priority. I usually do not play games more then once. Even games that offer excellent replay value (like Age of Decadence) I almost never touch again.

There is just such a wealth of game I want to play that replaying a game is almost never an option for me.

Really what I'm looking for is first-time playability. I get like 7 - 10 hours of gaming time most weeks anymore, and that number is unlikely to increase. Even if a game 100% displaces Warships (which isn't happening, I don't have the time for a second MP game and most AIs just aren't as interesting to fight as a human) the standard 40 hour game is going to take about five weeks.

This means a few things. Firstly I'd rather a twenty hour game than a forty hour one. Ten hours is good too. Secondly, I have very minimal tolerance for filler fights, grinding, having to replay a section 12 times to beat that BS boss and other nonsense - beating the boss first time is absolutely optimal in my opinion. I don't mind taking a long time to play a game in 20 - 40 minute chunks, but I'd like to feel like I made progress during these chunks, and inching an XP bar 5% higher does not count.

On that note, if you take my progress/XP away, I am done full stop. I really cannot emphasize this point enough, if you gank 40 minutes of progress because I died one too many times, I will not experience thrilling stakes and consequences and a combative urge to do better next time, I will experience having wasted 60 - 100% of my videogame time for the day and I will not make that mistake twice.

The upside of being an adult with a goodpaying job is I cam buy a game if I'm interested. The downside is that game is subject to some harsh time constraints.

[Brother Oni]

The upside of being an adult with a goodpaying job is I cam buy a game if I'm interested. The downside is that game is subject to some harsh time constraints.

Again, I feel this so much - you can buy whatever you want, you just need to find the time to play it.

This has really led to a massive change in my video game tastes over the years - I'm much less tolerant of filler fights and other 'time wasting' methods to artificially extend the longevity of the game. I'm also a lot less interested in games with higher death penalties - I played Eve Online for years (had a 1 million SP character) and I'm simply not interested in the stress of non-consensual PVP in my leisure time any more. If I want stress, I can just go to work; if I want PVP, I get that from Judo randori and karate free sparring.

[Wookieetank]

The upside of being an adult with a goodpaying job is I cam buy a game if I'm interested. The downside is that game is subject to some harsh time constraints.

Very much feel this. I've taken to playing any number of games on the easiest difficulty, particularly if I'm more interested in the story than the gameplay, so that I'm able to finish things.

[NeoVid]

Oh, and the Evil Dead game is out. I typically don't like this genre of killer/horror games but this one is great campy fun. It's a very interesting take on playing the killer, and playing as Ash Williams cutting monsters up with a chainsaw will never fail to bring joy. Army of Darkness is the greatest movie ever made after all.

I've been watching a ton of Evil Dead gameplay, no game's grabbed me like this since I saw the first trailers for Last Year: The Nightmare! And with the Dead By Daylight devs working their butts off to make their game unplayable, I've been wanting another asymmetrical multiplayer game to try out...

[Cespenar]

Concerning quality: I went in expecting some sort of "poor man's early dragon age", and it didn't disappoint. Exploring the island's great (quite a few amazing visuals), the factions are decently interesting, and you can create your own playstyle pretty well. I did hope for some more branching c&c and endings, but I wouldn't exactly say it's lacking either, just rather basic.

For what seems like a relatively small company, I'd say they did a pretty good job.

That runs somewhat in line with what I expected. I guess, in a lack of "Dragon Age"s, it's understandable to go with the mid-shelf version.

[warty goblin]

Again, I feel this so much - you can buy whatever you want, you just need to find the time to play it.

This has really led to a massive change in my video game tastes over the years - I'm much less tolerant of filler fights and other 'time wasting' methods to artificially extend the longevity of the game. I'm also a lot less interested in games with higher death penalties - I played Eve Online for years (had a 1 million SP character) and I'm simply not interested in the stress of non-consensual PVP in my leisure time any more. If I want stress, I can just go to work; if I want PVP, I get that from Judo randori and karate free sparring.

I think I'm the same way, but sort of backwards. If I want PvP I play a game, if I want PvE I go run up a steep hill or hit the climbing gym, and if I'm just there for story I've got a hideously large pile of books to read.

Very much feel this. I've taken to playing any number of games on the easiest difficulty, particularly if I'm more interested in the story than the gameplay, so that I'm able to finish things.

Easy mode can help on occasion, but in a lot of games it just makes the combat boring. I don't want to beat my head against a wall, but I do want to have to think to win. I just don't want to have to grind through samey stuff.

What I really want is a "less is more" setting that excised half the fights and gave twice the XP in RPGs and similar games. So you still get ambushed by thieves on the way to the mastermind's lair, but it's one once or twice instead of like five times, that sort of thing.

[Cygnia]

I'm now trying The Talos Principle and I was able to fiddle with the options to tame down motion sickness. Hopefully, the hubby can follow suit to retry.

I'm enjoying the music and am intrigued by the puzzles. I like how it uses the environment to your advantage.

[Cespenar]

What I really want is a "less is more" setting that excised half the fights and gave twice the XP in RPGs and similar games. So you still get ambushed by thieves on the way to the mastermind's lair, but it's one once or twice instead of like five times, that sort of thing.

That sounds like a dream that would never come true.

[Brother Oni]

That sounds like a dream that would never come true.

I know they did something similar for Lunar Silver Star Stories when they ported it from Japan to the west - reduced the number of fights significantly but upped the rewards and the difficulty of each fight.

I think there are a number of other games which let you play around with the enemy spawn/reward/difficulty, which affects a 'difficulty' multiplier which is applied to your score at the end of the game.