The Video Game Thread: What are you Playing?

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Still playing Phoenix Point. I restarted a third time because it's time to put on my big boy pants and tackle the DLC. In all the hours I have played, I have been doing a "pure human" playthrough with no mutations or cybernetics on any of my soldiers. I try to stick to a "what is best for humanity?" principle.

Yep that's right- when I play squad based strategy or dungeon crawlers, sometimes my decisions come down to in-character rationalizations and not min-maxing. It keeps things interesting.

Think I messed something up in Elden Ring. Bit demoralizing.

Wouldn't be so bad if going straight into New Game +, but I have other things to focus on.
What happened?
 
What happened?
I actually spoke a bit too soon. I thought I had done something that... let's say committed me to something I did not want to (or rather, wanted to take what I needed from it and then abandon) and cut off the path to a place I wanted to go. But no, that place became perfectly accessible, my means to achieve my objective still apparently within reach.
 
Tried to start playing Phantasy Star Online 2 today. Picked out some stuff on my Steam wishlist that was on sale.

But I'm still just playing Jupiter Hell.
 
I bought this. Can you tell me the fundamentals of good gameplay?

Sure, I can give you some pointers:
  • Don't be ashamed of playing on Easy until you're ready to go harder. I've been playing for a year and a half and I still lose most of my games at Ultraviolent and all of them at NIGHTMARE!, APOCALYPSE!!, and INFERNO!. In fact, I only unlocked INFERNO! using Cheat Engine.
  • Shoot from behind cover. Try to lure your enemies out of cover. The enemy display in the upper-right corner tells you the (estimated) percentage chance that your shots will hit them, and how much damage they'll do. Each # is 5 hit points of health or 5 durability points of armor.
  • I'm paranoid about ammo scarcity. My first two traits are Army Surplus 1 & 2 or Hoarder 1 & Scavenger 1 every time. More effective players than I am do not do this.
  • Pay attention to the ranges of your weapons. The listed order is minimum range, optimal range, and maximum range. (If you only have two numbers, your weapon doesn't have a minimum. If your target is between the minimum and optimal, you have a base 100% chance of hitting; outside that range, you take an accuracy penalty. (Shotguns convert accuracy penalties to damage penalties.) You don't have ammo or time to waste.
  • Enemies can hear you once and start to follow you. After that, you're going to have to hurt them to get their attention. The maximum range of shotguns is larger than your visual radius.
  • 9mm, .44, and 7.62 weapons (mostly) do impact damage. 12 gauge, 40mm grenades, and rockets do slash damage, which deals half damage to armor/robots and doubles armor rating. If you're relying on shotguns and grenade launchers in the early game, carry an impact weapon as a backup for robots. If you find a pierce weapon, they're usually very good in class, and they do double (or more) damage to robots.
  • Explore levels carefully. Get to the outside perimeter of the level and clear it, then work your way inside. Open doors and peek inside before moving on.
  • Don't feel compelled to clear levels. Getting all the lootboxes is more important than killing all the enemies. And if you see something you don't want to fuck with, don't fuck with it. Go the other way around, and either find a better approach-- more cover for you, less cover for them-- or just find the elevator and go.
 
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I actually spoke a bit too soon. I thought I had done something that... let's say committed me to something I did not want to (or rather, wanted to take what I needed from it and then abandon) and cut off the path to a place I wanted to go. But no, that place became perfectly accessible, my means to achieve my objective still apparently within reach.

I believe the worse your actions can do is prematurely end some NPC questlines and in the late game exclude certain endings.
 
exclude certain endings.
Yes, that one. Except not; fuck the Three Fingers.

I have finished the game, which opens me up to that fun experience of dipping my toe into some of the wikis and thinking "wow, that's a lot of stuff I missed".
 
Still playing Phoenix Point which has turned out to be an amazing game. According to Steam only 6% of players have beaten it at any difficulty so I am happy with my progress on Veteran difficulty with all DLC turned on.

I think I have finally reached the start of the end game. In addition to fighting a worldwide extinction event against highly evolved enemies, now I have to prevent the 3 factions that represent the remainder of humanity from wiping each other out. I'm down to 80% of humanity remaining alive which is about 900k people (there are unaffiliated humans who somehow manage to survive but since they cannot meaningfully contribute to the fight for survival they don't matter for the win condition). I've got my Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, and Delta squads pushed to the limit putting out fires while trying to gather end game resources and still snatch some rest (too many fights in a row without rest is bad). I am trying to scrape together squad Echo to pick up the slack. Loving this game.
 
You've got me excited to play PP Brock but first I gotta beat Elden Ring! I'm slow as I don't play consistently.

Just got to the Deeproot Depths and then I think I'm heading to the Mountaintops of the Giants or whatever it is called.

I'm finding the co-op and spirit ashes in this game a lot of fun. Invaders still seem thin on the ground, I think the changes to how invasions work has turned off a lot of the edgelord twinks who have ruined invading in earlier Souls games.
 
You've got me excited to play PP Brock but first I gotta beat Elden Ring! I'm slow as I don't play consistently.

Just got to the Deeproot Depths and then I think I'm heading to the Mountaintops of the Giants or whatever it is called.

I'm finding the co-op and spirit ashes in this game a lot of fun. Invaders still seem thin on the ground, I think the changes to how invasions work has turned off a lot of the edgelord twinks who have ruined invading in earlier Souls games.
I stand by my claim that Elden Ring is a genuine masterpiece that will still be held up as an example of excellence in game design ten years from now. Unfortunately Bunny and Jetrina haven't wanted to play it lately so I haven't been playing, either. A huge part of Elden Ring's allure was just hanging out on Discord as each of us did our own thing and shared discoveries. We'd co-op and assist for difficult areas, it was a blast. I guess I am spoiled because solo play, while engrossing, simply cannot match the amazing shared experience.
 
I've been replaying Skyrim again with a new set of mods. I got to say that the SimonMagus suite of gameplay mods have breathed life back into the game for me. Something about them being more simple than most options, while still getting rid of most of the super broken stuff from base game Skyrim and adding some fun new bits that feel like they fit right in. Having a lot of fun.
 
I've been replaying Skyrim again with a new set of mods. I got to say that the SimonMagus suite of gameplay mods have breathed life back into the game for me. Something about them being more simple than most options, while still getting rid of most of the super broken stuff from base game Skyrim and adding some fun new bits that feel like they fit right in. Having a lot of fun.
What do they add?
 
I had barely finished my victory lap for beating Phoenix Point when Bunny and Jetrina roped me into renting a private server for V Rising, a vampire-based survival game or "Valheim with vampires." This isn't our first survival game and we got to work like beavers on meth. The game is still in Early Access and has good potential but the weird camera angle and PC facing controls are really aggravating. Despite those faults, if you like vampires + survival games this might be up your alley.

 
Yeah at least I'll finally have a use for those things.
I benefit more often from the function of telling if a distance is safe to drop down, myself.

On that note, it's funny to look at something like Stormveil Castle the first time and be a bit intimidated by its size and how packed it is with enemies, and then return and realise how it's put together to be fairly easy to bypass a lot of that by just jumping and dropping in the correct spots.
 
I am playing Red Solstice 2: Survivors. It's kind of like Phoenix Point or XCOM mashed with Helldivers. The basic formula is tried and true: you manage a squad of marines at the tactical and strategic level to retake Mars and save humanity from extinction. Like many games in the genre, the initial learning curve is steep and it had issues on release that led to mixed reviews. After a year of fine tuning, patches and DLC I can confidently say that many of the complaints from the early reviews such as being too easy or repetitive have been addressed.

Two notable things about this game that make it worth some attention.
  • The tactical level is active, real time, and not turn based. This is a pleasant surprise and welcome challenge.
  • Multiplayer.
 
Good, I've been able to get myself back on track with Xenoblade Chronicles again, and have only slightly been distracted by playing Elden Ring on NG+ to get more endings.

Think I'll be able to finish it before the next one comes out.
 
I have made [one of many] returns to Spiderweb software's Exile / Avernum series and have been playing Avernum 2: Crystal Souls.

Interesting in a couple of respects:
The games are very indie; the product of one developer - Jeff Vogel - who has made a career out of indie programming, the games are pretty good for what they are.

Also the original 3 games Exile 1,2 and 3 [1995-97] have been updated twice to the Avernum series [2000-2002] and then more recently rewritten [2011-2015]. Looking at the way in which the system has been enhanced and refined [mostly for the better I think] is intriguing from a design perspective.

I started out playing Exile 2 when I got it on a disk as shareware, I can recall phoning Spiderweb [from the UK] to pay by card to register my copy - at the time it felt really cosmopolitan.
 
Playing Aliens: Fireteam Elite with my bros, and the Shadowrun Trilogy by myself. Been meaning to dig into Far Cry 6 though, because I'm a filthy casual who loves that series, and yeah they're all the same, that's part of the appeal ok?
 
I think I may have sorted out my Xenoblade issue by purchasing another Wii, and an SD card to transfer the save data. Was not hard to find, benefit of going for one of the top selling devices ever. So far, it seems to have been running more smoothly than my old one had for a while now, and even just the sound from the console sounds less rickety.

Fingers crossed that this was something that a person got so that Sports could be played whenever the grandkids came over and has little mileage on it.
 
Dying Light: Definitive Edition is 70% off on Steam right now and comes with 7 years worth of DLC. Bunny and I had a lot of fun playing the game-within-the-game, Hellraiders.

 
So playing Skyrim again - finished the Mara love questline for the first time on any character. Due in no small part to recent personal events, reuniting the lost lovers for eternity together got me slightly emotional.

Good writing.
 
In a couple months you'll have fallen down a hole of child murder and Bene Gesserit levels of breeding.
Yeah I noticed kids die a lot. I had a ruler who died and I took over as his infant son. That didn’t go over so well. He ended up getting killed in a siege at four years old. The kingdom didn’t last long after that.
 
Dying Light is still on sale with a steep discount. It holds up surprisingly well for a 7 year old game thanks to a steady trickle of updates and DLC. Bunny and I have been having a blast playing co-op.
 
Started playing No One Lives in Heaven. Looks like a game made with RPGMaker that's heavy with the meta-game concepts - you're basically exploring a forgotten RPG and seeing what the NPCs have been up to. Not sure what I think so far? We'll see...picked it up because I wanted something simple to chill with while taking breaks from work.

Also, admittedly, a bit addicted to Dorfromantik. Again - follows my "chill stuff to take my mind off work" vibe.
 
Dying Light is still on sale with a steep discount. It holds up surprisingly well for a 7 year old game thanks to a steady trickle of updates and DLC. Bunny and I have been having a blast playing co-op.
I still remember the first time I got caught outside at night while going for an airdrop. It's one of the only games that I've ever felt that adrenaline rush of fear in.
 
I still remember the first time I got caught outside at night while going for an airdrop. It's one of the only games that I've ever felt that adrenaline rush of fear in.
Right? I was so unprepared for the first night time mission. I was lulled into a false sense of security by DLC power bloat and bam! thrown into the nightmare once dark fell.
 
Right? I was so unprepared for the first night time mission. I was lulled into a false sense of security by DLC power bloat and bam! thrown into the nightmare once dark fell.
I actually caught mine on stream... of course it was back when my UL speeds weren't as good, so the quality isn't that good.

 
Bunny and I have got a lot of mileage out of Dying Light. Getting 7 years of polish and DLC for $15 bucks is an incredible deal. If you have a best bro or gal to play with I almost consider it a must-buy.

We picked up Dying Light 2 since it is discounted for the Steam Summer Sale. It was released this year so obviously it isn't going to have the polish of its predecessor but unfortunately the parkour is disappointing. Jumping feels "floaty" like you are on the moon. This article pretty much sums it up:

I can sum up all of my issues with Dying Light 2's movement system with one mechanic: The Jump. Aiden's jump is a bizarre thing—a slugging, floaty hop that feels less like he's pushing himself free of earth's pull with his legs, and more like some invisible forklift is slowly raising and lowering him with every hold of the space bar.

So far Dying Light 2 is not as scary or challenging as the original. Your dude is a helpless weakling at the start but after some improvement things quickly change. We are level 3 and already raiding Dark Hollows and Forsaken Stores by daylight (something the game repeatedly warns you not to do), rarely bothering with the stealth mechanic because it's easier to simply aggro all the infected and kill them for the sweet, sweet trophies. Don't get me wrong, the game is pretty fun in it's own right but it's not holding up to the original. I imagine things will change with polish and DLC.
 
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