What are you currently playing?

hanselthecaretaker

My flask is half full
Legacy
Nov 18, 2010
8,738
5,910
118
Yeah beating that game relies fairly heavily on luck and good RNG for what encounters you run into. I can say as someone who isn't an expert at that game, you can beat it on regular without too much effort. Though some ship builds/types make it a lot easier than others. But yeah, a lot of it is just if RNJesus is smiling down on your or not. It's a fun game I think, but it's got a short shelf-life of engagement for me.

I get the appeal of rogue likes with permadeath, but doubt it’d ever be something I’d personally find engaging. With the limited time I have for gaming in the first place, the idea of losing all progress at the drop of a hat - not unlike a corrupted save for instance - sounds dreadfully masochistic.
 

happyninja42

Elite Member
Legacy
May 13, 2010
8,577
2,986
118
I get the appeal of rogue likes with permadeath, but doubt it’d ever be something I’d personally find engaging. With the limited time I have for gaming in the first place, the idea of losing all progress at the drop of a hat - not unlike a corrupted save for instance - sounds dreadfully masochistic.
Eh, depending on the game, there can be some carryover of abilities and upgrades, which to me just sort of feels like a New Game+ mode, but without requiring you finish the game to do so. But yeah the ones where you have zero carryover, are annoying, though I honestly can't think of too many of those offhand.
 

meiam

Elite Member
Dec 9, 2010
3,597
1,824
118
I've heard it can be hard. However, each game is about 10-13 hours long(apparently) it's not a massive time investment if it turns out to be too difficult. Unlike, say, XCOM or XCOM2 which goes into the 30-40 hour range and one can get locked into a fucking death spiral if not careful. Which is incidentally why I've had XCOM2 for a couple years now and still haven't installed it, because I remember how rough XCOM:EW was.
They're not hard... they're weird. They're turn based but with a fix order of one of your character and then one of the enemy. This mean even if you outnumber the enemy, they'll get to act the same amount of time as you. Unlike every tactic game you want to avoid killing enemy one at a time and instead want to whittle down everyone and then kill them all at once. Otherwise you can end up with one enemy attacking the same character over and over again without you really being able to do anything.

Also the game kinda operate on the "chose your own adventure" book logic where it'll just randomly kill some of your character. Like say you get a choice of going left or right, if you pick right the game just goes "there was a trap, one of your character dies, you move on" with no logic (or sometime the game will forget to give you important information, like one point it ask you if you want to build a fire but after you pick that option it'll tell you there's no wood around so you can't and therefore you get the bad outcome).
 

Dreiko

Elite Member
Legacy
May 1, 2020
2,935
998
118
CT
Country
usa
Gender
male, pronouns: your majesty/my lord/daddy
Started P5R about a week ago, am nearly 80 hours in, feels persona man. About to wrap up the best hacker waifu dungeon. Also incidentally still one of my fav dungeons, both story and design and references and the final boss fight. All of em were top notch.

Also, in my last post I hadn't unlocked the team supers yet so they caught me by huge surprise since they're new to Royal. Especially love the hokuto no ken Makoto one, it was so obvious but they have her even mimic Kenshiro's watatata wachaaa. Perfection.
 

happyninja42

Elite Member
Legacy
May 13, 2010
8,577
2,986
118
They're not hard... they're weird. They're turn based but with a fix order of one of your character and then one of the enemy. This mean even if you outnumber the enemy, they'll get to act the same amount of time as you. Unlike every tactic game you want to avoid killing enemy one at a time and instead want to whittle down everyone and then kill them all at once. Otherwise you can end up with one enemy attacking the same character over and over again without you really being able to do anything.

Also the game kinda operate on the "chose your own adventure" book logic where it'll just randomly kill some of your character. Like say you get a choice of going left or right, if you pick right the game just goes "there was a trap, one of your character dies, you move on" with no logic (or sometime the game will forget to give you important information, like one point it ask you if you want to build a fire but after you pick that option it'll tell you there's no wood around so you can't and therefore you get the bad outcome).
If the issue of the turn order system bothers you, but you like XCOM, then you should try out Chimera Squad. One of the main components of the game, is the turn order, and ways to manipulate it with abilities. In fact I built a squad that specialized in doing exactly that, and one character in particular, through a combination of abilities and items, basically was this Webweaver of turn control. She pretty much never shot her gun, because she was just so vital using her various abilities, that cycled on cooldown where it was pretty much always better to have her do something else than pew pew. It felt incredibly satisfying to turn some fights, that at the start, were incredibly overwhelming, and through tactical use of turn reduction, turn boosting, totally neuter the enemy assault, and make the fight WAY more manageable.

Seriously, if the fixed turn system is what you dislike most about the newer XCOM games, Chimera Squad is your jam. Plus the dialogue between the characters is funny as hell. They have great between-mission banter, sometimes genuinely making me lol, to the point where my wife came in and asked me if I was ok.
 

NotDavidHayter

Regular Member
Escapist +
Jun 23, 2020
14
2
13
Country
United States
Figured I'd start one of these threads, as I can always use new game recommendations.

I've been playing through the Half-Life series for the first time. Finished Black Mesa, then played through Alyx, about to finish 2 and then move onto Episode 1 and 2. Really enjoying them! Not sure why I put them off for so long, as they're right up my alley.

All I remember is getting The Orange Box and starting up Half-Life 2 and really just not being into it at the time. Think I barely made it through the first couple levels.

Last of Us 2 at the moment.
 

Hawki

Elite Member
Legacy
Mar 4, 2014
9,651
2,175
118
Country
Australia
Gender
Male
Battlefield 3.

Yeah, I got it for free as part of Xbox Gold. I don't know if it's worth downloading the DLC for multiplayer, because on one hand, it seems it's impossible to find a match without it, on the other, I might as well just buy the PC version.

But the singleplayer...Jesus Christ, the writing is terrible. Like, considering that Jim deFelice consulted on it, it's astoundingly terrible. If "good writing" for you means military linguo that feels authentic, then congrats, you're in for a fun time. If you believe good writing means something that's coherent, then you're playing the wrong game. It's kind of fascinating really.
 

NerfedFalcon

Level i Flare!
Mar 23, 2011
7,220
962
118
Gender
Male
The Pursuer. ...Why? Just why? I realize he was probably pretty cool in the original game where he actually did the thing he's named for, but in SotFS he just moves faster than your Estus animation (why is it so slow? You can't heal in combat with it or you'll just die, and Lifegems aren't enough faster to matter), kills you in two hits, and his attacks deal so much stamina damage that no shield you have access to at that point has enough stability to block even one hit, after which you get stunlocked and die. And this is the second boss. Oh, and at least the Taurus Demon could be beaten with the ladder, but the ballistas are a goddamn lie, because he doesn't stand still long enough for you to use them unless you use an AI exploit that I don't think is even in SotFS anymore!

How is anyone expected to fight this guy as the second boss without summoning phantoms to gang up on him? Which I can't do because the DaS2 community is a total joke, laying down summon signs and then using Black Separation Crystal the instant they get summoned. Should I just go to Heide's Tower instead? I can't think of any other viable option.
 
Last edited:

NerfedFalcon

Level i Flare!
Mar 23, 2011
7,220
962
118
Gender
Male
Never mind. Finally got through it about 20 attempts. And r/darksouls2 is an absolute cesspool whose advice boils down to "git gud" and when I ask for more details, I'm told to quit because I'm toxic. I expected better after the first game's subreddit actually gave me advice and support. I was right; the community for this game is a joke, and there's no punchline. It just keeps getting worse.

Certainly doesn't make me think any better of the game they're part of...
 

Dalisclock

Making lemons combustible again
Legacy
Escapist +
Feb 9, 2008
11,286
7,082
118
A Barrel In the Marketplace
Country
Eagleland
Gender
Male
Never mind. Finally got through it about 20 attempts. And r/darksouls2 is an absolute cesspool whose advice boils down to "git gud" and when I ask for more details, I'm told to quit because I'm toxic. I expected better after the first game's subreddit actually gave me advice and support. I was right; the community for this game is a joke, and there's no punchline. It just keeps getting worse.

Certainly doesn't make me think any better of the game they're part of...
Yeah, I'm not super fond of parts of the fanbase myself. There's a portion that wants to help you are long as you're willing to learn and then there's the "GIt Gud, Scrub" jerks. And then there's the griefing community of the series, who gets butthurt if you don't bow or fight them the way they want to fight(despite the fact they invaded YOU). Dark Souls 3 is apparently the worst because invaders tend to get matched with 3 to 1 odds against and thats terrible because now griefing is no fun(for them) anymore.

I remember beating the Pursuer but I don't remember how. You run across that fucker a few more time but he's totally optional. Technically, he's optional in Forest of Fallen Giants as well. All you really get out killing him here is A shortcut to the Last Bastille, which you can also reach by going down another path as well.
 
Last edited:

Silvanus

Elite Member
Legacy
Jan 15, 2013
12,111
6,388
118
Country
United Kingdom
Never mind. Finally got through it about 20 attempts. And r/darksouls2 is an absolute cesspool whose advice boils down to "git gud" and when I ask for more details, I'm told to quit because I'm toxic. I expected better after the first game's subreddit actually gave me advice and support. I was right; the community for this game is a joke, and there's no punchline. It just keeps getting worse.

Certainly doesn't make me think any better of the game they're part of...
Yeah, there's some really odd & hostile elements of the fanbase. It's really quite against what the game should be about, as well; the series has always been about overcoming these ridiculous obstacles and difficulty through (jolly) cooperation where necessary.

Glad you made it. The Pursuer's a bastard.

Dark Souls 3 is apparently the worst because invaders tend to get matched with 3 to 1 odds against and thats terrible because now griefing is no fun(for them) anymore.
There's a lot of the same stuff in the DS3 multiplayer world. Lots of people with very specific ideas of how fights should go, with rules and bows and such that they've come up with. I immersed myself in that mire in order to max out the covenants and gain the platinum.

One of my favourite moments occurred when I equipped the ring that makes you invisible if you're out of aggro distance, and then invaded someone. They were already mid-fight with another invader, and very evenly matched with them. Eventually the host succeeded with vanquishing the other invader, with the tiniest sliver of health left... then I stepped forward & became visible, & finished him with a throwing knife.

I know, dick move. But the game pushed me to this by requiring you to max every damn covenant for the platinum, and the fanbase pushed me to it by turning the multiplayer world into this bizarre mixup of unnecessary rules.
 

Dalisclock

Making lemons combustible again
Legacy
Escapist +
Feb 9, 2008
11,286
7,082
118
A Barrel In the Marketplace
Country
Eagleland
Gender
Male
FInished 2 of the 3 Ace Combat 7 DLC missions. Man, they dialed the intensity up to 11 on these missions. Mission 2 was kinda awesome, both with a surprise smackdown of the enemy fleet and then the aerial combat with Rage and Scream at the end.

I thought I was gonna get through the whole thing but mission 3 kept kicking my ass when it was time to assault the submarine. I've gotten it down to pretty far at times and then keep getting murdered by those FUCKING Railguns!. Also, Torreses little speeches are really getting on my nerves.

The F-22/F-35 has been more than enough for all the missions so far but maybe I need to try a different plane/weapon combo or something.
 

meiam

Elite Member
Dec 9, 2010
3,597
1,824
118
FInished 2 of the 3 Ace Combat 7 DLC missions. Man, they dialed the intensity up to 11 on these missions. Mission 2 was kinda awesome, both with a surprise smackdown of the enemy fleet and then the aerial combat with Rage and Scream at the end.

I thought I was gonna get through the whole thing but mission 3 kept kicking my ass when it was time to assault the submarine. I've gotten it down to pretty far at times and then keep getting murdered by those FUCKING Railguns!. Also, Torreses little speeches are really getting on my nerves.

The F-22/F-35 has been more than enough for all the missions so far but maybe I need to try a different plane/weapon combo or something.
Give the SU-57 with PLSL a shot, love that thing so much.
 

hanselthecaretaker

My flask is half full
Legacy
Nov 18, 2010
8,738
5,910
118
The Pursuer. ...Why? Just why? I realize he was probably pretty cool in the original game where he actually did the thing he's named for, but in SotFS he just moves faster than your Estus animation (why is it so slow? You can't heal in combat with it or you'll just die, and Lifegems aren't enough faster to matter), kills you in two hits, and his attacks deal so much stamina damage that no shield you have access to at that point has enough stability to block even one hit, after which you get stunlocked and die. And this is the second boss. Oh, and at least the Taurus Demon could be beaten with the ladder, but the ballistas are a goddamn lie, because he doesn't stand still long enough for you to use them unless you use an AI exploit that I don't think is even in SotFS anymore!

How is anyone expected to fight this guy as the second boss without summoning phantoms to gang up on him? Which I can't do because the DaS2 community is a total joke, laying down summon signs and then using Black Separation Crystal the instant they get summoned. Should I just go to Heide's Tower instead? I can't think of any other viable option.
Level up that ADP stat ASAP. Prioritize it until it’s at least 20. DS2 has a lot of jank in its design but there’s a lot of good to be found once you get past the steeper learning curve. The other thing is once you kill most enemies enough times, they’ll cease respawning. It’s a nice little compensation for the bs if nothing else.

There are a few bosses that have gank-squad tactics. Best way to deal with all of them as melee builds is just to keep moving and try to isolate one from the others (luck more often than not) and don’t get greedy if one’s life bar is almost gone and their friends rush to help. Just keep using whatever environmental stuff you can to your advantage and dispatch one by one.

Check out the Forest of Fallen Giants early on too. You’ll know you’re in the right direction when you find a cool dude on the path with a cool familiar looking weapon.
 

happyninja42

Elite Member
Legacy
May 13, 2010
8,577
2,986
118
Never mind. Finally got through it about 20 attempts. And r/darksouls2 is an absolute cesspool whose advice boils down to "git gud" and when I ask for more details, I'm told to quit because I'm toxic. I expected better after the first game's subreddit actually gave me advice and support. I was right; the community for this game is a joke, and there's no punchline. It just keeps getting worse.

Certainly doesn't make me think any better of the game they're part of...
I just find the games completely uninteresting. I know there IS a story in the games, but nobody ever talks about it in "public" circles. I admit I'm not a huge pursuer of gamer social media channels and outlets, but even with my incredibly limited involvement over the years, the ONLY thing anyone ever actually has to say about the DS games, is the fighting, and how hard X boss was, and what their strat was, etc etc. So as best as I can tell, nobody actually plays the game for the plot, so the plot might as well not exist.

Plus I get really tired of how everyone compares anything and everything to DS/BB as far as quality, when all they really are comparing is difficulty of the fighting mechanics. Which is apparently sufficient substitute for every other important component of gameplay for them.

So yeah, I could do without those games, and a LOT of the people who worship them as video game jesus.
 

Worgen

Follower of the Glorious Sun Butt.
Legacy
Apr 1, 2009
15,000
3,860
118
Gender
Whatever, just wash your hands.
At the moment Persona 4 and entirely too much Planetside 2.
 

happyninja42

Elite Member
Legacy
May 13, 2010
8,577
2,986
118
and entirely too much Planetside 2.
I have mixed feelings about that game. It's the closest I can find to the joy I had playing Tribes 2, but the scale of it does sort of give me serious issues. Partly performance based, so it makes it hard to actually enjoy the massive combat when my frame rates dies a slow, festering death. But it also just it's so...fluid. Like, we spend hours trying to take a region, only to have it immediately lost because a new batch of players logged in from another part of the world, and several of ours logged off. It makes the effort I put in feel pointless, even though I love playing a support in that game
 

Worgen

Follower of the Glorious Sun Butt.
Legacy
Apr 1, 2009
15,000
3,860
118
Gender
Whatever, just wash your hands.
I have mixed feelings about that game. It's the closest I can find to the joy I had playing Tribes 2, but the scale of it does sort of give me serious issues. Partly performance based, so it makes it hard to actually enjoy the massive combat when my frame rates dies a slow, festering death. But it also just it's so...fluid. Like, we spend hours trying to take a region, only to have it immediately lost because a new batch of players logged in from another part of the world, and several of ours logged off. It makes the effort I put in feel pointless, even though I love playing a support in that game
They came out with some new patches and at the moment I'm still enjoying it. Plus, I found a good way to get certs, if you are on a continent when it closes you get at least 150 cert points. I'm not sure if that is new or if I just somehow didn't notice it before.
 

happyninja42

Elite Member
Legacy
May 13, 2010
8,577
2,986
118
They came out with some new patches and at the moment I'm still enjoying it. Plus, I found a good way to get certs, if you are on a continent when it closes you get at least 150 cert points. I'm not sure if that is new or if I just somehow didn't notice it before.
Dunno. I think the last time I played it was at least a year ago, if not 2.
 

laggyteabag

Scrolling through forums, instead of playing games
Legacy
Oct 25, 2009
3,355
1,042
118
UK
Gender
He/Him
Finished DOOM Eternal, the final mission was actually pretty amazing - it is just a shame that the game started to outstay its welcome a couple of levels beforehand. Otherwise, a decent time, with exceptional combat, but quite a bit bogged down by stupid stuff, like platforming, swimming sections, timing puzzles, and constant cutscenes and prompts.

Now, im really not sure what to do - but im a bit tired of playing stuff that just isn't doing it for me, so im just dabbling in some Halo multiplayer on PC.

Here is my backlog. Anything on there that I should give a shot, next?