What Are You Playing Right Now, Part 2: Daggerfall

[factotum]

Playing Borderlands 3 now it's on Steam. Not sure what to think of it--they seem to have mostly stuck with the "one action skill, everything else is passive" from the first two games, which I think was the aspect that most needed updating. There are *some* tweaks--Zane gets two different action skills he can assign (with one replacing grenade throw), the Beastmaster can order his pet to attack by holding down the action skill button--but not sure it's enough. Oh, and the mech-warrior woman's action skill has *far* too long a cooldown on it!

[Morty]

The restoration mod does little to make KotoR 2's endgame less of a boring slog. This game manages the frankly impressive feat of taking D&D 3E combat and making it even worse. I think I might use the save editor to give my character the upgraded force lightning power, so I can just cut down the Sith assassins quickly.

[Rynjin]

Playing Borderlands 3 now it's on Steam. Not sure what to think of it--they seem to have mostly stuck with the "one action skill, everything else is passive" from the first two games, which I think was the aspect that most needed updating. There are *some* tweaks--Zane gets two different action skills he can assign (with one replacing grenade throw), the Beastmaster can order his pet to attack by holding down the action skill button--but not sure it's enough. Oh, and the mech-warrior woman's action skill has *far* too long a cooldown on it!

Every character has 3 action skills in this one though, except arguably Moze (mech-girl), who gets attachable weapons for her mech instead (and a lot of CDR support).

[Man_Over_Game]

Playing Borderlands 3 now it's on Steam. Not sure what to think of it--they seem to have mostly stuck with the "one action skill, everything else is passive" from the first two games, which I think was the aspect that most needed updating. There are *some* tweaks--Zane gets two different action skills he can assign (with one replacing grenade throw), the Beastmaster can order his pet to attack by holding down the action skill button--but not sure it's enough. Oh, and the mech-warrior woman's action skill has *far* too long a cooldown on it!

It really depends on what character you play. Zane, for instance, has a lot of thinking to do for his powers, and a single item might change your entire world view on a build (like using the Big Boom Blaster with the Barrier).

On the other hand, Flak plays the same no matter what build you go. Headshot badguys, use Action Skill when the fight starts, rinse-repeat.

A good balance of the two is Amara. Knowing that her Brawl tree makes her indestructible after using her Action Skill, or that the blue tree dramatically increases your DPS when you do the same, is an important thing to remember.

• Gunplay-to-Action Skill: Flak, Moze, Zane, Amara.
• Easy-to-Complex: Moze, Amara, Flak, Zane.
• Melee-to-Sniper: Amara, Moze, Zane, Flak.
• Solo-to-Multiplayer: Flak, Moze, Zane, Amara.

If you're concerned about Moze's cooldown, consider going down her Demolition Woman tree. It's my personal favorite. Stay in the mech for a good 1-2 minutes killing enemies, hop out to have Auto Bear defend me for 15 seconds, use the turret I picked up from her machine gun tree to hop on Auto Bear's back and fire a minigun while Auto Bear tears it up. Each kill rewards me ~3 or so seconds off my cooldown, so my Action Skill is mostly back by the time that Auto Bear is finished. Make sure to pack the Iron Bear Barrier from the orange tree to make it a lot tougher.

After maxing out several characters, I've been giving it a break...until my friends got it from the Steam deal. I tell you what, playing BL3 with four players is a trip, and easily the best experience I've had playing the game. It was fun single player, but too predictable. With 4 players, the difficulty is ramped up perfectly so that players are consistently needing assistance without it feeling oppressive. I can't wait to hop back into it tonight. None of my friends have seen the Magnificent Moze just exploding everything with a permanent Bear mech, and I'm about to show them their new god.

[factotum]

I think I'm not a big fan of Moze because, as far as I can tell, most of her abilities are aimed at giving you benefits when you're killing enemies really fast, and most of the time I prefer the slower, more cautious approach--which means, yes, my favourite is probably Flak. Three guaranteed critical hits with a high damage Jakobs sniper that also crits a nearby enemy is just fantastic. Although I was having fun the other day with Amara, getting in close with a shotgun and using her "Kill everything nearby" version of her action skill!

[Morty]

I have to say, being able to easily dispatch the waves of mooks is the most successful temptation of the Dark Side ever featured in KotoR 2.

[Man_Over_Game]

I think I'm not a big fan of Moze because, as far as I can tell, most of her abilities are aimed at giving you benefits when you're killing enemies really fast, and most of the time I prefer the slower, more cautious approach--which means, yes, my favourite is probably Flak. Three guaranteed critical hits with a high damage Jakobs sniper that also crits a nearby enemy is just fantastic. Although I was having fun the other day with Amara, getting in close with a shotgun and using her "Kill everything nearby" version of her action skill!

While a lot of Flak's passive benefits revolve around headshots, you'll quickly learn that Sniper Rifles are pretty subpar in most situations. Their ammo is rare, and their DPS generally isn't worth it. You could consistently pull off the same playstyle as a Sniper rifle with a Jacob's Pistol or Rifle and do it better. I've found the best way to play a Sniper is with a multiplayer party, since there are bigger enemies that you can focus on, while having lots of targets that you can pick off without them focusing on you. Snipers do get extra crit bonuses, more than any other gun, but you really have to be consistent if you want to make them work.

If you like slow and cautious, you might like Zane more. His Barrier tree heavily rewards you for keeping your Shields high, including refreshing your cooldowns! That is, if you can use the Barrier effectively, to prevent taking damage, you can maintain the Barrier indefinitely. I like to pair it with the Clone, as I can:

Spawn Clone
Run up into melee combat
Drop Barrier
Swap places with Clone
Shoot badguys from far away

The Barrier keeps the Clone alive as it mows down nearby enemies, who have to get close to the Clone in order to attack it (since their bullets can't penetrate the Barrier). While they're busy, I can just stay away from the fight and headshot who I please, refreshing my Barrier and my Clone with the Barrier tree bonuses. Once the fight's over, I just pick up my Barrier and do it again. 100% uptime on my Action Skills, 0 damage taken, and lots of dead badguys.


Moze does have a few options for dealing damage slowly, through her Shield tree. Things like "Killing enemies decreases your firing speed but gives you and your allies gun damage", "headshots deal extra fire damage", "headshots regenerate your shields" and "while you have shields, deal more damage". It can easily turn into an indestructible tank build, but it has sniper benefits, too. Not to mention, it has the only sniper weapons for your mech suit.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

Playing Portal. I managed to die on the...I think it was the 4th chamber, trying to drag a camera through a portal with me so I could throw it through the Emancipation Grid. Near as I can tell it bounced off something and caved in my skull. Go me!

[Brookshw]

I gave Lenna's Inception a shot. I want to like it, it's a classic Zelda clone, but just can't get into it.

[warty goblin]

What a perfect time to stock up on a large pile of videogames.

The new alpha for Ultimate Admiral came out the other day, so there's exciting new ways to send thousands of tons of steel to the bottom of the ocean. The patch says ballistics have been improved, and it feels like they have, with such delightful things as friendly fire and shells hitting ships they weren't aimed at. Plus the ship editor got a lot of polish applied to it, so things like barbettes for secondaries now actually sometimes work right. There's some fun new scripted battles too, including one where you have to sink 12 destroyers with a single battleship. This is an excellent chance to practice the Torpedo Avoidance Tango, whereby you steer like a drunken loon until such time as your rudder gets inevitably jammed by said torpedoes, and you sail in sad little circles until you sink. Unless you pick the Japanese hull, which lets you stick a genuinely absurd number of 5 inch guns on the thing, thereby rendering your immediate vicinity a no-go zone for anybody who doesn't want to be violently exploded and didn't think to bring substantial belt armor.

Also grabbed Panzer Corps 2, which seems like a quite solid sort of light hexy turn based wargame. Delightfully, if you knock out an enemy unit with a tank in open country, you can move and attack again, and the ability chains. So armored breakthroughs can mean real trouble. Not sure how I feel about aircraft though, they seem fiddly.

[MCerberus]

Just got Animal Crossing. I think Tom Nook is trying to set up a Bioshock/cult situation. It doesn't help the island is named New R'lyeh. There was a party where he served mystery drinks and I fell asleep for an entire day. I woke up and Nook... seems to have been watching me. The only communication device available cannot contact the outside world.

HELP

[Razade]

Can someone sell me on Animal Crossing? It seems like everyone is in love with it but I don't really get the point. Is it a sim-game where you manage a city? Is it just a faffing about game with no real point but a lot of menial obligations that give it some kind of artificial depth like farmville or any number of those browser/app games? I'm not hurting for games but if it's a worthwhile get for the Switch, and not just a faffing about simulator, I'd consider it something to look into.

[Cazero]

Bad news.

boy I'm glad model P's ability to attack by tapping the touchscreen is useless, because they really ****ed it up on the PC port.

To get a gold medal against Buckfire, defeat him using only model P's radar shot.

So, if I want that gold medal, I have to fight a boss using my first hand to dodge, my second hand to aim a long range target with a veeeeeery slow cursor limited at short range, and my third hand to shoot because you can't just remap your keyboard however you want.


Good news. Trials of Mana. There is a free demo out. Play it. All of you. No excuses.

[Anonymouswizard]

Well, I wanted something a little different, so I reinstalled Fallout: New Vegas and added in the Fallout: Who Vegas mod. Decided to play a character with what I consider Time Lord stats: high Inelligence and Perception but low Luck, with a focus on Science, Medicine, Repair, and Energy Weapons. Then I decided to make my character's first body an Asian woman and call her Susan.

And ugh, this entire mod seems to be designed around waiting to get to the parts people want. You have to trek most of the way to New Vegas to get to the TARDIS, once you're there getting Time Lord Biology isn't as simple as finding and using a fob watch, you instead need to find the fob watch schematics, go to the workshop, wait for twenty minutes to get the materials needed to build the watch, make the thing (thankfully instantaneous), then go to the laboratory, turn forty five units of food into materials and then use those and the fob watch to create another item, then use that item and finally you get Time Lord Biology. I can't believe I'm saying this, but waiting around for materials to generate isn't gameplay, and the attempt at increasing immersion by using Whoniverse material names were all for naught when I had Mock the Week playing in the background.

The mod would be better, so much better, if it's schematics just used ordinary base game components for crafting with maybe one or two special ingredients, and instead of making you craft Time Lord Biology sent you on a quest for it, like sticking a note about the Fob Watch in the place where you get the schematics and making you hunt it down, and then once you've got it you can use it to gain Time Lord benefits. Or for materials the mod really wants you to refine it would honestly work better increasing refinement times by a factor of ten or more so I 'd be compelled to go out and do stuff instead of sitting around waiting for it to finish.

Oh, and the classic series control rooms seem to be borked, I can't exit the TARDIS with them. Bit of a shame, I much prefer the look of the Classic and Retro rooms.

Once I can wrap my head around the GECK though I plan to dig into the code for the TARDIS and regeneration, see if I can fix those bugged control rooms and see if regenerations are coded to change ethnicity and sex. Because when it's not either waiting around or 'why did they put the TARDIS so far away' I'm actually really enjoying the mod. Need to pick up a companion or two once once I've learnt how to fly this thing that should be simple. Might mod in a companion or two of my own if I come up with ideas as to who I want in the TARDIS.

[Triaxx]

Or at the very least have the FoB at the end of an area which contained both a workbench and the stuff you needed to fix it.

[Zevox]

So, I started playing Darksiders 3 today, and am liking it a fair bit. So far it looks likely that I'll enjoy it considerably more than Darksiders 2, though less clear where it'll fall compared to the first.

Have to say though, it looks like it's a good thing I didn't play it when it first came out. When starting up the game I was given the option to choose between "Default" and "Classic" combat styles, but no explanation what those were, so I of course googled it... and wow, I was surprised by what I found. They really tried turning this into Dark Souls at first? Making every action a commitment and disallowing dodge-canceling of attacks? Ugh. I mean, don't get me wrong, I like Dark Souls just fine, but I like action games with more fluid, open-ended combat options more, so to go from that to taking away those options in order to be more like Dark Souls is just... bleh. And judging from what I've seen of the game so far, I definitely am glad I'm not stuck playing it like that. There's a lot of swarms of fairly aggressive enemies around which would be a pain to handle with controls like that - heck, to an extent they're a pain even with Classic controls, though I did set the difficulty a bit higher than the default, so maybe that's just that. And the rush of a fast-paced boss fight where I'm wailing on them while simultaneously watching for them to swing to time my dodge is more engaging and exciting than Dark Souls' "hit the enemy once or twice, then stop so you can avoid their attack" style anyway.

But yeah, have to say, there's some definite promise to it. Especially when one of the first new abilities I get is fire power that lets me perform an explosive high-jump and wade through lava without getting hurt, that's just cool.

[Cespenar]

So I'm giving Divinity Original Sin 2 a (rather late) go, and though it's mostly fun, the way they utilize the whole skill system is starting to grate a little. On one hand, most skills are pretty flashy and cool to use... the first few times, but the fact that every mundane enemy uses the same skillset cheapens the experience quite a lot. Every thug does teleport-backstabs, and even skeleton warriors "Phoenix Dive" next to me in a blaze of flames, and then go Whirlwind Strike and whatnot. It's like playing in a Dragonball Z universe or something.

Not to mention that the writing and plot are all over the place, but I was kinda expecting it, coming from DOS1. Anyway, mini-rant over.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

I'M BACK ON MY TRASH AGAIN!

So after playing Warframe for I believe 130 days, I've come to the conclusion that I need a break to play something else...but all the games I own are RPGs and strategy games that take a long flipping time to complete and I'm so indecisive I can't pick one!

[Rodin]

Posting this in the correct thread this time...

I've discovered Hitman (2016), which completely flew past me at the time of its release. I had previously tried earlier games in the series and found them to be janky and un-fun. The new game (if one can say that about a 4 year old game) is of an entirely different style and is much more focused on intelligence gathering and smart play. Poisoning a guy's spaghetti and then sauntering up behind him and "accidentally" knocking him off a cliff while he's throwing up is a lot more fun than trying to stealth past a dozen guards in the same old stealth gameplay we've seen for years.

I like that the missions are big sandbox areas where there's a dozen different ways to elegantly kill your target, and hundreds of non-elegant ways. The one I want to try once I'm more experienced is chucking one target off a balcony such that they land on and kill the second target. Seems difficult but hilarious if you can pull it off.

My next task is to disguise myself as a tennis coach and get invited to a candlelit dinner for a torrid affair. Maybe I can serve spaghetti again?

[Man_Over_Game]

Can someone sell me on Animal Crossing? It seems like everyone is in love with it but I don't really get the point. Is it a sim-game where you manage a city? Is it just a faffing about game with no real point but a lot of menial obligations that give it some kind of artificial depth like farmville or any number of those browser/app games? I'm not hurting for games but if it's a worthwhile get for the Switch, and not just a faffing about simulator, I'd consider it something to look into.

Unfortunately, Animal Crossing might not be your thing. It's a well-made time-waster. Like Harvest Moon or The Sims, with no real goal, challenge, or growth.

Sure, things do get upgraded, but they don't usually provide you with some benefit that makes other tasks easier. "Upgrades" unlock more content, more storage, more people to talk to, but not much more beyond that.


--------------

Played through Doom Eternal. It was a lot of fun, but I'm kinda disappointed. It doesn't have the same kind of charm the 2016 Doom did. There's a lot of exposition, and a lot of new ways of utilizing mobility, but it heavily focuses on mobility-puzzles, but not in a way that really seems all that fun.

For example, your Super Shotgun now comes with a grappling hook that launches you to the target. Cool, right? And there are jumping/dashing/climbing puzzles EVERYWHERE, yet not a single secret requires use of the grappling hook, and only one boss requires it.

Don't get me wrong, it's crazy friggin' fun. Each gun has two different alt-fire modes, you have two different grenades, a flamethrower on a cooldown that gives you armor when you damage flaming enemies, a Super-Punch that causes everything near you to explode....there's a LOT. But at the same time, it feels like the developers didn't really play anything that wasn't a DOOM game, and then tried to expand DOOM 2016 to be more than just a DOOM game.

For example, there's nothing near the equivalent to the Guacamelee mobility challenges in DOOM Eternal, despite having just as many tools (2 dashes, double jump, grappling hook, climbing). You can't shoot your guns while swimming, so why are the swimming controls such crap?

I did like this about the game, though:
Reloading on a controller will almost always be the Square or X button (depending on your console). On DOOM, it's no different, except your guns don't reload. Rather, Square or X is your chainsaw...which causes enemies to drop ammo. The DOOM equivalent of reloading is using a chainsaw.

[Anteros]

So I'm giving Divinity Original Sin 2 a (rather late) go, and though it's mostly fun, the way they utilize the whole skill system is starting to grate a little. On one hand, most skills are pretty flashy and cool to use... the first few times, but the fact that every mundane enemy uses the same skillset cheapens the experience quite a lot. Every thug does teleport-backstabs, and even skeleton warriors "Phoenix Dive" next to me in a blaze of flames, and then go Whirlwind Strike and whatnot. It's like playing in a Dragonball Z universe or something.

Not to mention that the writing and plot are all over the place, but I was kinda expecting it, coming from DOS1. Anyway, mini-rant over.

You will get more and more unique and rare skills over the course of the game if that makes you feel better.

As for the writing...yeah that doesn't change. It's serviceable, but certainly not the main draw of the game.

[Anteros]

Unfortunately, Animal Crossing might not be your thing. It's a well-made time-waster. Like Harvest Moon or The Sims, with no real goal, challenge, or growth.

Sure, things do get upgraded, but they don't usually provide you with some benefit that makes other tasks easier. "Upgrades" unlock more content, more storage, more people to talk to, but not much more beyond that.


--------------

Played through Doom Eternal. It was a lot of fun, but I'm kinda disappointed. It doesn't have the same kind of charm the 2016 Doom did. There's a lot of exposition, and a lot of new ways of utilizing mobility, but it heavily focuses on mobility-puzzles, but not in a way that really seems all that fun.

For example, your Super Shotgun now comes with a grappling hook that launches you to the target. Cool, right? And there are jumping/dashing/climbing puzzles EVERYWHERE, yet not a single secret requires use of the grappling hook, and only one boss requires it.

Don't get me wrong, it's crazy friggin' fun. Each gun has two different alt-fire modes, you have two different grenades, a flamethrower on a cooldown that gives you armor when you damage flaming enemies, a Super-Punch that causes everything near you to explode....there's a LOT. But at the same time, it feels like the developers didn't really play anything that wasn't a DOOM game, and then tried to expand DOOM 2016 to be more than just a DOOM game.

For example, there's nothing near the equivalent to the Guacamelee mobility challenges in DOOM Eternal, despite having just as many tools (2 dashes, double jump, grappling hook, climbing). You can't shoot your guns while swimming, so why are the swimming controls such crap?

I did like this about the game, though:
Reloading on a controller will almost always be the Square or X button (depending on your console). On DOOM, it's no different, except your guns don't reload. Rather, Square or X is your chainsaw...which causes enemies to drop ammo. The DOOM equivalent of reloading is using a chainsaw.

I think I agree that Eternal overdid the puzzles. I'm about halfway through and I'm already tired of them. They're also mostly not even challenging at all, so why even include them?

[Cespenar]

You will get more and more unique and rare skills over the course of the game if that makes you feel better.

Eh, some non-boss enemies even use those rare-book skills that require source points, so I don't really think so. But anyway. Overall it's not that bad.

[Anteros]

Eh, some non-boss enemies even use those rare-book skills that require source points, so I don't really think so. But anyway. Overall it's not that bad.

No, you'll definitely get access to rare and powerful skills that your enemies don't have. Eventually. I don't want to spoil anything. But yes, as you fight many other sourcerors in the game, it makes sense they would also have source skill abilities.

[Yora]

Trying NG+ in Bloodborne and so far it's a lot easier than NG. Later bosses might get harder, but right now I feel overpowered.

[Man_Over_Game]

So I'm giving Divinity Original Sin 2 a (rather late) go, and though it's mostly fun, the way they utilize the whole skill system is starting to grate a little. On one hand, most skills are pretty flashy and cool to use... the first few times, but the fact that every mundane enemy uses the same skillset cheapens the experience quite a lot. Every thug does teleport-backstabs, and even skeleton warriors "Phoenix Dive" next to me in a blaze of flames, and then go Whirlwind Strike and whatnot. It's like playing in a Dragonball Z universe or something.

Not to mention that the writing and plot are all over the place, but I was kinda expecting it, coming from DOS1. Anyway, mini-rant over.

I have heard that Divinity Original Sin 2 is an amazing cooperative experience, and one I've always wanted to try. Can anyone confirm if it's actually good with a friend?

[Anteros]

I have heard that Divinity Original Sin 2 is an amazing cooperative experience, and one I've always wanted to try. Can anyone confirm if it's actually good with a friend?

It depends on what you want. I played through with a friend and you basically miss half the story and lore. If you care about that you're going to be frustrated unless you have a friend that's willing to wait for you every time they talk to someone.

The combat is great fun though. It's not quite like anything else I've ever played. It's hard to describe, but there's not a lot of tactical turn based co-op games out there, so it's pretty satisfying to collaborate with your friend and come up with strategies on how to approach each fight.

[Rynjin]

Posting this in the correct thread this time...

I've discovered Hitman (2016), which completely flew past me at the time of its release. I had previously tried earlier games in the series and found them to be janky and un-fun. The new game (if one can say that about a 4 year old game) is of an entirely different style and is much more focused on intelligence gathering and smart play. Poisoning a guy's spaghetti and then sauntering up behind him and "accidentally" knocking him off a cliff while he's throwing up is a lot more fun than trying to stealth past a dozen guards in the same old stealth gameplay we've seen for years.

That's not really an entirely different style, but TBF that would be the impression you would get if you tried to start with Agent 47 (the original game).

IMO, Agent 47 and Silent Assassin (I'm really glad the first two games had subtitles, so the new Hitman and Hitman 2 aren't AS confusing to talk about as similar reboots) are...not good games. Contracts is the first I'd say is even a passably fun game.

The series hit its original peak with Blood Money though, which builds off what Contracts did, moving it toward a much more methodical, environmental/observation driven assassination style. In the first two games you could quite viably run through the levels (many of which are QUITE linear) just run and gunning; that's how I beat them when I did my big binge of the series up through Blood Money about 7-8 years ago, because the stealth mechanics in Agent 47 and Silent Assassin are straight trash.

If you like new Hitman, I'd say give Blood Money and maaaaaybe Contracts a shot, along with of course new Hitman 2. Absolution is...kind of an odd duck, in that it's a story driven hybrid experience between Agent 47 and Silent Assassin's fairly linear gameplay and Contracts and Blood Money's more mission based "just kill the guy however you want" gameplay. Blood Money SORT of had a plot in the last couple of missions, but Absolution takes that setup and runs with it to some ****ing bizarre places. It's worth experiencing though, IMO.

[Sermil]

Finished my first Stellaris run (base game only). Fun but it felt like it fizzled out a bit halfway through, when you aren't doing much more exploring (and so no more anomalies, so fewer little stories) and when all of your tech becomes a choice between +5% damage or +5% rate of fire. Got one end-game crisis (The Contingency) but by then a friendly Fallen empire had Awakened and did a pretty good job of killing the Contingency fleets even without me.

It was on pretty easy (no AI advantages), so I was super-dominate by the end -- that didn't help. The expansion packs look like they add some more end-game stuff (like more megastructures), so I picked those up on sale and will try another run (with higher difficulty) some day. Not for a while though.

[Resileaf]

IMO, Agent 47 and Silent Assassin (I'm really glad the first two games had subtitles, so the new Hitman and Hitman 2 aren't AS confusing to talk about as similar reboots) are...not good games. Contracts is the first I'd say is even a passably fun game.

I would say Silent Assassin has its moments, but the game as a whole overly focuses on speed and pattern memorization over efficiency and carefulness, which makes it extremely difficult to vary your techniques from one run to another, especially if you're planning on going for the no-unnecessary-kill rating on every level. There's pretty much only one right way to get Silent Assassin rank, and nothing else will work.

The first two Japanese castle missions deserve nothing but absolute scorn, however.