What Are You Playing Right Now, Part 2: Daggerfall

[oxybe]

Got a new switch game a couple days back!

Super Dragonball Heroes World Mission Hero Edition.

A gosh darn mouthful that one is.

So you're generic preteen shounen protagonist who never played the world famous card game so popular there is a district in a large metropolitan city completely dedicated to it.

you just casually stroll up to a tournament with thousands of spectators and register, without a deck mind you, and are given the equivalent of a ****ty "here are my spares I don't want" preconstructed Universe 7-themed deck by the lady at the counter.

and you proceed to unceremoniously beat this 6 year old in suspenders and a bowtie with such incredible strategies as "i attacks withs alls my mans", something that makes a Great Saiyaman 3 cosplayer, a guy so good at the game NPCs call him "the Master", take note of your brilliant skills and take you under his wing.

And then out of nowhere Cooler, the actual movie villain, arrives and basically threatens to kill everyone who are all like "great cosplay mate, you know the Saiyaman 3 guy?". after miraculously deflecting an energy ball from Cooler using literal plot armour, Saiyaman 3 tells you that bad guys from the dragonball videogame are invading the real world and you need to jump into the digital world and stop them.

So yeah, they took the plot of Digimon and went "but what if Dragonball, and card games?"

The game itself is interesting. I'm still very early in and learning how it works. you start off with a deck made up of 7 characters. these are usually some variations of a dragonball character like Kid Goku or Super Saiyan Gogeta. they each have their own super attack and various abilities that can buff themselves or allies or debuff the enemy team. you can also equip each card with 4 different accessories that modify them, from stat boosts to new specials or a custom team up.

Matches are 5 rounds and cards can be put into attack or defense position. when attacking you generate hero energy, which allows the use of abilities and special attacks, but uses stamina. characters with no stamina can't guard and take extra damage and don't really provide any hero energy. characters in defense regain stamina and can use support abilities. each round both sides get to attack, with the side committing the greater power amount going first.

the twist is that there are 1100+ character cards, gained though playing the gacha.

but it's not pay to win. there is no premium currency and all all the gacha tickets are gained in-game by completing story missions, the equivalent to achievements or user-generated missions, and this includes the guaranteed rare tickets, so yes you can farm them. doubles gained though the gacha return generic ticket stubs (higher the rarity = more stubs) that can be use to buy gacha tickets (10 stubs for a normal, 50 stubs for a guaranteed rare).

in addition to these 1100+ cards, you can create your own custom cards by using "blank" cards of various rarities with a point total to use towards setting the stats and abilities, that you can either buy using zenni or as a drop/reward. So you want a Kid Goku who uses the Galick Gun? there you go. Want to make a nobody like Sugesh that hits like a truck but is made of paper? there you go.

having loads of fun for now. i streamed the first hour of storymode and played the player created missions for a bit off stream so i would have some tickets to pull with when i next stream.

the player missions are abuseable though. If you've played pokemon and remember when they brought back secret bases, people were making the Chansey training rooms for easy XP? think that, but less for XP and more for those card customization bits, gacha tickets and super dragonballs (which can give various boons like exta inventory)

[halfeye]

I'm still playing IL*2 (Cliffs of Dover is also fine, in it's own way, but I don't play it as much, and Battle of Stalingrad is by another developer entirely, I haven't bought that one yet), it's just my current flight sim, it's got a lot of aircraft and a lot of campaigns.

Currently replaying Dragon age Origins as a Dwarf Rouge (sic ), without all the mages offering healing I'm expecting this run to go tits up soon.

I had Civ V fail on me lately, it's just not starting, I think I bought it at a supermarket (I can't find an Amazon order), if they have killed it because the supermarket dropped games, then I've dropped Civ.

[LibraryOgre]

One thing that REALLY annoys me in the BGEE? How CLUMSY the interactions for the various added NPCs is, especially Dorn. In order to get Dorn, you have to talk to him at the Friendly Arm, which is natural to do (he has a name and is a Class-modeled character). He will then randomly arrive, and you can only get him by having a space in the party, or dropping someone, perhaps before you're ready. You then have to hang around with this ******* through Cloakwood, or he won't rejoin you. The NPCs that finish his quest might or might not show up., you just have to keep checking this one screen that's not going to be commonly visited.

It just feels like they could've integrated these better.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

OK, so about a month ago, the battery of my laptop started to swell to the point where the laptop wouldn't lie flat anymore (I'm told this is by design). I took it in for replacement. After verifying that the battery was on its last legs, and agreeing to replace it, they ran "one more test, to see if anything else is wrong". The test killed my laptop dead - wouldn't start, wouldn't acknowledge external inputs.

Long story short, they gave me a new one, for the cost of the battery alone. I can now play Warhammer Total War at max specs, which had crawled at min specs in the old laptop. I'm hoping I'll also be able to play Mechwarrior, next time it goes on sale.

(I did lose a bunch of unlocks in my games, though, which sucks - especially in renowned explorers, where I had all the characters and all but one of the cards. But nothing else, since I had backed up the important bits. I just had balked on backing up the game folder due to its size)

Grey Wolf

[tonberrian]

OK, so about a month ago, the battery of my laptop started to swell to the point where the laptop wouldn't lie flat anymore (I'm told this is by design). I took it in for replacement. After verifying that the battery was on its last legs, and agreeing to replace it, they ran "one more test, to see if anything else is wrong". The test killed my laptop dead - wouldn't start, wouldn't acknowledge external inputs.

Long story short, they gave me a new one, for the cost of the battery alone. I can now play Warhammer Total War at max specs, which had crawled at min specs in the old laptop. I'm hoping I'll also be able to play Mechwarrior, next time it goes on sale.

(I did lose a bunch of unlocks in my games, though, which sucks - especially in renowned explorers, where I had all the characters and all but one of the cards. But nothing else, since I had backed up the important bits. I just had balked on backing up the game folder due to its size)

Grey Wolf

Aww. I had to go through something similar - laptop wouldn't charge, sent it in for repairs, they couldn't fix it and gave me a refund of the whole price i paid for it, and they're saying I'll get a refund on the warranty as well because it took so long to get me the buyout offer. Purchased a new laptop with marginally better specs from a different company, which just arrived today (so did the check for the buyout, actually). Didn't lose much because most everything i have is either on the cloud or backed up on my crummy laptop. More relevant to this thread, I can finally try out the new features of the free expansion to CK2 they put out this month, yay!

[GloatingSwine]

Long story short, they gave me a new one, for the cost of the battery alone. I can now play Warhammer Total War at max specs, which had crawled at min specs in the old laptop. I'm hoping I'll also be able to play Mechwarrior, next time it goes on sale.

Though you still can't play a Mortal Empires campaign in the lifespan of the average human. Turn processing takes so damn long with that many factions.

[Cespenar]

One thing that REALLY annoys me in the BGEE? How CLUMSY the interactions for the various added NPCs is, especially Dorn. In order to get Dorn, you have to talk to him at the Friendly Arm, which is natural to do (he has a name and is a Class-modeled character). He will then randomly arrive, and you can only get him by having a space in the party, or dropping someone, perhaps before you're ready. You then have to hang around with this ******* through Cloakwood, or he won't rejoin you. The NPCs that finish his quest might or might not show up., you just have to keep checking this one screen that's not going to be commonly visited.

It just feels like they could've integrated these better.

Still, compared to the original game, Dorn alone probably has more lines of dialogue than all of the old party members combined, so it's not all bad I think.

[DigoDragon]

I'm considering putting Minecraft away for a bit. The 1.14 update should be coming out soon and the servers I play on want to switch over ASAP. I generally avoid switching over to give the developers time to flatten out any new bugs in the update. Maybe i'll pick up MoO: CtS for a bit again. There's a bunch of Steam Achievements I didn't get yet.

OK, so about a month ago, the battery of my laptop started to swell to the point where the laptop wouldn't lie flat anymore (I'm told this is by design).

...wut?

That is a very... interesting design choice to have your battery swell when it goes bad.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

...wut?

That is a very... interesting design choice to have your battery swell when it goes bad.

It beats it swelling explosively because they reinforced the casing so it wouldn't, is my guess (no, they didn't explain it to me either). But yes, I kinda miss the batteries that sort of simply stopped holding a charge when they aged. It turned my mobile laptop into an immobile desktop after a few years, but it still functioned (indeed, I used my old laptop for the duration of this incident. It struggled with even simple tasks, but it worked).

Grey Wolf

[Brookshw]

Just played Far Cry 5.

Having played 3 & 4 in the past, it seemed to tread well worn paths. Most the weapons are picked up from the previous iterations. The only thing that really was "new" was planes (and helicopters). Well, I guess the companion system as well. Otherwise it was a similar series of "fetch" and "kill" quests. If you played the previous iterations the general game play won't have anything drastically new to throw at you.

Hunting was slightly less important in terms of crafting, but they also changed the perk system so that now one of the ways you get perks was by hunting, and you need perk points to get the benefits of crafting usually (i.e., ammo bags). So if anything, hunting overall became more important. Also now fishing, because clearly the thing you want to do is spend time virtually fishing so you can more efficiently shoot cultists.

Story wise, it's....okay. There are numerous times in each area where you get "kidnapped" or otherwise get railroaded. I didn't mind it at first but it got really old after a while.

The ending...

Spoiler

Show

Was very disappointing. The "Good" ending involves the cultists being right and nukes starting to fall just as you beat the main boss. You run for a bunker with some friends and the handuffed boss. Car accident, you're friends die, the boss carries you to the bunker and it's just you and him waiting out the apocalypse. Of course, you're tied up and his prisoner. So in the end, the "Good" ending is the bad guy winning. The "Bad" ending, you don't fight the bad guy and he wins. So if you actually play the game, there really isn't any winning. There is secret ending similar to Far Cry 4, where if you don't do anything at the beginning of the game, i.e., don't handcuff the boss, starting the chain of events that lead to the game, and instead just walk away. So the secret ending is...not playing the game.

I'm glad I didn't buy it when it first came out. Was it worth the $20 I paid? Ehhhhh...... I got what I was expecting, an open world environment to go shoot people in. There was the occasional 'Merica moments which gave me a chuckle. Ranking wise, it's below Far Cry 3 for me, roughly on par with 4.

[factotum]

I never completed FC5. As you say, it just felt like re-treading well-worn paths, and I'd already had enough of that with FC4 being basically FC3 but in the mountains rather than a tropical island.

[Resileaf]

Considering FC5 has a post-apocalypse sequel, it's in retrospect pretty obvious why they made those endings.

[Zombimode]

Im currently right in the middle of Soulbringer, a somewhat unknown RGP from the year 2000.
Early 3D, fully voiced, awkward controls (but it plays quite well despite of the controls), rather mature characters, large in scope, pretty much no filler material.

All in all a very enjoyable game
It has the unfortunate standing of being released during the time of the Infinity Enging games which are just so much better than anything else, including Soulbringer.

[DigoDragon]

It beats it swelling explosively because they reinforced the casing so it wouldn't, is my guess (no, they didn't explain it to me either). But yes, I kinda miss the batteries that sort of simply stopped holding a charge when they aged.

Yeah, I'm of the thought that there should be a third option for non-bulging, non-exploding battery death. My lappy battery did a very quiet death and I'm glad it didn't decide to shape-change in its death (or catch fire or something spectacular like that). Unfortunately replacing it costs more than the lappy is worth (plus the keyboard is going bad) so I only use it for Discord calls.

[Anteros]

Considering FC5 has a post-apocalypse sequel, it's in retrospect pretty obvious why they made those endings.

That doesn't make them good though.

I paid full price for Far Cry 5 and still gave up on it after a few hours. It doesn't do anything that Far Cry 3 didn't do a lot better except obviously graphics. I don't think I'll ever buy another Far Cry game.

I'm honestly pretty much ready to give up on Ubisoft entirely as a studio. I don't think I've ever enjoyed one outside of Far Cry 3, and somewhere between assassinating the Pope, fighting a cult of white supremacist analogues, or battling through the ruins of Washington, the heavy handed yet shallow political statements have gotten old.

[tyckspoon]

Yeah, I'm of the thought that there should be a third option for non-bulging, non-exploding battery death. My lappy battery did a very quiet death and I'm glad it didn't decide to shape-change in its death (or catch fire or something spectacular like that).

Sure, user-replaceable battery segments that are designed with some flex space around the battery in the compartment. The way laptops were built for literally decades. But that requires dedicated empty space for the battery, costs more to make (because you have to build a rigid shell around the battery instead of just putting it in what is essentially an anti-static bag foil bag), and means you can't shave .1 mm off your total profile from last year's design and market the NEW THINNEST LAPTOP EVER.

[Resileaf]

That doesn't make them good though.

Oh, I know. It was a criticism on my side too. XD

[NRSASD]

Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice! Very fun. A bit clunky, and gameplay is mind-bendingly simple so far (go here, press this; go there, look at that), but it positively oozes atmosphere from every pore. It's not just the story of a Pict warrior or someone with psychosis; it weaves both elements together so well that her character is all the stronger for it. I'm not sure if the story is going anywhere, but I'm really enjoying the ride so far!

[Anteros]

I just finished up Sekiro since I had a week off and some free time for gaming. No idea what I'll play next. Maybe nothing for a while. Between Subnautica, Kingdom Hearts, and Sekiro I've spent waaaay too much time on the computer in the last few months.

Plus it's finally getting nice out. It might be time to put the games away for a few months and go back outside.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Sure, user-replaceable battery segments that are designed with some flex space around the battery in the compartment. The way laptops were built for literally decades. But that requires dedicated empty space for the battery, costs more to make (because you have to build a rigid shell around the battery instead of just putting it in what is essentially an anti-static bag foil bag), and means you can't shave .1 mm off your total profile from last year's design and market the NEW THINNEST LAPTOP EVER.

User-replaceable battery also weight quite a bit extra. The thinness you can make fun of, but heck if this laptop (and the one that just died) aren't significantly lighter than the one with the old battery style. Since I drag those things with me in my frequent trips, the older I get the more I appreciate laptops that don't feel like lugging bags of bricks hanging from my shoulder.

Grey Wolf

[Demidos]

OK, so about a month ago, the battery of my laptop started to swell to the point where the laptop wouldn't lie flat anymore (I'm told this is by design). I took it in for replacement. After verifying that the battery was on its last legs, and agreeing to replace it, they ran "one more test, to see if anything else is wrong". The test killed my laptop dead - wouldn't start, wouldn't acknowledge external inputs.
Grey Wolf

...wut?

That is a very... interesting design choice to have your battery swell when it goes bad.

As a battery engineer ()...that's almost certainly because the chemical reaction that runs your battery is having problems.

To put it simply, unexpected reactions are happening instead of the usual charge-discharge, which causes gas to be generated as the materials in your battery degrade. If you have a rigid shell and your battery starts malfunctioning, then you basically have an extremely high pressure, very flammable bomb inside your laptop. The true design choice, rather than the swelling itself, is the soft shell around the battery which allows you to (a) visually notice the malfunction and replace the battery and (b) relieves the pressure on the battery until you do.

First time I've gotten to use my graduate degree to explain something on these boards! Sweet!

[Grey_Wolf_c]

As a battery engineer ()...that's almost certainly because the chemical reaction that runs your battery is having problems.

To put it simply, unexpected reactions are happening instead of the usual charge-discharge, which causes gas to be generated as the materials in your battery degrade. If you have a rigid shell and your battery starts malfunctioning, then you basically have an extremely high pressure, very flammable bomb inside your laptop. The true design choice, rather than the swelling itself, is the soft shell around the battery which allows you to (a) visually notice the malfunction and replace the battery and (b) relieves the pressure on the battery until you do.

First time I've gotten to use my graduate degree to explain something on these boards! Sweet!

I'm guessing that the obvious alternative, a method to allow those gasses to escape, would be a bad idea because we'd be venting toxic and/or carcinogenic gasses out of our laptops?

(Glad I guessed right that they wanted a more gradual pressure increase as a safety feature. Thanks for confirming that)

Grey Wolf

[factotum]

I'm guessing that the obvious alternative, a method to allow those gasses to escape, would be a bad idea because we'd be venting toxic and/or carcinogenic gasses out of our laptops?

I think more "highly flammable" is the problem there, although the smell wouldn't be great either.

[danzibr]

Im currently right in the middle of Soulbringer, a somewhat unknown RGP from the year 2000.
Early 3D, fully voiced, awkward controls (but it plays quite well despite of the controls), rather mature characters, large in scope, pretty much no filler material.

All in all a very enjoyable game
It has the unfortunate standing of being released during the time of the Infinity Enging games which are just so much better than anything else, including Soulbringer.

Soulbringer!

I started this game several times, but never beat it. Maybe someday...

[warty goblin]

New computer is set up (finally), and so far I've messed about with:

Darksiders III: This is, delightfully enough, a pretty traditional sort of game. You run around and abuse various demons using a whip that is basically the extreme BSDM version of a lightsaber. There's some very nominal sorts of puzzling and platforming in between the demon-murdering, which don't require much in the way of thought, but do keep you tuned into the environment and break up the flow nicely.

The combat, at least so far, is nicely button-mashy. There's a combo system, but it appears that one can basically ignore it on standard difficulty, which I like. Also the basic enemies hit pretty hard, but between jumping and dodging you've got good mobility-based defense, which seems to incentivize hyper-aggression, which I also like.

Also delightfully, the dodge move is a proper dodge, and not a roll. I am entirely over dodge-rolling as a thing at this point.


And back to Division 2. Which is as excellent as I thought it was, although the experience is substantially improved by a solid frame rate and car tires that aren't sometimes triangles.

It's actually sort of hard to describe just how well put together the thing is. The cover system is just the best ever, the guns all feel nice and punchy, they've dialed in the enemy HP and armor values to where enemies take some commitment to kill, but aren't total bullet sponges, and the tone of Post-Apocalypse Lite urban warfare is spot on. I had a really excellent fight over a control point the other night, with the enemy and friendly AI going at it, grenades going off everywhere, various weather things happening, just fantastic.

[Demidos]

I'm guessing that the obvious alternative, a method to allow those gasses to escape, would be a bad idea because we'd be venting toxic and/or carcinogenic gasses out of our laptops?

(Glad I guessed right that they wanted a more gradual pressure increase as a safety feature. Thanks for confirming that)

Grey Wolf

I think more "highly flammable" is the problem there, although the smell wouldn't be great either.

Yeah, you guys have the general right idea. The specific gasses are hard to predict, but generally speaking you don't want to inhale stuff from batteries. The gassing (technical term) also indicates a significant problem if it's in large quantities, so it's a good way to get people to not just keep using the defective battery. Also, modern laptop batteries are lithium ion, and lithium burns/explodes on contact with water (including the water in air).

You can PM me with other questions/we can move to a random banter thread so that we don't clog up the thread.

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Thread Tax:

Mostly playing Dominions 5, a turn-based medieval fantasy strategy game with a very heavy mythological influence, lots of obscure mechanics, and super diverse nations.

Also playing Divinity 2 (multiplayer turn-based rpg), and some indie coops (Tick Tock, We were here (1/2)) which were decent with gorgeous art, but felt kinda lacking in content.

[NRSASD]

I quite enjoyed my time with "We Were Here (1 & 2)" but I agree, there's not much there. Still, it's a ton of fun to run through once, and definitely money well spent as far as I'm concerned.

[rooster707]

Wow, I haven’t checked in here for a while, for some reason.

I just started Assassin’s Creed Unity, which I’ve wanted to try for a while. I’m gonna give it a couple more hours, at least, but so far I’m not really having fun. It feels... well, it feels like an Assassin’s Creed game, which isn’t surprising, but after playing Syndicate (which felt like “An Assassin’s Creed game but Good” in every possible aspect) it’s hard to go back to the way things were before. (And the terrible performance isn’t helping... I really need to upgrade my PC.)

[Brookshw]

Resident Evil 7. Good. Returned to it's survival horror roots. Kinda short though. First person view and okay gun control. Would recommend if you like the series or Dead Space.

[Anonymouswizard]

I finally got around to picking up an Xbox One controller for my PC, so I've been playing some Devil May Cry 4 to test it out because I know how Nero controls (terribly in my hands, but that's due to other reasons). It works fine, and feels much nicer to play than it did on console.

But mainly I've been playing Psychonauts. I'm finding it really charming, if a bit annoying in some of the platforming sections (it took me an embarassingly long time to work out the rules for the MC level). I really do miss 3D platformers and wish that 2D ones weren't the preferred style, although maybe I prefer them to 2D platformers because I grew up on them. I do remember getting annoyed at the new Tomb Raider games for breaking up fun jumpy platforming sections with forced combat or stealth sections that took several times as long (I'm sorry but if I want shooting or stealth I own games focused on shooting and stealth, I bought a Tomb Raider game for the jumping and puzzles).