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What are you playing?

@robot zombie I think asking if the new gamers can be harder is wrong way to look at it. Honestly, always found all the Pokemon games to be boring, and I never understood the cult that surrounds it, other than some of the Poke's are really cute I have to admit.

But the combat, yeah it never interested me really, it felt like you would need a dictionary alt-tabbed at all times to see which is the best counter to which mean, thats just boring to me.

I beat three fighter jet/ww2 flying games in last few weeks, most fun I have had in awhile.
 
CallandorWoT said:
@robot zombie I think asking if the new gamers can be harder is wrong way to look at it. Honestly, always found all the Pokemon games to be boring, and I never understood the cult that surrounds it, other than some of the Poke's are really cute I have to admit.

But the combat, yeah it never interested me really, it felt like you would need a dictionary alt-tabbed at all times to see which is the best counter to which mean, thats just boring to me.
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I think that's fair, and yes... that is very much how it is lol. There are several huge wikis to use for references... all of them necessary.

Smart move on Game Freak's part... sellin mad strategy guides. Bet.

It takes a while of playing and reading before you really begin to internalize it all in a way that really brings it together. But when you start finding yourself in these sort of highly specialized strategy niches, pulling major advantages from obscure connections and aligning stars (calculated risks you take, knowing the probabilities for different things,) it's a satisfying accomplishment. It really goes beyond type matching and physical/special. There are hidden stats, natures, EVs... stat gain on level-ups in itself can be pretty complicated. That's a whole ass spreadsheet game in itself. Legit... unless you want to memorize those formulae and do a lot of mental math. You work out a path to breeding a pokemon exactly right and then spend hours to days getting it to its final form, depending on the specifics of the catching and breeding (breeding a certain pokemon requires parents with certain traits... and not just one or two simple things you can just know off of the bat. They'll throw you weird shit like needing to have one parent hold a certain item. Other times a pokemon is born with a unique item that can only be gotten by again, picking the right parents and praying a little.) There are lots of hold items that come into play in different ways, to be used in movesets that are built around using certain battle strategies that play to specific strengths that pokemon has in stats and movepool. You gotta dig into the movepools. There are hundreds that can be taught externally, others can only be learned if you raise one from a baby form that you only get from breeding the right way. Same thing happens with passive abilities (most pokemon have at least two, others have more that require different game-mechanic 'keys' to get.) Many pokemon have moves that can be 'remembered' with the help of a 'move rememberer' and they include special moves that it couldn't learn any other way and could change how you use that pokemon, and it may even be that only one stage in their evolution can even learn it. How do you learn that?! Ya study lmao. There are plenty of things I still don't understand, quite a lot is possible... very elaborate.

I don't necessarily care if they ever really make it harder. It's a game for everyone - so it can't be too hard. It would however be nice to have some kind of "hardcore" mode that much more heavily tests the player's understanding of the mechanics. The franchise has a big competitive scene, plenty of serious players to carry a feature like that. It's just like... why is so much of this here if the guardrails never even come down to really have a reason to delve that far? Just to drive the competitive scene? Even if that is true, it doesn't make sense to me. If the game had the ability to be more difficult, would it not bring in more people who would later enjoy the competitive side, after truly mastering the mechanics through the tests the game gives. As it stands now, you can rip through any of these games a dozen times and barely be aware of half of the mechanics that can come into play, because it never challenges you to really learn them. It shows them to you, and then they vanish from your awareness forever because just matching types with decently leveled pokemon is usually enough.

I don't know. I'm with you on the cult fanbase. My connection to pokemon is pretty much just the games at this point. I can get the appeal, though. Personally it was a huge part of my childhood. I came in at the very start of the first wave at just the right age. It was huge in school, too. We were all doing pokemon everything. That is the game that will take me back to being 8 again, easily. I think it's a bit like that for many people. I will always have a major soft spot for the aesthetic. For all of my obsessive tendencies, I don't seem to have that fan gene. Pokemon definitely can't hold my attention indefinitely. If much could to begin with, it'd still be lower on that list. I eventually criticize the things I love the most harshly, anyway. The closer I get, the more I see the flaws.

I can tell you the itch it scratches with me. It's like finding hidden areas in a classic Metroid level... but for RPG strategy. You thread that needle. You just found the craziest secret area in Super Mario World. It feeds that mindset that looks to find the tiniest gaps in the armor. Pokemon's mechanics are to armor what puzzle locks are to functional locks. It's set to pick away at, find the tricks. If you're the type of person who likes to break down a game's mechanics, it has a ton of interesting, offbeat stuff going on. Boring to many, but when I get a good hyperfocus, it can be very engrossing. I like that there's a lot to string together - and that it can be kind of weird and obscure. The only thing that touches it for me would be like... a good Final Fantasy game on SNES. Those are also pretty gnarly when it comes to the level of sheer in-depth tomfoolery with gear, mechanics, stats, what have you. It was the bulk of what they had to work with in those days, so they went all in. I don't wanna think about what it takes to put together in the first place. You might as well print some FAQs before you shove off - you're gonna have some projects when it comes to everything to do with your party. Those games do give you incentive to delve though. The time you put into mastering your understanding of the various systems pays off hugely, in a million different ways.
 
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Sea of Thieves but my, my, my these servers take ages to connect.
 
Witcher 3 - Hunting some witches if you know what I mean. :laugh:

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If I play my cards right, in a few years this could be me

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Glad I picked up a Marill in Pokemon Platinum. This game doesn't have a lot of water types. You can get Buizel early with great speed and attack, but the moves aren't that great. Azumarill is kind of underappreciated but it looks like it's pretty much as good as it was in the last games. So it's secretly a beast.

It's stats don't look impressive at first. It's got what look like mid-level tank stats, with high defenses but rather lacking attack stats and boosted HP. They usually come with the ability thick fat which will give a 50% defense boost against ice and fire, two types it already has natural resistance to. Useful if you want to... torment AI's who have fire or much rarer ice type moves, I guess. It just isn't that useful.

But if you look around for a bit, you can catch one with the rarer huge power ability, which renders the attack stat double of what is shown. So now, Azumarill's kinda sad base 50 attack stat is actually 100. To put that into perspective, a friggin Moltres has the same physical attack stat in this game. It's legendary-level.

So, with that ability, it is massively powerful as a physical attacker, with solid phys/spec defense and chonkin HP. It also knows the move rollout when you catch it as a Marill. Basically, it's a physical rock-type attack that binds your pokemon to only use that attack for up to 5 turns (or until it misses,) with the power doubling after each hit. You can't do anything until the cycle is broken. The first hit is 30, the next is 60, then 120, then 240, and then finally 480. Even 120 base damage is very high. I don't know if many other moves cross that in base damage, most moves that powerful have poor accuracy and you only get 5 goes with them total. Rollout gets 20 goes at landing streaks of 5 rolls. You have an absurd amount of damage tucked away in that move. It will do almost 1000 base damage across 5 turns. That's stupid high when a standard attack does 60-80 per one-turn use.

I can additionally go back and have it remember defense curl, a level 2 move that it would normally have forgotten by the time you catch it at level 20. That move usually only increases defense by a stage, but when used before rollout, it DOUBLES the base damage. So you start at 60. The 5th roll hits for 960 damage. Almost ONE THOUSAND base damage on a single turn in a game where an attack over ONE HUNDRED is already high! I mean, the 3rd one already hits for 240 at that point, which is dropping most really strong pokemon in the main game when you add in the legendary attack stat on the other end of the equation.

You can also slap-on a zoom lens to deal with the 90% accuracy, keep it from missing in the middle of sequence. Or you can play it slightly riskier and use a razor claw to instead up the critical hit chance for the odd mega roll.

I'm using this to roll through trainers with big teams. Literally rolling through them. I kinda don't worry much about what comes out next. By stage 2 or 3, typing and stuff kinda starts to matter a lot less. Rock doesn't have a type that it has zero effect on. And even halved by a resistance, it's still endgame level base damage and well beyond by the next hit. Nothing is surviving the next turn, when it hits for double that. Azumarill is a tank that can take a hit or two, so it will stay in the fight to land that. You could also consider that the huge power's base doubling offsets the resistances half-reduction. Add defense curl boosting and we are back at full huge power levels.

The downside is that Azumarill is kinda gimped as a water type by these stats. The most common strong water moves are special, not physical. The HM move Surf is a killer water attack that hits everything not levitating for a high base of 95 water damage, but it does rely on Azumarills weaker special. He learns a base 90 physical water move at level 47. Too bad, as you get the ability to teach surf no matter what, just as part of progressing. It's one the best water moves ever. Surf will still be great here, just not amazing. In the meantime, I have to think about how I want to pad out the typing. Get a fighting or ground move in there. Maybe even ice. It comes down to what I can get as a physical move.


This is what I like about these games. There are a whole lot of different ways to kick ass in different situations. Every pokemon has different, specialized strengths and weaknesses that all come together in your choice of ways. This is just one of many many ways to go.

Hell, this strategy sounds OP, but there's plenty in the game to break a rollout loop. Some pokemon have moves that break it by blocking all incoming attacks for a turn, with moves like detect or protect. They could throw a substitution that eats all of the damage before breaking. They could use minimize or double team to up evasion, or use one of the many accuracy dropping moves, either of which can make rollout pretty much unusable. They could use an attack move that induces flinching. A move like roar forces your opponent to switch pokemon. There's always fly and dig, too.

This is what I mean though. I know the game can beat me on this, it just won't try. :/
 
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robot zombie said:
The downside is that Azumarill is kinda gimped as a water type by these stats. The most common strong water moves are special, not physical. The HM move Surf is a killer water attack that hits everything not levitating for a high base of 95 water damage, but it does rely on Azumarills weaker special. He learns a base 90 physical water move at level 47. Too bad, as you get the ability to teach surf no matter what, just as part of progressing. It's one the best water moves ever. Surf will still be great here, just not amazing. In the meantime, I have to think about how I want to pad out the typing. Get a fighting or ground move in there. Maybe even ice. It comes down to what I can get as a physical move.
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You have two options:

1) Max Speed, Max Attack, last EVs into HP. Then use Belly Drum. Item should be a Sitrus Berry. Other moves would be Aqua Jet, Waterfall, Play Rough. Or you can throw in Knock Off (depending on gen).

2) Max Attack and Speed with much of the same move set but has a Choice Band or Life Orb. Or Mystic Water if you're not into taking damage with each attack.

Be sure it has Huge Power for ability for either set.


Another good option if you play Doubles (my preferred) is to use Discharge. You can use that to speed up Electivire, increase special attack for Manectric, or restore HP for Jolteon. You can use Discharge on all three so they're constantly helping each other. Electivire and Manectric get decent move coverage, Electivire can be a physical attacker. Other team options can be Garchomp (immune to electric), Sceptile if they bring back Mega Evolutions, Noivern with Telepathy (has access to Tailwind) or even Gardeivor.


Some Pokemon like Arcanine can have 3+ sets. Arcanine can be a Special Attacker, Physical Attacker or Bulky Support. With the Support set, you have the ability as Intimidate to lower enemy physical attack. Then put Will-O-Wisp on to further lower their physical attack, or lower the opponents switch in Pokemon. Then but Snarl on there to minimize enemy Special Attackers. You can opt for Morning Sun or a damaging move. Extreme Speed can be a good option. Be sure to put left overs on, and EVs in defensive stats.
 
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Flogger23m said:
You have two options:

1) Max Speed, Max Attack, last EVs into HP. Then use Belly Drum. Item should be a Sitrus Berry. Other moves would be Aqua Jet, Waterfall, Play Rough. Or you can throw in Knock Off (depending on gen).

2) Max Attack and Speed with much of the same move set but has a Choice Band or Life Orb. Or Mystic Water if you're not into taking damage with each attack.

Be sure it has Huge Power for ability for either set.
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Good tips, that's where the EVs are going. Of course, belly drum and a healing berry gives a really good boost to damage output. Aqua Jet and Waterfall are probably great with that. Aqua Jet is out though, I'm not breeding another for this playthrough and it's not for competing. I can probably make due without it. Choice band wouldn't be a bad grab for obvious reasons, I might go for it when I get to the frontier.

I'm thinking of it in terms of a 'playthough' pokemon mostly, so it becomes a matter of how deep is worth going before you're just showing off to the game :laugh:
 
Finally done with Pillars of Eternity, although I haven't done the dlc yet.
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I finished GoW and i tried Lost Ark.....
8.6 hours already in, im really liking this game.
 

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jormungand said:
I finished GoW and i tried Lost Ark.....
8.6 hours already in, im really liking this game.
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22hrs since the delayed launch (for me it launched Saturday morning at ~1am)
started with a small gift
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9.50chf left on STEAM balances since months : just a few crystal and took the outfit ... i like the design :laugh: also, what's that trickery? a Korean MMOARPG with extensive character customization like we are used to ... but ... no boob slider??? that's criminal!
and even tho it's a 3D iso, the char and the world are so detailed, it's almost on par with BDO when you zoom in ....
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no P2W madness (rather pay to advance faster for those who despise grinding too much ) non gear dependent PVP (actually almost fun ... unlike usual PVP ... reminiscent of w0w 3v3 arena) absolutely no need to use the cash shop at all (you get a free Pet that do all a premium one do and also unlike Korean version : not a rental one ) and the subscription is rather tame (around 4.50chf a month and not game breaking if not subbing, almost ended my free 3 days i got x) ): Crystaline Aura is the sub , leveling is fast enough story is fun environment and mechanic are deep and well made and i can see why the real game start after lvl 50 (aka endgame)
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there is a few grip around like the gender locked classes (not caring ... i played BDO did not complain ... ) male or female class not having same advanced classes (aka Gunslinger has 3 subclass male 1 for female ... but then ... Martial Artist has 3 subclass female 1 for male ... ) but well ... CohhCarnage who did 3 days headstart liked it thus i knew i would like it ... ahah ...
edit: OH! and the "Daisy Duke" on the female Gunslinger (wait ... is this even actually a complaint??? :roll: )

way to go Amazon, you almost redeemed New World fiasco (well they are not the devs, just the publisher... that's probably why ... :laugh: )
 
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Dihonored Death Of The Outsider.

Originally I thought I'd do Emily non-lethal run in Dishonored 2 > Dishonored DOTO as whatever I want > Dishonored 2 again as Korvo lethal run. But with sudden academic pressure, I'l ditch the plan for Korvo lethal run I guess.

No screenshot because Dishonored as a series imo is a beautifully ugly game. And the game are first person as well.
 
When you see a NOLF shortcut on your desktop it's just too tempting.
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I love how the game takes the piss out of the chauvinist males in the game, but doesn't spoil the fun by ramming the feminist issue down our throats, because clearly it doesn't take itself too seriously, unlike today's current social climate.
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Then I saw a post on a Steam thread asking whether he/she should play Black Mesa before or after HL1, so I fired it up. Still great after all these years.
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So I just had to go back to Black Mesa after not having played it for two years and with the Definitive Edition, they've really polished it up, but I still don't like Xen all that much. Never did, really.
Oh and with the updates, old saves won't work so it's back to the beginning.
 
Splinterdog said:
they've really polished it up, but I still don't like Xen all that much. Never did, really.
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why not? i really enjoyed their vision for Xen. I loved to reply the all game.
 
Flying in VR is so much fun, landing is still a challenge ..aircraft carrier landing :fear:
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Sadly I have been consumed by yet another playthrough of Skyrim. Doing an adventurer/schollar role play where I research the dwemer. I am a high elf and have a dwemer follower. Been loads of fun with all the new dwemer mods.
 
Now lets go on, i play atm No Mans Sky on a free old HD 7770 but there is a big issue and its not the GPU,
its the CPU.

I still have even my worse A10 7870K (Godavari with 4,1 GHz),
BF4 drops to 29 FPS
BF1 not playabe
No Mans Sky with Stock Settings (cause that garbage CPU) and GPU intense at enhanced, 30 FPS on the Planet in the CPU Limit (HD 7770 73%) :laugh:


What a garbage CPU this is, its insane nothing playale with 60 FPS:mad:

Im sure the new Celeron can beat this shhhhh.... cpu :laugh:
 
Home sick, waiting on test results. So I'm casually hammering out some more progress in the HZD 100% run.

One thing I will say about it... my approaches to combat just keep evolving and making it more satisfying. I appreciate how free-form it can be, sort of like how most things to do with the open world are in a continuous free-roaming system. It has this consistency in the feel... admittedly only broken up by the menu system, which is as dated to me as it is in games coming out this year. Metro Exodus was the game that I think broke me of the whole "theme park" method of placing waypoints everywhere and tucking so many actions into menus with giant maps and friggin tables... the navigating of which break action and atmosphere immediately. When I'm out in the world, just taking shit in, maybe this incredible score is creeping in.... I'm immersed. I feel like I'm there. And then I realize I need to change weapons... and the moment that menu screen comes up, playing that same looping theme it always plays, that world is gone from my mind. I don't feel that it's 'real' anymore. Every time I've closed the game, it's been after it got left open on the menu screen that finally broke me out.

That's when the seams of the fantasy world just break for me. I liked Metro Exodus's approach where as many things as possible were done in a more hands on and meaningful way, just right in the game with no menus or odd control-scheme swaps. It's all directly important to the gameplay, but the consequences of not keeping up with certain things were generally well balanced and keeping up itself isn't that hard, it's just little stuff put there to drive your immersion and hide the fact that these are just game mechanics away from you. And then, they toss you into these levels with little idea of where to start - a goal with no clue how exactly you should get there, but you can start to figure out what to do by exploring and interacting with things... which you will do by carefully sizing things up, as there's nothing necessarily there on the map that's even going to tell you the difference between a completely empty building and the entrance to a bandit camp. You need to observe your surroundings for that. Very few things are behind menus. And the world itself beckons you to observe it with its beauty and detail.

You *want* to chonk into that world. You don't know what's coming, because the game hasn't told you. And that's exciting. Most open world games I fire up now give me choice-blindness with the amount of shit they immediately give you a full, clear path to doing, with no sense of what is even best or worthwhile, but an added burden of commitment on my part that I may not want to make before exploring. They just leave jack shit to the imagination and it hurts them dearly. It's just a bunch of predetermined paths to walk, and so many open-world games make zero qualms about having the player be fully aware of that at all times. The veneer of alluring stories and locations is meaningless if you let the players see the full lie that is the actual game world right away. You're being told that, and staring down a sprawling map full of what are essentially just a mix of levels and mini games.

To be fair, that's the bulk of what all of these games are. But what I am arguing over is the presentation of those elements. Are we going on a hike down some new, little explored trails? Or is this more like a shopping mall with differently decorated wings and clearly marked storefronts where you make straight a-b purchases? Does that make any sense? I hope so.

A game like RDR2's immersive qualities seem superfluous by comparison to something like Exodus... they're exclusively for atmosphere, they take a lot of time, and many give you little in return other than being able to say you saw Arthur speed-skin a rabbit. While that stuff is cool, it staggers the gameplay loop across stuff that intentionally breaks that sequence and makes you stop to go on whatever little ride they're taking you on. You cannot simply enjoy the world in a game like that. You have to do it their way or barely at all. Something I realized replaying it a couple of times. The veil of all of that is fading by the 3rd playthrough and you realize you are still stuck with it all. The world of RDR2 is kind of dead to me now. I love the characters and the story, but I'll never really 'believe' it like I might've the first time. You know what game surprisingly hasn't done that to me? Friggin FO4. I can still get into that world, and it doesn't ever really try to stop me. Steam says 2269.8 hours of my life are in that world.

It's just a bad mark on an open world. The best ones are deep and emergent enough that you continue to appreciate them more as you play. RDR2 has the depth, but not the freedom for me to be continually immersed. If the seams start jumping out at you early, it's failing at one of it's main jobs, which is to immerse the player in a suitably large and convincing world for many hours of free-roaming gameplay that is rewarding. To me, it should take more than a playthrough or two to know all of the tricks of the world and feel like you don't need to explore it anymore.

HZD doesn't have it as bad there, because it's leaning more into the videogamey aspects to keep player action and agency on top of the whole experience. Most of the things that get simplified facilitate a more seamless gameplay loop, freeing the player to enjoy the environment and story more on their own terms... which to me should be a core tenant of every open world (Do you hear me Rockstar?) But that's another can of worms. HZD doesn't often lock you in. This leaves classic narrative gaps, but with those remaining largely unsolved within the zeitgeist, I'd rather games not try to 'deal' with that unless they've got a good answer, because a lot of the current answers to that narrative dissonance suck no less.

This is definitely one of those games that makes me think a lot about how open world games go together, what the experience is supposed to be and how that gets realized.
 
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seth1911 said:
I still have even my worse A10 7870K (Godavari with 4,1 GHz),
BF4 drops to 29 FPS
BF1 not playabe
No Mans Sky with Stock Settings (cause that garbage CPU) and GPU intense at enhanced, 30 FPS on the Planet in the CPU Limit (HD 7770 73%) :laugh:
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And, even Godavari, is supposed to be better than Kaveri. It's the gen right after Kaveri, IIRC. I guess it will be hard to notice the difference between a Kaveri and a Godavari.
My Athlon X4 860K, (Kaveri) would get overwhelmed in Halo MCC, IIRC. Yep, mine was struggling with Halo MCC, too. And of course, the Radeon RX 580, didn't help that much. I could still play GTA V, but the CPU percentage was sky-high, IIRC. I think it would get spanked by my first-gen Core i7! :laugh: (Core i7 Extreme 965, which of course, only has 4 cores/8 threads) (Bloomfield, the gen where you would expect 220W+ for a good OC!) Glad that I got my first Ryzen build on January 3, 2020! My Kaveri got spanked by my Ryzen 3 3200G! (Picasso) (con: limited to PCI-E 3.0 and 8-lanes at max)
 
Okay, one thing that constantly KILLS me with Horizon... and it's gotten me a lot today... is the gotdamb aim release on slow mo. Why? It will still cancel your whole charged up shot for a split-second AFTER releasing the firing trigger, if you then release the aiming one. So it goes like this: Hold left trigger to aim, hold right trigger to charge, release right trigger to fire, release left trigger to zoom back out and get full movement. Ideally. In reality, if there isn't enough time between firing and releasing, it won't fire.

My training, in all games that shoot like this is to release the aiming trigger pretty much as close to immediately after you have fired as possible, so you can move and react quicker. But when you go into slow mo in HZD, you CANNOT just let go of the aiming immediately after you fire or it cancels. So many times I will be in mid air, about to get jumped on, but I've got the crosshair on the vital part. In that moment, instinct kicks in and I want to have full motion to escape as quickly as possible after firing - if I miss, I need to roll ASAP. This results in me releasing the aiming trigger 'too soon,' cancelling the shot, and getting me hit instead. Now, my advantage is gone and I will need to regroup. That's a lot of time lost in a fight. Probably HP, too. It's never gonna be the thing to make me lose, but man can it be annoying.

So it ends up feeling like I'm being punished for being like, a few ms too fast with my hands. I've checked. I always release the shooting trigger first, after which point it should fire... irreversibly. If I let go of a bowstring with my finger, I will not be able to stop the arrow from firing anymore, even if I pull the bow down as I do so. But I guess slow mo also means slower input tracking. Which somewhat makes sense. Perhaps that's the way they keep animations synced with input. But wait... why not just let the shooting animation finish before responding to letting off of the aim? You know? Actually take them in order. I don't think I will ever be able to train myself out of that screw-up... and wouldn't want to because the moment I play an actual shooter, having the habit of lingering in sight is death. I can't think of too many games that ever punish you for sighting-out immediately after shooting.
 
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