Have you been spending hours trying to pass a level? Or maybe you are completely addicted to a newly bought game. Do you have a question about a game or would like to share something else? In the Weekly Discussion Thread, you can do it all!
Please don’t forget to use the spoiler tag as soon as you start talking about a storyline.
Vampire Survivors
Starfield and Final Fantasy 14. Both have been hard to find time for with general lack of time in life.
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Starfield: still enjoying it a lot. I know it is going to bore me eventually, but for now the exploration and personal narrative I’ve been rolling with have been enough to keep me interested.
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FF14: My static fell apart and we’ve given up on Savage raiding for this tier. There is a huge backlog of activities I haven’t been able to do this whole time while Savage prog occupied 90% of my time in-game, but now I can’t choose where to start.
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Starfield and Brotato
Getting bored. Starfield is just a buggy mediocre FPS. Everything else in it is giving me serious ‘no man’s sky’ vibes and not in a good way.
Starfield is a classic case of some misleading marketing on purpose, and, well, it just falls into the perpetually doomed category of games/media that will always suffer from extremely high expectations: sci-fi/space/cyberpunk. The imagination wanders especially far with games like these, and there’s little to none us, the consumers, and they, the devs and publishers, can ever do about it.
That being said, you’re right in not praising the game. It’s a niche fun in my opinion, and only shines if you take it for what it is, but not for what it seemed to have been marketed as.
TL;DR Stafield is a Bethesda game through and through, but with a coating some Microsoft PG-13 “play it safe” attitude.
Starfield, like a maniac.
Yeah, me too. Just shy of 140 hours in and still having a blast.
Just joined the Crimson Fleet for the first time, got my first custom spaceship that I’m happy with, still haven’t completed the UC questline, hardly dug into outposts at all…
I may be here for some time :)
Armored core 6. Finished one ending yesterday and on ng+ today. I’m way more invested in faceless characters than I thought I could be and there was an unexpected anime like fight that hit me in the feels
Got yuzu running on Ubuntu so I’m finally play breath of the wild ! I don’t normally pirate games but I don’t want to buy a switch for one game .
Funnily enough playing BotW on CEMU was what got me to get a switch, it was just so good I wanted to play it without any caveats or messing with settings or working around the gyro controls and the allure of playing it portably anywhere was high.
The only problem I’m having now is the gyro controls . Only found one temple so far that needs it but I’ll probably be able to get that works with one of my controllers .
I’ve lately finished my first playthrough of Katana Zero. Wondering about whether I should leave well enough alone or try for another ending. I might not have time honestly.
I recently introduced Untitled Goose Game to my 10 year old daughter, and now that’s all she wants to do with me every evening after her little sister goes to bed. So… That’s pretty much all I’ve been playing.
We’ll see what the next obsession will be.
Recently just got into Tunic! Amazing game!
Ac Odyssey. Hopefully finish it soon. Been good but a bit of a long slog. How would I know which quest is just a standard fetch or which one is worth it.
The quests you get from the quest boards, especially the ones with the hourglass icons can be pretty much blanket ignored. Otherwise you can tell when talking to the quest giver if Alexios/Kassandra accepts the quest generically and doesn’t respond to anything the giver says very specifically other than “I’ll take care of it” or things like that.
I love the shit out of that game, have been world exploring and only doing the unique side quests.
Fantastic news. I’ve not really used any of the boards. Too many quests already
The ones that aren’t timed (don’t have the hourglass icons) are worth picking up because they’re all just like “kill 20 Athenians”, “sink 5 ships”, basically shit you’re already doing, so you just swing by, pick them up, and keep playing like you already were and randomly one will pop and you’ll get fat XP for doing what you were doing already anyway, but that’s only if you want the extra XP, it’s totally unnecessary
Yeah I did a few when I just started but it was time consuming. Might try again if I need xp
I love AC. Or… did.
AC Odyssey was the first one in the entire series I couldn’t push myself to finish. I used to love just bumping around eliminating every single map icon, but Odyssey was way, way too big, and having my zen ruined by bounty hunters all the time was exhausting.
I heard Valhalla was even worse. It was the first one I skipped after playing each one since the original (even some of the 2D ones).
Yeah. I beat Odyssey completely. Absolutely loved it. I’m a huge fan or Norse mythology so I thought Valhalla would just totally captivate me but… I got bored! It was just too much. Started to feel incredibly repetitive.
You can just pay off your bounties instantly at any time from the map screen, and I’ve always had so much money in that game that I’ve never had to deal with a bounty hunter unless I wanted to, and I don’t even sell any gear, I dismantle it all.
If you’re a compulsionary completionist then the game is probably too big, but they make it as friendly as they can to not have to complete the world. Unique gear drops only seem to come from unique Cultist leaders or checking vendors, and there’s no achievements for completing all map markers, it’s just supplemental content for XP and some gear or if you just really want to do it, there’s no huge cost to just moving on to actual quest content if you want.
They don’t tell you when you’ve completed a whole region for a reason, to disincentivize completing it all unless you’re a madman. I’m doing world completion just because I like grinding the game, but it’s been two years in the making with big breaks in between, and if you ever feel like your gear or levels are behind the curve and you have to grind, the difficulty settings can be changed and can be set as forgiving as you like, they actually alter the level scaling and RPG aspects.
I think it’s a great game worth playing, but you do need to be ready to tell yourself when enough is enough because they give you too much for weirdos like me that just wanna experience it all over a really long… Odyssey.
I’m glad you had fun with it. Do accept that my inability to have fun with it doesn’t negate any of the enjoyment you got out of it. Respectfully, something this long instructing me of all the ways I must have played it wrong if I didn’t enjoy it as much as you comes off as a little condescending. I’m sure it wasn’t your intent, but like… I know I have the option to put it down or skip things. I know I can pay off bounties. I was there, these systems and ideas are not hard to find. But for me, the fact that I’m allowed to skip engaging with a system or put it down before I see all the devs put there for me to see is the opposite of a selling point.
For me, it’s like I ordered a meal at a favorite restaurant, the plate came out with portions three times larger than expected and gorgeously plated but with so little seasoning I couldn’t stomach it. Saying “you don’t have to eat it all” and “there’s salt on the table” doesn’t make it a good meal.
We find different things fun, and that’s okay. May we both have a good time with Mirage.
Sorry, my intent was not to sound condescending, I was erring on the side that you weren’t aware of the ways you could get around those issues in order to enjoy the parts you wanted to. Your criticisms are definitely valid, I would agree that even needing to know about the workarounds sort of proves that what was included wasn’t an entirely cohesive and tight product to begin with, the way I played is not necessarily right or wrong, and neither is yours, it’s just how I was able to mine the most enjoyment out of what was there.
My main idea is to not let someone see your comment and assume that that’s how the game is and there’s not another way to enjoy it or any clear ways to identify where content you’d want to play begins and ends, I was able to figure out and selective play the parts I enjoy, but even still there is content in that game that I skip because it’s, definitively, not fun. Even still, it’s become one of my favorite games of all time, but no one game is for everyone, thanks for the mature discussion, sincerely!
Yeah I haven’t needed to grind at all. Only time I dropped the difficulty level was with the poison boar. My gear stresses me out. I want the perks but then I hold onto it for like 10 levels.
Money has only been an issue as I wanted to upgrade ship and legendary tier is stupidly expensive. I’m sure by the time I finish the main quest I’ll have enough cash
Once you get the perks you want you totally can hold onto it. Every ten levels all of your perk and major attack stat bonuses on gear get more powerful, (but there’s no stat bonus to upgrading before the 10 level threshold at all) even when you upgrade the same old gear you had, but it happens at the “first” level of each ten, so not at level 20, instead it’s 21, 31, 41, etc.
Basically I’ve had the “same” gear for like 30 or 40 levels, now, just every time I hit the new stat range I go and upgrade all of it. It costs a shitload of gold, but aside from ship upgrades I don’t have another major gold sink, so it’s worth it to me, my perk loadout is extremely optimized for assassin damage, which is important for me since I’m basically playing it as an open world stealth game where I only fight if I get caught, I can one shot anyone I want, no exaggeration (using critical assassination when necessary).
The final ship upgrades are very expensive, yeah, just seems like they give you something to grind for if you get that far
Ah bugger. So if I hold onto everything until 62 I can upgrade everything
It’s not always the best option, like if you wanna save your gold for the ship upgrades it’ll eat a big chunk out of that, but you could totally keep your gear perks that way if you really like them, you can upgrade at 61, don’t have to wait for 62
Right I’ve got you. I’m sure I’ll recoup my losses eventually
I really enjoyed it. Beautiful scenery to explore but it is annoying with bounty hunters. There’s just too many quests. I think Valhalla was actually better in this regard. Honestly all games are repetitive. Most RPGs have a lot of fetch quests or something similar.
It’s not too bad of the game is 40 hours or so. It really grinds you down if it’s so big with millions of exactly the same quests. Each island each city.
That game is unbelievably long, especially it you do the dlcs
Sea of Stars has been the only game I made time to play in months.
Loving Starfield! Its not perfect but still very fun 😀
Recycling my comment from the other day. I am close to finishing The Outer Worlds. The game has a somewhat mixed reception when it comes up in discussions online and I think it’s mostly because the developer Obsidian made New Vegas and Outer Worlds apparently is the worse game. So, I never played New Vegas and therefore can’t compare the two. I do enjoy my time with Outer Worlds very much!
- it’s basically the same formula as Fallout 4 but in a humorous space setting with better gunplay. Or, alternatively Borderlands with a ton more talking and decisions and worse gunplay. In any case a lot of shooting and looting.
- different builds are possible but not as significant different as in Borderlands. But since it’s not a massively big game it didn’t matter that much to me. After a couple of changes I kinda kept investing mostly in my handgun, my companions and personality skills to pass more skillchecks.
- what I like: the stories the game tells! Be it the main quest line or quests for factions or your companions. All have a nice sense of humor to them without getting too silly. For example there is a dude in a wurst factory and you get sent there to end whatever he is doing there (hint: it’s more than producing wurst from spacepigs). And there are a number of ways you can approach this: guns blazing, trying to sabotage the factory or sneak in and just kill the guy.
- also: great soundtrack and overall sound design! The jingle that plays when you level up is just great!
- also: while not a massive big game there are a lot of different places to go and explore. From abandoned settlements in some sort of desert to a big city where only rich people live and everything in between.
- meh: so many drinks, lotions and food items that give you different boosts. Problem is that there are so many different items it’s hard to keep track which one does what. I abandoned pretty much all of them and only kept Adreno (restores energy).
- meh: fast travel can be annoying because most of the time you have to fast travel back to your ship and then from there select another planet/spacestation and then land your ship and then again fast travel to wherever you need to go to. So it’s potentially three (not very long, though) loading screens if you need to go someplace different.
- decisions do matter in quests but the general direction of the story is set.
I accidentally bought the outer worlds mistaking it for the outer wilds. I beat it but was annoyed the whole time lol.
Played Outer Worlds earlier this year, and I agree with your assessment. I did play Fallout New Vegas later on, and while New Vegas felt bigger, I think I enjoyed Outer Worlds a bit more. Mainly I think the humor hit more consistently FOR ME in OW, and I really think the humor kind of makes the game. But of course humor is very subjective, so I understand why a lot of people prefer FNV (not to mention it has a certain built-in cachet from all the other Fallout games).
Anyway, I enjoyed it, I’m glad I played it through to the end, but I wouldn’t play it again (e.g. to try different playstyles or run through with different companions). Glad you are also enjoying it!
My third time through factorio. This time with K2+SE mods. It’s taking a long time. Most of the time I’m waiting for my rockets and leave it afk for hours. Total play time 800+ hours, most of which I swear is afk! I’ve almost set up an outpost for every resource now, so that should make my life much much easier.
Xenogears using EmulationStation on Steamdeck.
Dope game so far, been a while since I played a good old school jrpg.
