In What Electronic Entertainment Have You Been Partaking #18: Reticulating Splines

[Synobun]

Poking at The Witcher 3. It's... okay? so far.

 

[tjs282]

Sooo, I fired up the original Fallout for the first time yesterday.

No real clue what I was doing (don't think I've ever actually played a 'proper' RPG before), so fairly predictably, I died on my first quest, (failing) to clear out the Radscorpion cave near Sandy Scrubs. I got 3 of the buggers, and used a couple of Stimpacks to recover most of my lost HP, but the 4th one got in some good hits, whereas I missed Every. Single. Shot.

Probably should have paid a little more attention to the bit in the manual that explained how to light flares for more light/better visibility, because they're don't really work as simple projectile weapons. Especially when "You missed"...

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Sooo, I fired up the original Fallout for the first time yesterday.

No real clue what I was doing (don't think I've ever actually played a 'proper' RPG before), so fairly predictably, I died on my first quest, (failing) to clear out the Radscorpion cave near Sandy Scrubs. I got 3 of the buggers, and used a couple of Stimpacks to recover most of my lost HP, but the 4th one got in some good hits, whereas I missed Every. Single. Shot.

Probably should have paid a little more attention to the bit in the manual that explained how to light flares for more light/better visibility, because they're don't really work as simple projectile weapons. Especially when "You missed"...

I enjoyed the game but the controls and user interface were abysmal. I also used a guide to get through it as there are various time limits that will prevent you from getting certain outcomes.

 

[JPetroski]

I'm really enjoying the update to Gary Grigsby's Eagle Day to Bombing the Reich. Here we have my operations planned for NW Europe on September 1st, 1943. I figure, given it is the 4-year anniversary of the start of the war, I'd send Bomber Command (blue raids) over to Berlin to make everyone lose some sleep. I have my Lancs and Halifaxes headed that way. Stirlings will be a diversion striking the Ruhr as well as Rheine. During the day, my B-17s will strike at targets near the Ruhr while I'll work over various targets in Belgium and Holland (white). I also have a few fighter sweeps planned (green) to see if I can catch some aircraft returning to base after attacking my bomber formations.

I still need to plot some night intruder raids to have them loiter over suspect Nachtjagdflieger bases, as well as some electronic counter measure aircraft along the route to Berlin.

Then I'll need to figure out what to do in Italy. Avalanche is going to start any day now and I've been pounding rail yards as well as various army divisions, but the latter especially exposes my forces to so much flak that they just get chewed up.

Any of you ever play any of these types of games?

Spoiler :

 

[Birdjaguar]

Been playing a bit of Grim Dawn since I finished the Week from Hell. 'Tis a fun game. I'm playing the Old Gods expansion right now with a character that already beat the main game months and months ago, and it's cool and all but I just don't feel the same connection to this new world as I did to the world of the main game and Ashes of Malmouth expansion. I actually felt attached to (some of) the characters in that storyline, and felt a genuine sense of accomplishment when I defeated the final bosses in Act IV and Act VI.

Now it's just levelling up my character, the only sense of attachment I feel is to UNLIMITED POWER to just destroy my enemies.

Of course, one of the nice things about this game is that there is massive amounts of mindless violence that's not really attached to any main quest. The game world abounds with side levels and extra dungeons full of interesting stuff.

Grim Dawn is solid. The last expansion is only really good if you dweeb into the mythos of thier celestial and chaos pantheon. Then it's very good again. You're starting to get big enough to have unintended consequences as you stomp around, but you're definitely still being used.

The item grind at endgame is pretty deep. It's where most of thier effort went. Ultimate difficulty in the last expansion is really nasty.

If you like to play Grim Dawn, you should step up your play with Path of Exile. Lots of monsters to kill, lore for those who enjoy it, good leveling and gearing activity. It's free to try. The learning curve can be intimidating, but the rewards of playing excellent. Try it. You'll like it.

 

[Lexicus]

Grim Dawn's about as far as I want to go in that direction. It's already a little hard for me on the easiest difficulty. The way the game is balanced, the regular mooks never really pose much of a threat (though when I run into new ones they kill me sometimes if they attack in unexpected ways - e.g. these scorpion-man things in the expansion that shoot globs of poison and do DoT where they land, and if you don't keep moving when fighting them you will die quickly, as I found out the first time I encountered them) but the bosses and heroes get very hard to kill, both because they level up with you and because of the game's reputation system. You get rewards from increasing reputation with friendly factions (best gear in the game comes from achieving the highest status, "Revered," with a faction) but you also gain negative reputation with enemy factions when you enemies of that faction, and hitting certain milestones leads to stronger/extra hero and boss spawns.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Grim Dawn's about as far as I want to go in that direction. It's already a little hard for me on the easiest difficulty.

There are no difficulty levels in POE. The game gets more difficult as you go deeper into the game. There are 10 Acts and then an end game. The game doesn't actually get hard until the end game mapping. All of the Acts and maps are very repeatable and provide loot tied to the difficulty of the areas played. The game focuses on building characters that are powerful and fun. There are few restrictions on how or what you build other than one's understanding of the game and creativity.

 

[Lexicus]

There are no difficulty levels in POE. The game gets more difficult as you go deeper into the game. There are 10 Acts and then an end game. The game doesn't actually get hard until the end game mapping. All of the Acts and maps are very repeatable and provide loot tied to the difficulty of the areas played. The game focuses on building characters that are powerful and fun. There are few restrictions on how or what you build other than one's understanding of the game and creativity.

So, you wouldn't say it's super-difficult? And you can play PoE with friends?

 

[Birdjaguar]

So, you wouldn't say it's super-difficult? And you can play PoE with friends?

Yes you can party play. I often play with beginners who are just learning the game to speed up their knowledge base of what's possible and what is smart. There are league choices:

Current league Heist: has a special in game sub game related thievery related quests that can be skipped.
Regular: trade between players allowed, parties allowed (most common)
SSF; solo self found, no trading for better gear, no parties, you are on your own
Hard core: when you die, your character goes to the Standard league
HC SSF: combines HC and SSF

Standard League: none of the new league special content, but lots of rich old content. All characters end up in this league when the current league ends. It is a rich depository of gear and currency. I like playing standard; many do not.

 

[Birdjaguar]

I'd be more than happy to walk you though playing if you want to try it out. I'm Chanbalam on Steam.

 

[Synobun]

I'd be more than happy to walk you though playing if you want to try it out. I'm Chanbalam on Steam.

Whoa Black Betty!

 

[Lexicus]

Yes you can party play. I often play with beginners who are just learning the game to speed up their knowledge base of what's possible and what is smart. There are league choices:

Interesting. I may try it out in 2022 when I finish my degree.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Interesting. I may try it out in 2022 when I finish my degree.

 

[Lexicus]

I'm on a strict no-new-video-game policy for the next two academic years. And the only games I can play must be mindless, short-term entertainment; nothing that can get me sucked in for days on end like Hearts of Iron IV or Civ IV. At least, not during the actual semesters. Probably make exceptions to that rule for winter and summer break. Though I may also be working so we'll see.
The only games I've played since the semester started are:
Medieval II: Total War
Grim Dawn (as mentioned)
and a brief spurt of killing Nazis in Red Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad.

btw @Ajidica my M2 campaign is pretty much over. The mongols and timurids actually settled in Constantinople and Jerusalem respectively, but I coul win the game at any point by capturing Rome because I have like 70 regions controlled. Haven't played that in over a week now anyway.

 

[Chukchi Husky]

I finished playing through Sonic CD again, this time getting all the Time Stones, although it ended up with a glitch where the Bad Future boss levels loaded, even though having all the Time Stones gives a Good Future.

 

[Farm Boy]

I played PoE some. I don't want the FTP game itch in the back of my brain atm. I'm mostly on Risk of Rain 2.

 

[Takhisis]

the only games I can play must be mindless, short-term entertainment

Frogatto. Serious recommendation.

 

[AdamCrock]

I'm back to Civ IV for a while (Realism Invictus mod , Large Earth map scenario - because I love Earth maps ! ) Romans got this unit Balista with mathematics tech (which is probably first indirect attack unit in game - so I went out shooting stuff with it - barbs mostly , there's pacification promotion in this mod which allows more XP from barbs- until I got 100XP - wheeee ! Took 100 turns but it was worth it :] Now I need to wait until late in game to get that 1 more XP, because there's a promotion available that extends the range by 1 but it requires late game tech.

 

[Birdjaguar]

I played PoE some. I don't want the FTP game itch in the back of my brain atm. I'm mostly on Risk of Rain 2.

Let me know when you get that itch again.

 

[PhroX]

Well, as Path of Exile seems to be one of the current topics, it's what I've been playing most over the last couple of weeks. Heist is probably the worst league lauch since I've been playing - it's buggy, unbalanced and quite obviously needed a few more weeks work before release - but at the same time, the core mechanic of heisting is really fun. On top of that, my starter charcter - Cremation Archmage Necromancer - is a very enjoyable and effective build, with solid though unspectacular clearing (because I have to press two buttons then wait a second for the damage to happen, the damage and area are not lacking) but great single target and a lot of survivability.

As for whether people should play PoE, I'm obviously going to say yes if you like ARPGs (i.e. Diablo-esque games), but I will add the caveat that it is a fair bit faster paced than most of it's competitors. Grim Dawn for example, is a game I probably would've liked if I'd played it before I played PoE, as while it seems like a well made game, but after playing the latter, it just seems so sluggish and dull. Basically, for me, an ARPG should be about killing loads as monsters as quickly as possible, and PoE simply does that best.