What Video Games Have You Been Playing #15: Computer not on fire yet? Better add more mods!

[yung.carl.jung]

My dad got VR goggles for christmas, the expensive ones. that stuff is boring af, all the games suck and the simulations I really don't care for. I'd rather play pokemon crystal on the game boy color for the one hundreth time than be subjected to badly made VR games once again. the only good thing to ever come out of VR, imo, is in the art scene, and even there most things are pretty damn uninteresting.

most gamers have awful taste. immersion, realism, fake novelty and retro-indulgence now take precedence over gameplay, creativity, good mechanics. I genuinely don't remember the last time a new game was aesthetically original. point in case: both Cuphead and Bloodborne were two games (rightfully) praised for their aesthetic, yet both were just rehashs of already very well-established styles, both were full of cliches, and both have been done already, in hundreds of ways. It's exactly like pop art, or rather: it is as if all art produced all over the world was nothing but pop art. that is how I feel about vidya aesthetics.

if it wasn't for a few studious producing some high quality stuff, I'd say vidya as a medium is dead for me. it's by far the most creatively void, derivative stuff that is out there, even compared to cinema.

luckily I can still play old games. for now, until steam transforms them into subscription models at some point in the not-so-distant future. just like how Adobe invalidated all the old photoshop and indesign physical discs I had. at least there is always gog

 

[EgonSpengler]

Path of Exile

While my whirling dervish Gladiator makes his way through the Atlas of Worlds and the Delve mines, I'm also messing around with a new Witch and a Shadow.

Witch: I enjoyed my Necromancer a lot and want to try an Elementalist. It looks like you can get 4 Golems going, just from the passive skill tree. With the Necromancer I went a little insane with passive bonuses on my minions. With the Elementalist, I want to be able to cast a couple of spells myself, in addition to having Golems that both absorb and inflict a lot of damage. I'm looking hard at Elemental Equilibrium, with two different attack spells in addition to the Golems. Right now, in Act 2, she's using Fireball, Frost Bomb and Orb of Storms, which seems great but I don't know how well those spells scale up (also 3 Zombies, but I'll ditch the undead once the Golems are available). I have a couple of low-level artifacts that are giving her an unholy amount of Energy Shield, which is kind of fun, so I'm thinking I might try to build towards a really high Energy Shield.

Shadow: I'm thinking about a high-Crit, Phasing, Elusive, dagger Assassin. I'm using Blade Vortex right now (Act 3, I think), but it's not very tricked out yet. I don't love that your character stops moving when you cast it, and you have to cast it a lot.

 

[Snerk]

My dad got VR goggles for christmas, the expensive ones. that stuff is boring af, all the games suck and the simulations I really don't care for. I'd rather play pokemon crystal on the game boy color for the one hundreth time than be subjected to badly made VR games once again. the only good thing to ever come out of VR, imo, is in the art scene, and even there most things are pretty damn uninteresting.

What games did you play? It's not everybody's cup of tea but saying that the format is objectively bad seems pretty weird tbh.

most gamers have awful taste...

luckily I can still play old games. for now, until steam transforms them into subscription models at some point in the not-so-distant future. just like how Adobe invalidated all the old photoshop and indesign physical discs I had. at least there is always gog

ok boomer

 

[Broken_Erika]

There's something fishy going on in my play through of Fallout 4. Gauss rifles were supposed to start spawning after level 25, I'm at level 60+ and haven't found a single one. I pick up ammunition for it all the time though. I also keep picking up weapons from the Nuka World and Far Harbor expansions inside Boston, but cannot find any ammo for those guns. I have also not started the Nuka World or Far Harbor quests either.

I also had the game crash on me three times in the space of half an hour yesterday.

I am beginning to think that the Gauss rifles must be tied to some specific quest because I have not advanced very far in the main quest lines for the games. I've been doing side quests almost exclusively.

I think i found a gauss rifle once, out of many games. And i think it may have been off a dead paladin, or it was a legendary gauss rifle. I can't really remember, all i do remember is that they are carried by the BOS and really hard to find. I also remember finding nuka world guns but no ammo a few times. Now i have Weaponsmith extended so i have a ridicujlous number of guns in my game, including an AMR that does 300 damage per hit without any perks. And a 7.62x51mm minigun that does 98 damage per bullet with no perks.(standard 5mm minigun does 33 damage per bullet, miniguns are scary)

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I once had a mod that let me add legendary perks to any guns but I found that at a certain point it sucks all the fun out of the game by making it too easy. I now have an explosive shotgun and .44 pistol and they are so powerful I sometimes want to put them away.

I've never had an issue finding a Gauss rifle until this play through.

 

[Broken_Erika]

And weaponsmith extended also has .50BMG minigun. 300+ damage per bullet.

 

[Lexicus]

I found that at a certain point it sucks all the fun out of the game by making it too easy.

This is why when I reach certain milestones in Skyrim (typically Extra Effect in Enchanting) I crank the difficulty up to Legendary.

 

[Lexicus]

Let's see,

I played an awesome HOI4 game in which, as the Soviet Union, I focused all effort on Japan first because I set the Germans to restore the Kaiser, meaning that Barbarossa doesn't happen on the historical timeline.

Communist China executed Chiang Kai-Shek instead allying with the Nationalists, which turned out to be a huge advantage as the Nationalists declared war on the Communists shortly before the Japanese invaded. The Japanese then declared war on Communist China which asked to join the Comintern, a request I acceded to and declared war on Japan in late 1938 or early 1939, forget exactly which. Japan also declared war on the warlords one by one and they all joined the Comintern as well. Things went well, Japan was not able to stand up against me as I built 10 infrastructure across the USSR to the Far East, and Japan was ejected from mainland China entirely by 1940, leaving Communist China the dominant power (while I occupied Korea) - Japan made several landings but they were all destroyed before they could get very far by Communist China acting alone- I had to transfer almost all my forces to Europe because, through some weird diplomatic stuff, Italy had joined Japan, then was capitulated by the Western Allies, then somehow joined the Central Powers which caused them to go to war with me much earlier than I had anticipated.

I managed to hold near the Polish border, but a major breakthrough was made in the direction of Leningrad, with Central Powers troops reaching within 1 or 2 provinces of the city before the line was stabilized. This same breakthrough also nearly reached Moscow but got within 3 or 4 provinces before being halted. Ultimately I launched an extremely powerful armored attack from the area of Minsk to Riga, cutting off maybe 120 enemy divisions. After a long series of encirclement battles and triggering a Communist coup in Germany the war in Europe was over, ca 1946. USSR dominated central and southern Europe, barring Greece and Romania.

Now, Japan remained uncapitulated so I dropped maybe a dozen nukes on them, but they actually ended up capitulating without an invasion of the Home Islands because I destroyed almost their entire fleet with jet tactical bombers.

It was badass.

Since then I've been playing Just Cause 3, Worms: Armageddon, and Grim Dawn.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Path of Exile

While my whirling dervish Gladiator makes his way through the Atlas of Worlds and the Delve mines, I'm also messing around with a new Witch and a Shadow.

Witch: I enjoyed my Necromancer a lot and want to try an Elementalist. It looks like you can get 4 Golems going, just from the passive skill tree. With the Necromancer I went a little insane with passive bonuses on my minions. With the Elementalist, I want to be able to cast a couple of spells myself, in addition to having Golems that both absorb and inflict a lot of damage. I'm looking hard at Elemental Equilibrium, with two different attack spells in addition to the Golems. Right now, in Act 2, she's using Fireball, Frost Bomb and Orb of Storms, which seems great but I don't know how well those spells scale up (also 3 Zombies, but I'll ditch the undead once the Golems are available). I have a couple of low-level artifacts that are giving her an unholy amount of Energy Shield, which is kind of fun, so I'm thinking I might try to build towards a really high Energy Shield.

Shadow: I'm thinking about a high-Crit, Phasing, Elusive, dagger Assassin. I'm using Blade Vortex right now (Act 3, I think), but it's not very tricked out yet. I don't love that your character stops moving when you cast it, and you have to cast it a lot.

My Frost blades Jugg is doing nicely in maps and killing metamorphs too. I just have to restart the game after each map and can't masters missions or I crash the game. Frost bomb has become an important addition to use against the metamorphs that have life regen. The passive tree node "can't leech life from you" keeps that monster trait under control. I've found that maps pretty much have to be yellow to find enough high level organs to fill the column and get organs to drop when you kill the metas.

 

[Thorgalaeg]

Nobody playing Rimworld?

 

[hobbsyoyo]

This is why when I reach certain milestones in Skyrim (typically Extra Effect in Enchanting) I crank the difficulty up to Legendary.

I'm playing in survival mode which is the hardest.

 

[Lexicus]

I'm playing in survival mode which is the hardest.

Too bad! Legendary in Skyrim also gets too easy before long.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

That's the point where you mod the game.

 

[Arakhor]

I never used Requiem. SkyRe/PerMa was my go-to overhaul.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

That's the point where you mod the game.

Yes, the ole, 'I can fix these mods with some more mods'.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Modding video games is fun.

 

[Commodore]

Let's see,

I played an awesome HOI4 game in which, as the Soviet Union, I focused all effort on Japan first because I set the Germans to restore the Kaiser, meaning that Barbarossa doesn't happen on the historical timeline.

Communist China executed Chiang Kai-Shek instead allying with the Nationalists, which turned out to be a huge advantage as the Nationalists declared war on the Communists shortly before the Japanese invaded. The Japanese then declared war on Communist China which asked to join the Comintern, a request I acceded to and declared war on Japan in late 1938 or early 1939, forget exactly which. Japan also declared war on the warlords one by one and they all joined the Comintern as well. Things went well, Japan was not able to stand up against me as I built 10 infrastructure across the USSR to the Far East, and Japan was ejected from mainland China entirely by 1940, leaving Communist China the dominant power (while I occupied Korea) - Japan made several landings but they were all destroyed before they could get very far by Communist China acting alone- I had to transfer almost all my forces to Europe because, through some weird diplomatic stuff, Italy had joined Japan, then was capitulated by the Western Allies, then somehow joined the Central Powers which caused them to go to war with me much earlier than I had anticipated.

I managed to hold near the Polish border, but a major breakthrough was made in the direction of Leningrad, with Central Powers troops reaching within 1 or 2 provinces of the city before the line was stabilized. This same breakthrough also nearly reached Moscow but got within 3 or 4 provinces before being halted. Ultimately I launched an extremely powerful armored attack from the area of Minsk to Riga, cutting off maybe 120 enemy divisions. After a long series of encirclement battles and triggering a Communist coup in Germany the war in Europe was over, ca 1946. USSR dominated central and southern Europe, barring Greece and Romania.

Now, Japan remained uncapitulated so I dropped maybe a dozen nukes on them, but they actually ended up capitulating without an invasion of the Home Islands because I destroyed almost their entire fleet with jet tactical bombers.

It was badass.

Since then I've been playing Just Cause 3, Worms: Armageddon, and Grim Dawn.

I must say I do quite enjoy your HOI stories.

 

[Sommerswerd]

The lawyers must have found a way to make it legit.

You've got it backwards... By default... everything is legit... Law/lawyers are what comes along and starts imposing rules.

 

[Commodore]

You've got it backwards... By default... everything is legit... Law/lawyers are what comes along and starts imposing rules.

I've been meaning to ask you: do you watch a YouTube channel called LegalEagle? He's a lawyer that does all kinds of stuff like real law reviews where he gives his professional opinion on current legal cases. His best work though is his "Real Lawyer Reacts" series where he grades legal dramas for legal realism. It's good stuff.

His biggest pet peeve is when they show a lawyer walking into the well or approaching the jury without asking permission from the judge first. As he likes to say " if you do that, the bailiff will tackle you."

 

[Synobun]

I have been playing the Nintendo Switch for the first time. The controllers are a bit different to get used to. I've played Heave Ho, Uno, and Monopoly so far. Heave Ho in particular is a lot of fun.

The AI in Uno and Monopoly have got to be cheating, though. In Monopoly we didn't play with AI but we simply swapped rent for an hour back and forth equally until one of us got too tired to continue and just declared bankruptcy to end it. One of us would have 5k and the other would have 1k, and then we'd just switch back and forth between that.

In Uno, the AI seems to get a lot of skips and +4s once you've won twice. We did 2v2 and the two AIs started the third game by swapping 3 skips, 2 +4s, and then 3 +2s. They had an uno before we ever got to play a single card.