What Videogames Have You Been Playing XXI: Going for the Platinum!

[GenMarshall]

Fallout 4, Abernathy got a trash can stuck on his head.

View attachment 639485

Pfft, That's nothing. I've been doing that since Skyrim .

 

[Birdjaguar]

Yeah, one shots can happen and the one of Kripps HC toon reflect deaths from the vanilla era might still be the most watched PoE clip on YT. I can live with the one shots but I'd still like to know what killed even when my defenses clearly aren't top notch. The increasingly annoying part is to hit a mob for minute in 90%(+) hp, get on-shotted with no apparent reason, res & get back and the mob dies before I can cap Cyclone stacks. Sometimes I don't even have time start to spin as the mob plays dead too quickly and my reflect shouldn't kill anything apart from pneumonia ridden squirrels and Golem is usually at that time still re-negótiating his deal about hitting stuff somewhere far back.
The essence mobs with multiple AN mods are insane which is stupid.Yellow mobs on maps shouldn't be order of magnitude harder than the bosses but GGG doesn't seem too interested in doing much about it. Some could say that's in line with their no drastic changes mid-league but I feel they don't actually know how to fix the issue without going back to starting blocks which would be bad optics from their pov while wildly popular with players; those who're still left and not waiting 3.20. Russian special ef up operation might be over before PoE 2 comes out when all the current problems will be solved, or likely not.

SSF indeed has few perks over trade in the excitement department especially so when one has (too) relaxed attitude about in-game stuff in general. If I were more focused & cared more there'd much less to tell grandkids about.
So far I have used 2 or 3 Ex and have 4 stashed with 7 Divines. It's not much but I could easily buy much better gear than I have now but I'm fine with current pace while it'll take quite a few more leagues before I can kill the end bosses.

On crafting department I also made a new helmet with +12% on Spell Suppression which I have none elsewhere but it lacks the lab enchant so I'm not using it, yet, due to dps loss. I can't stand the lab so I can only ran it once after crafting & now I'm slowly building motivation to do it again.




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I used to hate the lab, a lot. Now it its not so bad. I use poelab.com to map it out and collect darkshines. That tells me when to just run fast and where to go slow. I've watched suitsizesmall run them and it astounds me. I have yet to try the newer upgraded versions though. And I only run the labs when I am at less than 15% to the next level. I've gotten to know the patterns of how many areas are built that make the runs easier. Adding a high level stone golem, leap slam, and bleed protection removes lots of worry.

 

[Takhisis]

IIRC, unlike a normal Caravel, the Carrack also doesn't sink in Ocean, so you can start shipping your troops anywhere on the map without risk of them sinking in a storm — a whole one tech before you (or the AI) learns Navi (which the AI pretty much always goes for directly after Astro, in my experience...).

And yeah, as a GA-starter, the Carrack's (also) pretty useless. To buff it a little, I moved Caravels/Carracks back to Invention, and gave Carracks Range=0 bombardment...

Yeah, the one tech… the Carrack's one of the most useless units unless you specifically play in a map in which there are some nearby undiscovered landmasses. It's outdone by galleons anyway.

Let's see what today's game brings…

 

[Thorgalaeg]

Continue playing Stellaris. New game with technocratic ETs, all dlc plus mods (gigastructures and UI enhancement plus others). All I can say is this game is fun! and the more you advance in the the game the funnier it gets. Now I am in the late game after becoming a fully cybernetic specie, and i am looking for a proper black hole to build a Penrose sphere and become a level 3 Kardashev civilization or something like that.

Played it a couple of years ago and I was not very impressed, perhaps because didn't deepen enough or because it was vanilla game. But now it is pretty amazing. Best of paradox for me.

 

[Senethro]

Been playing Cyberpunk and absolutely every conversation smells of significant plot structure re-writes at a mid-late stage.

 

[Ajidica]

Been playing Cyberpunk and absolutely every conversation smells of significant plot structure re-writes at a mid-late stage.

How so? The game for me felt like CDPR were really searching for direction and pulled in way too many directions.
It was a story driven RPG, its a choices matter RPG, its an ARPG like Deus Ex, its an open world GTA power fantasy game, its a game with Real People Problem, its a loot-shooter, its a cinematic game.

And that shows through in the quests. The first act is way too long, Konpeki Plaza feels out of place given what we know about Arasaka, the second act is if you just do main quest ridiculously short, and then you are immediately thrown into final mission. Huge chunks of content are entirely optional but were given main plot budget and resources. If you do even a bit of side questing the game ends up with you ridiculously over leveled.
The "power fantasy" aspect of CP77 felt very at odds with the pen and paper RPG which beat you over the head with the idea life is cheap and you will die. You are not a hero, you will cheat, steal, and betray for at best an empty temporary happiness. Experiencing real happiness requires you to give up on success.
Dialogue was about as good as I can hope for with a cypher main character.

 

[Zardnaar]

Continue playing Stellaris. New game with technocratic ETs, all dlc plus mods (gigastructures and UI enhancement plus others). All I can say is this game is fun! and the more you advance in the the game the funnier it gets. Now I am in the late game after becoming a fully cybernetic specie, and i am looking for a proper black hole to build a Penrose sphere and become a level 3 Kardashev civilization or something like that.

Played it a couple of years ago and I was not very impressed, perhaps because didn't deepen enough or because it was vanilla game. But now it is pretty amazing. Best of paradox for me.

Penrose sphere is fairly bonkers.

See completed our MP Stellaris game today several players throwing around million+ fleet power. Almost crashed the game.

Both sides hit 100% warscore fairly fast. The galactic Emperor rolled my two allies and I rolled the second most powerful player serving the emperor.

Essentially left the imperial armada similar in size to my fleets but the new 3rd most powerful player could roll his highness.

Two most powerful players were psionic. The god emperor and the USSSR (me).

I called the emperor a heretic and we were gonna slag his world's as his ally used a collussus on two of my fortress habitats. They bought time to roll up his three henchman.

Galactic war. Game ended when the revolt to overthrow the emperor fired. He had an Uber fleet but I was spamming ringworlds atvthat point and hisvalliesvrsn out of fleets.

Communists and a megacorp galactic bank allied to overthrow the socalled god king.

 

[Kyriakos]

Other than the Impressions games, is there some city builder (non-modern) worth trying?

I don't consider Settlers to be primarily a city building game, btw - more of a war-oriented rts.

 

[PhroX]

I've not played it yet, but I've heard really good things about Songs of Syx

 

[Kyriakos]

I've not played it yet, but I've heard really good things about Songs of Syx

This one?

If I wanted Conway's Game of Life, I'd just use an emulator for it

 

[Chukchi Husky]

Other than the Impressions games, is there some city builder (non-modern) worth trying?

I don't consider Settlers to be primarily a city building game, btw - more of a war-oriented rts.

Immortal Cities: Children of the Nile
Grand Ages: Rome

 

[Arakhor]

There is also Nebuchadnezzar, set in Mesopotamia.

 

[Sarin]

I've decided to try out Path of Exile again, just a bit. Probably just going to do acts with intuitively patched up character, just for fun. I haven't actually played Shadow or Templar through acts yet. Probably just going to make a randomly thrown together Inquisitor.

 

[EgonSpengler]

The Long Dark: Had a good start to a new Interloper run over the weekend. Got eaten by a dog. Woof. Grrrr.

p.s. While I found I liked Pleasant Valley at Interloper less than I do at Stalker, I found this weekend that I like Milton more at Interloper than at Stalker.

 

[Grendeldef]

That's a start which will hopefully not turn into sleepless nights & endless PoB think-tank sessions.

I, on the other hand, did classic me on Friday night as I was just looking Ninja and noticed that one of my leveling gems was @20/0 waiting for a trade so I logged in & made it 1/20. Then I noticed that I had a white Niko mission so obviously eyes crossed & barely alive I went into some T5 map while watching CatmasterOP's podcast on another screen. The map wasn't an issue until I thought I had killed everyone & everything and focused on the podcast which had something especially interesting, I think - I have no idea what it was 30 secs later but my toon was as dead as the corpse of the boss next to me. Some freaking larva hatched & killed me so the few still functioning brain cells decided to go bed & take me with'em.
Only few morning maps on Saturday but I also decided to make an effort not to die but hit 94 instead. Not to avoid things that can kill me but to avoid things that'll surely kill me and it sort worked. On Sunday I played a bit more & got into 64% when I got a nasty boss/syndicate renegades combo on a +110% Lightning dmg T15 Arcade & died twice by complications of shock but those were the only deaths so I hit 94 this morning while still delving my sulphite stash away - even found the first Primeval Chamber @147 but some gravediggers had taken the loot earlier I assume.
I also tried to drop 2 mana regen nodes on passive for more dps but it was awfully clunky even though it sort of worked - just not convenient at all so I switched back right away. I'm seriously missing a decent LCJ and at least one jewel.

Now, I think, it's time to do the influenced map I have and the bosses if can as I have neglected those. Only did the Black Star & T12 lvl Maven inv today - I was nowhere near drunk enough to do Infinite Hunger as that's order of magnitude worse than lab which I actually have done twice a day. I used to look stuff at Poelab but now I just try to minimize my engagement with the lab so I'll just switch one flask to hp/bleed and go in eyes closed - most often that's enough as I'm way overgeared for that.
Gearingwise anything with reasonable spell suppression without hampering other stats would be mighty handy.

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Since I was doing quite a bit delving I did a flask for the purpose - something which I don't do nearly often enough. I switched my Quicksilver/armour to Silver/curse effect reduction as speed isn't that useful in the mines and kept it for maps as well - seems fine. The spreadsheet dps boost is noticeable in practise, too. I can now facetank more stuff in & out of mines which makes the lack speed tolerable.
I also made another passive tree tuning for 2nd jewel - it's still crap but slightly less so than the two nodes on tree. 95 seems like a possibility again but I assume the dream will be destroyed by something stupid in a white map or jumping into the 1st pack of a map with 2nd weapon without Cyclone - I've lost count how many times I've done that though luckily not dying every time.

On hardware side I seem to be hitting my kb as much as mobs so #6 on num pad which is the launch pad for VAW is a bit iffy and as I've said earlier the effect is clearly noticeable on-screen which in this case is a good thing.

 

[EgonSpengler]

EA Sports announced that FIFA 23 will feature new club AFC Richmond, featuring players Roy Kent, Jamie Tartt, Sam Obisanya and Dani Rojas, and manager Ted Lasso. The club will play its home games at Nelson Road.

Spoiler :

 

[Aiken_Drumn]

I have bought Stellaris. I then went on to play AoEIIE as there is an event on where I can get armoured penguins...

 

[tjs282]

And who doesn't love armoured penguins?

 

[Chukchi Husky]

And who doesn't love armoured penguins?

Batman?

 

[Aiken_Drumn]

Kapow!