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I have stopped playing Arma 3 KotH and am back on a War Thunder tanks kick.

Conan Exiles. It's fun.

Messing about with the WoW: Battle For Azeroth beta. Its... interesting. It's tricky to get particularly absorbed in it since it's beta and therefor meaningless for any sense of progression, but it has some attractive qualities.

The zones are pretty impressive, especially the two main city hubs on the horde and alliance islands. Like Suramar in Legion (except not actively hostile), they feel more like real cities, with a lot more atmosphere, people and shops and things. The only downside is most players will stick to the hub area and there isn't much function or point to the rest of these giant cities beyond a touch of questing.

The big downside is the expansion feels small. Each faction gets three zones and then some rotating world quests to go bother the opposition... and that's it. (until the big patch, which will probably involve teaming up again against the naga or the old gods or whatever).

Also a lot of the content feels recycled. Sure you get to fight snake men instead of naga to rescue fox people rather than goblins (the fox people use the same skeletal frame, but happily don't have terrible New Jersey voices), but the Horde get to beat up on Zandalari (yet again, for the fourth time) and dinosaurs and whatever the big bad race from pandaland was. And there is a sense of 'oh not these guys again.'

Alliance quests involve a lot more new stuff, but with the looming specter of the World Quests taking you to troll land to do... whatever pointless thing in the pointless faction war.

The intro scenarios are pretty interesting (though they really need some context), but marred by really atrocious animation/dialogue syncing and really bad dialogue in general. A giant Horde tank shows up at one point, and the werewolf king's line is 'What in the world is that!' as it... fights Alliance tanks. Truly, it is an unknown technology. Jaina later gives the most dull and bored reading of 'No, they mustn't get away' I have ever heard.

But once out in the world, it smartens up. The quest chains are usually coherent mini-stories, and the new zones look better. The Zandalar zone around their capital (and the capital itself, which is a giant pyramid) suffers from the Legion design principles with lots of hills and mountains that block travel and make you really want flying, but the desert area and the capital zone for the alliance feel a bit more open (and frankly flow better for quest order)

Skills have been reworked to level from 1-300, then 1-150 for each expansion (starting with cataclysm). Except archaeology, which is still 1 to the new cap of 950, and first aid, which has been set on fire and merged into tailoring. Not quite sure why this change happened, except maybe an quiet acknowledgement that only the current skill progression matters in any way.

Despite the flaws (and placeholders, and beta problems), it looks good, but at this point it's more WoW. You probably already know if you like it or not.

Just about finished Inqusitor Martyr and I am left With a sour taste in my mouth, done two seperat caracthers to see if I perhaps had choosen the wrong one but alas. Besides a few glaring bugs towards the last few missions of the game, and some rather odd Choices when it comes to map designe I most of all am left With a sense of disapointment, and lament for what has the potential to become a great game if the Developers can get around to adressing Things like weapon stats, how skill Choices affects the game and a more meaningful moral system than what is currently on offer.

I'm... confused what you were expecting. It seems like a fairly competent loot-em-up. Those generally don't really have moral systems, and I think the skill system is, while unique, not bad, per se.


... man, could you imagine Diablo II if you were allowed to just join the Primevils?

Fallout 4. Corvega assembly plant is ... really surprisingly difficult. I cleared it. I really like the feeling that it was under siege by feral ghouls though, and how the ghouls start breaking into the bottom of the plant at a certain point.

Walking out of there fatigued to crap from lack of sleep, alcoholic from using it to boost my strength to counteract the fatigue and on low health and then getting a dust storm during which a ghoul mob attacked...intense.

Loving this game so far, but not too interested in the main plot.

 Da Boss wrote:
Fallout 4. Corvega assembly plant is ... really surprisingly difficult. I cleared it. I really like the feeling that it was under siege by feral ghouls though, and how the ghouls start breaking into the bottom of the plant at a certain point.

Walking out of there fatigued to crap from lack of sleep, alcoholic from using it to boost my strength to counteract the fatigue and on low health and then getting a dust storm during which a ghoul mob attacked...intense.

Loving this game so far, but not too interested in the main plot.

You're playing on hardcore then? Best way to do it; it effectively stretches the game out into hundreds of hours in length, as well as actually making it a challenge.

Is hardcore mode the survival thing? Yeah, I am doing that as my first playthrough, though I modded it so I can save whenever I want to because I don't think a "bonfire" style save system gels well with bethesda's open and freeform games.

I am really enjoying myself so far. It is quite hard and combat is pretty scary, but that immerses me in the world much more than playing it like a shooter. I want a survival game in an unforgiving wasteland from Fallout.

I am really looking forward to building a network of settlements, as that is basically what I wanted to be able to do in Fallout 3. Not that interested in the man plot because I feel like it ties me too much to following a linear path when I want to play a more free game where my decisions are entirely my own.

Having done it twice, you tend to find that it stays difficult up to about level 20, challenging up to 40, okay up to 60, and then ridiculously easy for the most part past that. Annoyingly, that's about as long as it takes to get through 2/3 of the content of the base game, so the difficulty curve really levels off in the later stages. Other than the odd super boss fight or getting jumped by two deathclaws, you have all the food and drink you need, bases everywhere, and kill most stuff by inhaling buffs.

That's the point you switch to playing 'Frost'.
https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/18898/

PUBG mobile on Bluestacks for me.

It's a fantastic PC shooter. So good!

Anvildude wrote:
I'm... confused what you were expecting. It seems like a fairly competent loot-em-up. Those generally don't really have moral systems, and I think the skill system is, while unique, not bad, per se.


... man, could you imagine Diablo II if you were allowed to just join the Primevils?

If you mean a game that has you being hasseled With sub par Equipment as rewards, a dull and uninspierd slogg towards the end and yes. That would have been a intresting take on Things, and well seing how the two paths avalibal should be very different and thus affecting how you play Inqusitor Martyr, but I do realize opinions will vary on this matter

Darkest Dungeon! They just did a massive update, gave everybody a free hero DLC (Musketeer) and put out a 5 dollar DLC The Color of Madness using an old farmhouse and comet fragments. Very, very cool stuff, and almost everyone got rebalanced.

I'm working through the mainline before picking up the DLC to get myself back in shape.

Hoping to give online UT2004 a shot. Feeling a bit intimidated however, since I'm more used to playing more coop-oriented games. Is the community for the most part okay?

Vampyr

but who knows for how much longer

it's pretty boring

 Da Boss wrote:
Is hardcore mode the survival thing? Yeah, I am doing that as my first playthrough, though I modded it so I can save whenever I want to because I don't think a "bonfire" style save system gels well with bethesda's open and freeform games.

I am really enjoying myself so far. It is quite hard and combat is pretty scary, but that immerses me in the world much more than playing it like a shooter. I want a survival game in an unforgiving wasteland from Fallout.

I am really looking forward to building a network of settlements, as that is basically what I wanted to be able to do in Fallout 3. Not that interested in the man plot because I feel like it ties me too much to following a linear path when I want to play a more free game where my decisions are entirely my own.

Maybe I should just give up and do that. I love survival mode but hate the save system. I don't mind having to fight the a battle over again but doing the mundane stuff like searching the same garbage can again and having the same conversations again and again is just brutal.

World of Warcraft on PC

On mobile, I prefer two new titles Mayhem Combat and Space Pioneer.

And I am also finishing an adventure of EVE Online because I buy eve isk too much and my wife start arguing with me

 KamikazeCanuck wrote:

 Da Boss wrote:
Is hardcore mode the survival thing? Yeah, I am doing that as my first playthrough, though I modded it so I can save whenever I want to because I don't think a "bonfire" style save system gels well with bethesda's open and freeform games.

I am really enjoying myself so far. It is quite hard and combat is pretty scary, but that immerses me in the world much more than playing it like a shooter. I want a survival game in an unforgiving wasteland from Fallout.

I am really looking forward to building a network of settlements, as that is basically what I wanted to be able to do in Fallout 3. Not that interested in the man plot because I feel like it ties me too much to following a linear path when I want to play a more free game where my decisions are entirely my own.

Maybe I should just give up and do that. I love survival mode but hate the save system. I don't mind having to fight the a battle over again but doing the mundane stuff like searching the same garbage can again and having the same conversations again and again is just brutal.

Mmmm, seems it might be better with an autosave function which is the only save you can have. So each time it autosaves, it overwrites the previous save for that game, manual or auto. Just set it up so it doesn't autosave whilst you have ongoing damage effects active (poison, radiation etc.) or are in combat so you don't end up with a save which is stuck in a death loop. Or maybe it cycles between two saves, so you always have a further back save but if you reload that earlier one it deletes the other one.

Played some of the Vermintide II beta on Xbox, it strikes me as just a more polished version of the first which I think was something of a rough diamond. V2 appears to be an improvement across the board with the new enemies progression system and expanded character options making sure the formula stays fresh. The shorter missions are a mercy, I found some in the first one a bit of a chore to get through.

I also like how the characters seem more powerful compared to the first one, a Rat Ogre or pack of Stormvermin that were lethal before are now lucky draws when Chaos Spawn or Stormfiends are in the mix.

Not sure there's enough to justify a purchase on release, but certainly one to look out for in a sale and another excellent slice of authentic, brutal Warhammer goodness.

Oh, Vermintide II is amazing. I hardly ever buy games, but I happily picked it up, and haven't been disappointed.

I think one of the big things is that everything is both difficult, and possible, a fine balance that is difficult to maintain. But you never feel like whatever you're up against is impossible, just that you need to be better if you fail.

And the different classes and weapons really, really make it so that there's different playstyles. Including decent Tanks, and variants on Tanks (which is rare to find).

Yeah, buy it. Love it.

Any idea how many different levels/missions are in the full thing? In the beta, I've got the Elven ruin, the farm/mill and the Sigmarite Temple missions, each of which are now fairly familiar after a few runs of each (though the random enemy spawns are nice for making things unpredictable), but obviously I'd be wanting a lot more variety in the complete game.

One change I do like is how the rewards are tied to which character you open them with, rather than who you earn them with. It's cool to be able to play a few missions as the Elf then open up the crates with the Witch Hunter and get a head start on his progression.

There are... 13? total missions... right now.

They recently released an 'Okri's Challenges' thing, which, among the challenges, has "Complete all the Helmgart missions..." with all the characters, etc etc... Which to me, says that they're going to add more missions or even entire new storylines.

There's also Deeds, which are specific missions with special challenges, such as "If you go down, you die immediately" or "All hordes are replaced with Stormvermin and Chaos Warriors" and the like.

What about download size? I’ve played a good 40-ish hours of the first Vermintide, but I need 50gb to download it again. Is the current download size for Vermintide 2 anything similar?

Vermintide 2 is somewhat leaner and better optimised at 39GB.

 BrookM wrote:
Vermintide 2 is somewhat leaner and better optimised at 39GB.

That sounds much better (until the DLC ramps up size). Thanks!

Oh yes, there will be DLC, both paid and of the free variant. But with the base game €27,99 (€18,74 on sale right now) I can live with it, as the core game right now is a massive improvement over the first game and it really delivers on the promises made.

I’ve just been playing a slow Dwarf campaign in WH:TW2.

Got kind of bored with it and needed to play a shooter and I remembered PUBG received some new content and went to reinstall after not playing for months. Clicked on the store page just to check out the new content and...

Holy gak did its rating drop! There were always a few dissenting voices(including myself to an extent) when the game was at its peak, but damn did it seem to fall off overnight. I didn’t look into it further, maybe alot of folks still play, but I think Fortnite stole its thunder? I chose not to read content of the negative reviews, I just didn’t bother and declared the game dead to me.

Currently re-installing Hunt: Showdown to sate my pvp shooter urges.

I need to check out the Prey DLC too.

I cant believe FW made that garbage gabriel angelos but didn't make the Ubersreik 5. I would buy them in a heartbeat.

 nels1031 wrote:
I’ve just been playing a slow Dwarf campaign in WH:TW2.

Got kind of bored with it and needed to play a shooter and I remembered PUBG received some new content and went to reinstall after not playing for months. Clicked on the store page just to check out the new content and...

Holy gak did its rating drop! There were always a few dissenting voices(including myself to an extent) when the game was at its peak, but damn did it seem to fall off overnight. I didn’t look into it further, maybe alot of folks still play, but I think Fortnite stole its thunder? I chose not to read content of the negative reviews, I just didn’t bother and declared the game dead to me.

Currently re-installing Hunt: Showdown to sate my pvp shooter urges.

I need to check out the Prey DLC too.

Didnt it get rating bombed? Stellaris got bombed by the Chinese, for example, since they removed unused files from a localization they never had from the game folders during an update.

 Crazyterran wrote:
Didnt it get rating bombed? Stellaris got bombed by the Chinese, for example, since they removed unused files from a localization they never had from the game folders during an update.

Ah, that explains it. I should’ve guess it could be something like that. I assumed they put a pay to win micro purchase mechanic in or broke something in an update.

 nels1031 wrote:

 Crazyterran wrote:
Didnt it get rating bombed? Stellaris got bombed by the Chinese, for example, since they removed unused files from a localization they never had from the game folders during an update.

Ah, that explains it. I should’ve guess it could be something like that. I assumed they put a pay to win micro purchase mechanic in or broke something in an update.

Well there was meniton of the event passes. I don’t play it myself, but I heard it’s kind of a slap in the face compared to the Fortnite passes. The whole “PUBG battle royale lawsuit,” might have also played a part too.

Sorry, what is this thing about Stellaris? I don’t remember hearing anything about this. Seems a bit odd that anyone would notice unused files, nevermind complain about them.

PUBG mobile is now clearly better than the PC version and has an official emulator, so it's getting serious competition there also.