Games you are currently playing - Part 7

[PeteWorrell]

This 2nd act of TW3 is a slog, man. I desperately need to find Cirri but in order to do that I have to find Dandelion. Then this chain is started where in order to find Dandelion I have to talk to this person, help them out, then find the next person to talk to and help THEM out, then again, then again.

It's a lot of fetching around and 99% of the action is me slicing level 10-12 goons in half. Skellige can't get here fast enough.

You can always go to Skellige if you want a change of pace. You don't have to do the Dandelion part all at once.

 

[Soedy]

The Legend of Zelda - Echoes of Wisdom

Started slowly the first 60 minutes but I am hooked now, 3,5 hours in. Fantastic game.

Also some PUBG and Helldivers 2 with friends.

 

[LeafGrief]

Can't remember the last single player story game that I played. Maybe Elden Ring? What an incredible game that is, probably the best and most lovingly crafted game I've ever played. Had so many legitimate "wow" moments, but I eventually gave it up after ~40 hours because it just gets too hard. I don't mind a hard boss fight, but when the random enemies are dropping off rooftops and killing me in two hits, I just get frustrated. I love the idea of Fromsoft games, and have watched tons and tons of twitch streamers play them, but I don't really care for them myself.

Funny enough, after putting down Elden Ring for being too difficult, it's Dota that accounts for 90% of my gaming nowadays. I played it since the beta (and cut my teeth in Heroes of Newerth before that), and the difficulty curve on that game is so insane that I tell people it takes 1,000 hours to get any kind of good at it. But once you do, it's a forever game; it's absolutely brilliant. I play a couple hours a few times a week with my cousin, and we've got pretty good chemistry going.

Deadlock is fun, but I don't really want to spend the 1,000 hours it will take to get good at it.

I also spent a lot of time in the last two years playing the original Guild Wars. I started a new account (first account has 5k hours) and really enjoyed building from scratch. This is another forever game for me, and it still holds up as my favourite combat system. It's a shame PvP is almost entirely dead, holy smokes do I have so many fond memories with friends playing Hall of Heroes and Guild vs Guild late into the night, and many of the things I love about GW PvP is what I love about Dota.

 

[mouser]

Having a blast in Satisfactory 1.0 release. Building a massive multistory central factory with pretty much all production other than smelting. Uses a central input/output conveyer belt system, with more complicated parts the higher the level. Also did a clean setup of the refinery next to the main factory with most of the pipes all run under the foundation.

 

[Frankie Spankie]

I mentioned I loved Gravity Circuit the other day...

I don't think I ever played a game before that I loved for the first 75% of the game or so and absolutely hated the end so much that it completely changed my opinion of the game. It's basically a Mega Man style game but all the combat is melee based. Two major flaws that really stick out in the late game:

• Some melee combos move your character in an animation as you attack. You have to get close to attack since the game focuses on melee combat. I don't know how many times the game pushes me into a boss because of the combo animation and I take damage. I died so many times because you have such a small window to attack, have to be quick, get in close, and perform that melee combo that pushes you even closer and forces you to take damage.
• The hook shot controls are just terrible. You can aim it in 8 different directions, horizontally, vertically, and diagonally. Until you get to the end stages, you really don't need to use the hook shot. The end game requires you to use it in some long platform sections where if you fail, you get sent all the way back. I don't know how many times I replayed some of those areas late game because I'll get far into it and then the game just decides to use the hook straight ahead instead of diagonally, dropping me into lava.

I get the way of the internet and people will spam "git gud" at that kind of thing but it's just poor controls. I'm genuinely shocked this game has 95% positive reviews on Steam. I'm convinced a lot of people didn't reach the end game and are just posting positive reviews because they like the art style or something.

 

[HanSolo]

This 2nd act of TW3 is a slog, man. I desperately need to find Cirri but in order to do that I have to find Dandelion. Then this chain is started where in order to find Dandelion I have to talk to this person, help them out, then find the next person to talk to and help THEM out, then again, then again.

It's a lot of fetching around and 99% of the action is me slicing level 10-12 goons in half. Skellige can't get here fast enough.

Having more or less just gotten through that act of the game I don't really agree. I mean sure, the pressing need to find Ciri is present the whole way through but the Witcher 3 gets the same trope that like 90% of games like it get: there's a main objective of dire importance but the true threat takes their sweet ass time while you f*** around with exploration and side quests. Personally I liked a lot of the components of the heist/medieval spycraft/and religious persecution and on replay I felt like it held up as an overall package. I know the Skellige arc is better but I enjoyed the past few days of working through the Novigrad content and I still have a bunch of side quests and contracts to get through.

But that does sort of bring me to one problem The Witcher (and Cyberpunk too really) has and that's when you do enough side content, doing the main story leaves you over leveled to the point that your character becomes extremely overleveled and combat becomes a joke. I haven't finished my second Cyberpunk playthrough mostly because doing the DLC mid game has left me so overleveled I can practically one shot everything with a headshot and combat got boring.

 

[Jovavic]

Took the plunge and got Dave the Diver, highly recommended

 

[Soldier13Fox]

Took the plunge and got Dave the Diver, highly recommended

I've had that installed for months and still haven't got around to playing it lol

 

[pistolpete11]

I'm replaying Elden Ring because I don't want to go into the DLC on NG+.

Still great, but it's really highlighted the balance issues with the open world. I've been focusing on the easier stuff just to level up as quickly as possible, but by the time I decided to move onto Margit and then Godrick, I smashed right through them. Yes, it's partly because that's what I was trying to do, but I wasn't expecting them to be THAT easy. I just really don't like making it the player's responsibility to balance the challenge while playing the game.

 

[Dolemite]

Playing the Silent Hill 2 reboot…and it’s really good.

Took the plunge and got Dave the Diver, highly recommended

Agreed. It’s a Blast.

 

[robertmac43]

Currently playing Hogwarts Legacy as it felt like a good October/start of Fall game.

Also playing Kirby and the Forgotten Lands. No something I would usually buy, but I got it the physical for 5 bucks Canadian while visiting Tokyo for work. So far it's fun.

 

[x Tame Impala]

I'm replaying Elden Ring because I don't want to go into the DLC on NG+.

Still great, but it's really highlighted the balance issues with the open world. I've been focusing on the easier stuff just to level up as quickly as possible, but by the time I decided to move onto Margit and then Godrick, I smashed right through them. Yes, it's partly because that's what I was trying to do, but I wasn't expecting them to be THAT easy. I just really don't like making it the player's responsibility to balance the challenge while playing the game.

Did you rune farm at all? I’ve found that not doing that made my replay a lot better. The difficulty is still fresh that way.

NG+ does little to nothing for me, personally. I got to NG+4 and I’m a superhero against 90% of the game.

 

[pistolpete11]

Did you rune farm at all? I’ve found that not doing that made my replay a lot better. The difficulty is still fresh that way.

NG+ does little to nothing for me, personally. I got to NG+4 and I’m a superhero against 90% of the game.

Nope. None. I remembered a couple of the major dungeons, castles, items, etc. in Limgrave, the Weeping Peninsula, and Stormveil. So I hit all that stuff up and on the way I'd occasionally stop to fight a runebear, a giant troll, an Evergaol, or something for fun. I guess I cleaned it out pretty good, but I definitely wasn't going through with a fine toothed comb or anything and definitely, definitely didn't farm.

In my NG+ file, I didn't have much of a problem with anything either....until I tried beating Mohg to prep for the DLC. I beat him, but it was harder than I remembered. So yeah, I'm not worried about the 90% so much. I'm worried about the 10% and especially since the bosses in the DLC are supposed to be pretty tough.

I couldn't find a good recommendation for level to be at for the DLC on NG+ either. And my first playthrough of the Bloodborne DLC, I was way over leveled from the Chalice Dungeons. Kind of ruined it, so I would rather just start fresh and be at an expected level and know that I just need to 'git gud' rather than wonder if it's because I'm on NG+.

 

[x Tame Impala]

Nope. None. I remembered a couple of the major dungeons, castles, items, etc. in Limgrave, the Weeping Peninsula, and Stormveil. So I hit all that stuff up and on the way I'd occasionally stop to fight a runebear, a giant troll, an Evergaol, or something for fun. I guess I cleaned it out pretty good, but I definitely wasn't going through with a fine toothed comb or anything and definitely, definitely didn't farm.

In my NG+ file, I didn't have much of a problem with anything either....until I tried beating Mohg to prep for the DLC. I beat him, but it was harder than I remembered. So yeah, I'm not worried about the 90% so much. I'm worried about the 10% and especially since the bosses in the DLC are supposed to be pretty tough.

I couldn't find a good recommendation for level to be at for the DLC on NG+ either. And my first playthrough of the Bloodborne DLC, I was way over leveled from the Chalice Dungeons. Kind of ruined it, so I would rather just start fresh and be at an expected level and know that I just need to 'git gud' rather than wonder if it's because I'm on NG+.

I got about 25% through the DLC before I stopped (I love it I’ll just get to it later) and it was pretty tough man. Dont worry about your level. It’s hard as a lvl 120 on your first playthrough and it’s hard as a level 320 on NG++++++++

The difficulty seems to just be tied to the DLC-specific leveling system and not your rune level IMO

 

[pistolpete11]

I got about 25% through the DLC before I stopped (I love it I’ll just get to it later) and it was pretty tough man. Dont worry about your level. It’s hard as a lvl 120 on your first playthrough and it’s hard as a level 320 on NG++++++++

The difficulty seems to just be tied to the DLC-specific leveling system and not your rune level IMO

But it's probably also tied to NG+.

Granted there was like a 2 year gap between beating Mohg in NG and beating him in NG+, but it seemed harder on NG+. So I don't want that added difficulty (whether real or perceived) on my first play through of the DLC.

 

[x Tame Impala]

But it's probably also tied to NG+.

Granted there was like a 2 year gap between beating Mohg in NG and beating him in NG+, but it seemed harder on NG+. So I don't want that added difficulty (whether real or perceived) on my first play through of the DLC.

Mohg is a motherf***er regardless. If you’re not cheesing him a little bit he’s a tough one to brawl with.

I’ve made it to NG+4 and can handle most of the game fairly well. That DLC is hard man. Even the base enemies pack a major punch. The bosses are super-tuned and the devs learned all of our little tricks and patterns. Your health and strength are most likely 90+% tied to scadutree fragments, if not entirely based on it. It would be too hard to level out the difficulty otherwise. They did it Sekiro style which is the only way that makes sense to me.

Point being I wouldn’t worry about being over leveled. Get to the point where you can easily accommodate whatever weapons, builds, spells, or incantations you may want. You’re about to get stomped on again regardless

 

[pistolpete11]

Mohg is a motherf***er regardless. If you’re not cheesing him a little bit he’s a tough one to brawl with.

I’ve made it to NG+4 and can handle most of the game fairly well. That DLC is hard man. Even the base enemies pack a major punch. The bosses are super-tuned and the devs learned all of our little tricks and patterns. Your health and strength are most likely 90+% tied to scadutree fragments, if not entirely based on it. It would be too hard to level out the difficulty otherwise. They did it Sekiro style which is the only way that makes sense to me.

Point being I wouldn’t worry about being over leveled. Get to the point where you can easily accommodate whatever weapons, builds, spells, or incantations you may want. You’re about to get stomped on again regardless

You're conflating 2 separate points. I'm not worried about being over leveled for the DLC because there is a recommended level. My points are:

1. I don't want the added difficulty of NG+ for my first DLC playthrough. That's why I'm replaying on NG.

2. The difficulty is not well balanced. This is a general criticism of the game that was reinforced by replaying. People often talk about running into a boss that is too difficult and you can go somewhere else for a while. That's fine, but nobody really talks about the opposite. What happens if you explore too much and then things become too easy? It happened on this replay partially by my design, but I don't think I was so thorough that it couldn't happen naturally to somebody on their first playthrough. It happened to me in my first playthrough, too. I didn't do the Weeping Peninsula until at least after I beta Godrick. Luckily there's not a major boss there, but still.

 

[Sad People]

Tried getting into Hollow Knight yesterday and i couldnt get into it.

Which is a surprise because the reviews are incredible and everyone i talked to have echoed that sentiment. But man it didnt grab me. Maybe i need to get a controller and go with that? But ive read that its pretty easy on M&K. Maybe its because i can already tell there going to be a ton of backtracking and that doesnt really excite me either? One of my biggest complaints in Conscript.

Also played 1 game of Age of Mythology last night and it seemed kinda cool. Never played it before so its all new to me.

 

[RandV]

Tried getting into Hallow Knight yesterday and i couldnt get into it.

Which is a surprise because the reviews are incredible and everyone i talked to have echoed that sentiment. But man it didnt grab me. Maybe i need to get a controller and go with that? But ive read that its pretty easy on M&K. Maybe its because i can already tell there going to be a ton of backtracking and that doesnt really excite me either? One of my biggest complaints in Conscript.

Also played 1 game of Age of Mythology last night and it seemed kinda cool. Never played it before so its all new to me.

Did you just play a bit of the beginning? My initial attempt I played maybe 30-45 minutes, wasn't really impressed so I set it aside for a good while. Giving it another chance some time later though I got through the initial starting 'hub' area and into the next biome the Greenpath and that's where I started getting hooked.

Where Hollow Knight shines is rather than just making another 'Metroidvania' they improved on the classic Super Metroid design. A favoured topic for youtubers, Super Metroid through the first act has the appearance of being open for exploration but really they're closing doors behind you to funnel you in one direction and teach you the various gameplay elements. Then you reach a certain point, beating the first main boss I believe, and you get an upgrade that unlocks the area closed behind you and you're free to go back and explore. But while the map is all interconnected and well designed, there's still always one specific point you need to hit next.

So what Hollow Knight does is they have a good dozen+ well designed and interconnected biomes and when it opens up there isn't one set path through them. Like a Metroid there's a bunch of upgrades you need to find to make it past barriers, but they don't come in a sequential order so you can 'go the wrong way' and sometimes you have to turn around but others you still have a viable path forward. Rather than having a linear path I'd say the game works more in 'layers' and its great if you like to explore. And to get around the need for backtracking without just a straight teleport system, the map has a built in 'trolley' hub system.

Not to mention there's a bunch of other great gameplay designs in the game. Really my only problem with the game is with my OCD'ness in wanting to play it to completion, the end game content goes on for about as long as the standard game which is great if you want more value out of a single game but for me with more limited time it was a lesser experience and I was happy to finally be done with it.

 

[Sad People]

Did you just play a bit of the beginning? My initial attempt I played maybe 30-45 minutes, wasn't really impressed so I set it aside for a good while. Giving it another chance some time later though I got through the initial starting 'hub' area and into the next biome the Greenpath and that's where I started getting hooked.

Where Hollow Knight shines is rather than just making another 'Metroidvania' they improved on the classic Super Metroid design. A favoured topic for youtubers, Super Metroid through the first act has the appearance of being open for exploration but really they're closing doors behind you to funnel you in one direction and teach you the various gameplay elements. Then you reach a certain point, beating the first main boss I believe, and you get an upgrade that unlocks the area closed behind you and you're free to go back and explore. But while the map is all interconnected and well designed, there's still always one specific point you need to hit next.

So what Hollow Knight does is they have a good dozen+ well designed and interconnected biomes and when it opens up there isn't one set path through them. Like a Metroid there's a bunch of upgrades you need to find to make it past barriers, but they don't come in a sequential order so you can 'go the wrong way' and sometimes you have to turn around but others you still have a viable path forward. Rather than having a linear path I'd say the game works more in 'layers' and its great if you like to explore. And to get around the need for backtracking without just a straight teleport system, the map has a built in 'trolley' hub system.

Not to mention there's a bunch of other great gameplay designs in the game. Really my only problem with the game is with my OCD'ness in wanting to play it to completion, the end game content goes on for about as long as the standard game which is great if you want more value out of a single game but for me with more limited time it was a lesser experience and I was happy to finally be done with it.

Great breakdown and thank you for it. I probably have 2 hours or so in it and am still in the first starting section.

 

[BigBadBruins7708]

Completing the "RPG Trilogy" in Assassins Creed.

- Played Origins first and loved it. the open world RPG concept worked really well and was a welcome change up from the stale AC formula

- Played Odyssey next and as great as Origins was, this was that much better. Massive world, they fully went for it on the gear/attributes aspect of an RPG and a great variety of missions between bounties, raid, storyline missions, random NPC encounters.

- Playing through Valhalla now and loving it as much as Odyssey even with the changes. Way more of an RPG with a much more complex abilities tree, having to supply and upgrade your camp to upgrade your gear, and getting fatigued in combat/needing rations to recover.

 

[x Tame Impala]

I got stuck on the 3rd Arena level in Hollowknight and haven't touched it for a few months. I love the gameplay loop and the atmosphere. Will have to finish it at some point. This is the 2nd time I've played it and have gotten lost/hit a wall. I need to find a way past the acid lake sections

 

[Frankie Spankie]

I should give Hollow Knight another try but I remember two things that really annoyed me after about an hour into the game.

• No map - I understand that you have to buy items to unlock full functionality of the map but I just think that's terrible game design for a metroidvania.
• I really hate games with melee combat that carries momentum with your attacks. It's basically a 2D soulslike and I hate going to attack and being forced to move and taking damage as a result. I've been told you can get a power up to that removes that but again, it really soured me early and I didn't want to be forced to play through something I hate before I can unlock things to make the game play better.

The way I always looked at those "just unlock the ability to fix that problem" solution is that if I'm not having fun with the game, and it takes a while to unlock something to fix it, now I'm bitter. What if I still don't like the game at that point? I'm going to be even more mad at the game than I was before... The same thing happened to me with God of War 2018. I hate how slow it all felt. I finally got the chain weapons which were better but still not as good as I was hoping for it to be but at that point, it took me 10 hours to even get to that. Then it made me enjoy those weapons even less. If I had access from the start, my whole experience with the game would have been better.

As for what I'm playing, I got Balatro on mobile with some Google Play credit I had saved up through surveys. I see the love the game gets! I had to buy it on Steam too. I've been playing it on my phone during lunch breaks and on my desktop at home. It's so much fun.

I also got Batman Arkham Knight on release due to a pricing error of like $5, got mad at how awful the port was right away and never tried again. Finally tried it again last night. I'm only about an hour in but they obviously fixed the PC port since then. I'm not even an hour in but seems solid so far.

 

[pistolpete11]

Hollow Knight rules.

No map - I understand that you have to buy items to unlock full functionality of the map but I just think that's terrible game design for a metroidvania.

I think how they handled the map was great. Pushing further and further into a new area, often times even getting lost, creates a lot of tension and then it's released whenever you finally hear the map dude humming.

 

[Sad People]

I got to the 2nd biome for Hollow Knight and its getting a bit better. I REALLY enjoy the atheistic of this biome a lot more than the first, the added color was much needed. Im still not 100% hooked on it yet but i think its in part because im in a bit of a gaming drought and dont have that much motivation to play any games.