The Weekly 'What are you playing?' Discussion
Have you been spending hours trying to pass a level? Or maybe you are completely addicted to a newly bought game. Do you have a question about a game or would like to share something else? In the Weekly Discussion Thread, you can do it all!
Please don’t forget to use the spoiler tag as soon as you start talking about a storyline.
Helldivers 2 is so good.
Something about a non twitch shooter where you have to think about your squad a little bit feels so good in a sea of 360 no scope garbage. My last favorite online shooter was The Division 2, so maybe tight, squad gameplay is just my thing.
The missions can get a little samey, but since the terrain always changes it’s still nice to explore around and have new experiences. But also it feels like there is so much room you add new missions and planets and bad guys.
Finally, a live service game that kind of makes sense thematically.
I still have the helldivers itch but bugs are starting to diminish my enjoyment. The last few days in particular have been extremely buggy. My weapons have disappeared, extraction has bugged out, side objectives autocompleting (I couldn't activate a radar on one mission because it completed itself), lairs not completing despite destroying all the spawners, mobs spawn right next to me, I've gotten stuck inside terrain, kicked to orbit by poor connection, crashed the game.
The game is great when it works, but it's definitely unstable right now.
PC or PS5?
I’ve had some bugs on PS5 over the weekend, but fortunately not enough to really get frustrating.
PC
I’m hoping they are able to squash all the little bugs soon, for sure.
I hope so too. It's a great game.
I’ve been playing Division 2, finding a lot of fun gear that promises skill enhancements to the team on various activations - but it ends up feeling irrelevant when most players you team up with use rush tactics that dump everything into damage, meaning there’s no time to process those.
I really like the feel of action games that punish players for acting too quickly; rewarding more deliberate gameplay (even if the net result isn’t really “hard”). I wonder if Helldivers would meet that, but I didn’t like the first game and it sounds like they have server issues.
I’d say Helldivers does punish you if you try to push too hard too fast. It’s really easy to get overwhelmed with enemies.
The somewhat new Deep Rock Galactic: Survivors. Its a singleplayer 2D horde autoshooter version of the game, with the same design / voice acting as the main game but randomized runs where you find different upgrades and weapons leading to lots of cool valid builds to go for.
Its in Early Access rn but if they devs put 10% of the love they have for the main game into it, then it will only become greater. Its 9€ rn and the devs already released a roadmap with great future plans.
Rock and Stone!
Isn't DRG:Survivors by a different developer - not Ghost Ship Games?
Yeah youre right, the original devs hired another team to develop survivors apparently, i didnt know that. However the publisher for survivors is "Ghost Ship Publishing" so i assume the creative direction is still heavily influenced by the ghost ship team but i have no idea if thats true.
Nice. I'm rooting for Survivor to succeed, from the sidelines.
I'm not going to bother while it's single player, but I'm cautiously optimistic for a multiplayer variant of DRG:Survivor in the future, should they make one.
It strikes me that a DOTA style game, built for the DRG player base, could be a ton of fun, and Survivor might grow in that direction.
I can't be bothered by most current DOTA clones because their communities are famously toxic. Of course, I'm sure there's already exceptions, but I'm not so desperate for a DOTA that I'll do the research.
In any case, bringing the DRG community to a DOTA clone sounds like a good time. So I'll keep an ear out for how Survivor develops.
BG3. Im about 30 hours in. Its been really fun so far, even on the easiest mode. Ill probably play though it again to see all the interactions.
Yeah me and my buddy have been going back and forth between easiest mode and one notch up. Still a fun experience either way! Just a matter of if we want a more strategic challenge vs. being pew pew gods
Last Epoch. Loving it so far!
Oh yeah, I need to try that!
Is the stickied "What are you playing" post going to be updated? The current one is over a month old.
Anyways, I've been playing Penny's Big Breakaway, and I am enjoying it thoroughly. It's like a blend of Cappy mechanics from Mario Odyssey with a THPS style combo chaining system, and staged in levels reminiscent of 2D Sonic but transposed into 3D. The skill cap is way higher than your typical 3D platformer, and personally I find this type of design to be way more interesting than a collectathon.
It's awesome if you get a lot of enjoyment out of combo chasing and improving your times, but I can tell it's going to be divisive for those expecting a more conventional platformer. I have a feeling that this is going to end up on many "hidden gems" lists in the future.
Playing Warframe again. Been playing for over 10 years now and it still hasn't gotten old or boring.
A buddy of mine gifted me a copy of Helldivers 2 the other day, so I've been spending some time spreading Managed Democracy across the galaxy. Mostly going back and forth between Helldivers and The Finals lately.
Witcher 3 Quit smoking and drinking a few months ago and been going through my backlog to keep my mind busy. Started with Skyrim, then assassins creed Valhalla and now Witcher.
Not sure what I’ll do next. I have fallout 4, assassins creed origin and odyssey. All these games I’ve started and never finished and would like to finish.
Pokemon Renegade Platinum. I found the base game was a bit too easy. The ROM hack made it so challenging. Couldn't imagine me playing nuzelocke though.
Helldivers 2 exclusively. However, Elite: Dangerous just dropped a massive patch, so I may change to squishing bugs from a cockpit for a bit.
Last Epoch I love it! Plus runs great on Steam Deck
My son and i are doing a fun slow roll with this. 20hrs and only level 4. Love it
20h and level four? What are you doing??
Farming. Building. Exploring. We got into a bunch of fights and got all the people in base finally last night. Level 8 now
Yeah, we're not talking about the same game.
You sure we are talking about the same game? Lvl 4 can be achieved during the first map within 10 min in Last Epoch
Oops. I swear i replied to enshrouded. My bad. Last epoch is damn good too. We had many hors in ea. looking forward to new play in 1.0
OMG that is great news, had no idea it ran well on the deck. Does it run out of the box or did you have to do some tinkering/configuration?
By default there are some texture issues, switching to Proton GE resolved everything.
Enshrouded, it is surprisingly good. And there is so much content. I can highly recommend it to anyone that likes the genre. It got overshadowed by palworlds launch just a week before, but in terms of gameplay, completeness and optimization, enshrouded is miles ahead.
Helldivers 2 and when I want to relax after spreading democracy, the peacefulness of rust
Monster Hunter World. I‘d kill for a DLSS3 and FSR3 mod for this game, I want better AA and frame gen so bad. I tried FSR3 in Skyrim and Starfield and it‘s mindblowingly good, so smooth.
Helldivers 2, Trackmania 2020, rounds, lethal company, and a little bit of Splitgate. Mostly playing with friends in each.
League of Legends: I try to get diamond before Riot removes Linux support.
Mushy Score: I a lot of testing before releasing the game.
Spiritfarer: Just to have something relaxing alternative.
We've been playing a lot of co-op (just finished the new Turtles game) and competitive games against each other, so Lumines (had it on Xbox Live Arcade and installed it on my Series S for some PSP/Xbox 360 nostalgia) has been given a good run. PlateUp! looked like Overcooked but a little bit different (you get to move the kitchen and tables around); soon after, I realised I take these types of games too seriously and become kitchen Nazi, ordering people around and generally not enjoying my time.
Brotato for some sessions in between as it's on Game Pass (already completed quite a few characters - some level 5 - on PC) and so easy to pick up.
Having only tried it on the Switch (and it looked/played awful), we loaded up Fortnite based on a student's recommendation (he is only 11 though); it's actually pretty fun! We won half of the time out of a hundred people, can do couch co-op (was a little fiddly to get started), but is a large-map, relatively sparse experience until you get into vehicles and track people down. The missus warmed up to it after a game or two and now enjoys pratting around on the motorbike and acting as bait so I can destroy waves of kids.
Roguebook: I'd been lucky enough to stumble upon Cobalt Core which I've since finished and needed another Slay the Spire-esque game to scratch that itch. Roguebook is almost it, it still needs polish but that is unlikely to come. Runs are quite long, and the map system, while expansive and fun to explore/strategise around, makes it a bit too much at times. I had it on my wishlist a fair while and it handily appeared in a recent bundle, so I can't complain much. I'll get a few more hours out of it (there are four characters to unlock, and you use two - and their cards - in each run) before moving on. The style is nice, the music motivating enough, although the enemies aren't the widest in variety. A fine little game that serves its purpose.
Baldur's Gate 3: I just loaded it up on my Mac (Air, M2)... the framerate isn't there. It's a bit choppy, has a fundamental bug which I had to find a workaround for (controller was recognised as two players for some reason), and generally is a fiddly game in the 40 mins I just put in. I'll tweak the graphics a little more and see if I can get a smoother experience before putting it down. I don't have any plans to get a gaming PC anytime soon so I'll give it a go in a year or so I reckon.
Marvel: Midnight Suns went on sale this week, and is living up to the early positive reviews.
I'm not far enough in to say if it will rival similar games I enjoy, or will replace Final Fantasy Tactics: Advance.
But the early game is fun, and the mechanics feel like they may get better as the learning curve and progress hit full gear.
Edit: And it's already fun, in the early game.
I liked the card tactics, but I got very quickly bored of all the story conversations; given the way they seem to be connecting to the most obscure Marvel comic lore and characters. I’m sure it’s amazing to some people, but I could not give less of a shit who the “Original Midnight Suns” were, or even the lore behind my playable character.
Maybe when I return to it I’ll just start skipping any dialog not related to the core story.
I need to try it again. I used a mod that mucked things up and turned even simple battles into nearly impossible fights due to poor scaling
It might not have been the mod, honestly.
The difficulty curve is all over the place, even unmodded.
Resonite. Lots and lots of Resonite.
The limitless power to create anything and everything in-game, and collaborate with others for still greater creations...
And I use it for memery and general silliness.
I slept on Risk of Rain 2 for a long time but finally tried it out and damn, they did a great job converting the original from 2d to 3d.
Still picking away at Hades achievements, too. I'm at over 90% now and will trigger another one once I get back from my current run. 3 more after that: one grindy one, one gifty one, and one with a lot of heat. Might also go for 100% on the relationship bonds.
Bought all 3 RoR games. Terrible on all 3. Probably because I don't stick to the games. I feel defeated and stop playing...just to start again a few months later.
I somehow didn't realize there were 3 of them lol.
But yeah, these are definitely games you need to stick with and unlock stuff for progression. I didn't make it past like stage 2 or 3 until I had unlocked a couple other characters.
And with the way the items stack, you lose versatility but gain power if you use the 3d printer to convert all of your powerups into a single one (though not every powerup is worth it, at least I think). I still haven't beaten the game for the 2nd one, but I'm making it to the last level more consistently now.
I'll stick to it.
It's RoR 1 (2013), RoR 2, and then RoR remastered.
My experience in ROR2 was, in the tutorial, I was told “You did it! Now head to the teleporter that takes you to the next level.” I had no idea where it was or what it looked like, and could not consider the question for 10 seconds because the level quickly built up with more and more infinite enemies.
I hate roguelike games in general because that randomization leads to some very, very uncontrolled and uncurated experiences where it throws the worst shit at a new player.
I’ve been playing the Pokemon X romhack Eternal X on my 3DS as of late. I’ve been really enjoying replaying the game now that it’s an actual challenge rather than sleepwalking through yet another cakewalk of a Pokemon game. Pleasantly surprised by Nintendo’s announcement of Pokemon AZ today, I just hope it runs halfway decent (who am I kidding?)
I recently set up a home Minecraft server, so I've just been enjoying the Vanilla+ experience
Steredenn.
Although it's classic & old game but i like it because it's so... addicting & my laptop doesn't have GPU (well there's but it's only Intel graphics), i can play hours and hours & forget my life problems
I dipped back into Civilization 5 again recently. For the first time in a playthrough I asked another civ to go to war with me against another and they actually said "yup let's do it."
We crushed Genghis Khan together. I took his capital, liberated the city states for the alliances/negating warmongering penalties, and left him with a single landlocked city. I warned you not to touch Sydney, you butt.
Just some Escape From Tarkov but mostly nothing since Thesis evaluation is this Friday 💀
Haven't played anything these last several days, save a little bit of Cogmind. I don't really enjoy traditional roguelikes, because there's usually no real incentive to play them (i.e. story, atmosphere, engaging gameplay etc.), and, honestly, I just suck at them lol. But I do keep coming back to that one, because it's just so immersive! And, for some reason, I get Blame! vibes from it; I guess it's because of the whole abandoned facility full of robots thing.
Some other things I'm planning to do:
The last campfire, the entropy centre & GTA 4
Astlibra Revision on impossible. X_x
After getting back to 100% achieves with Gaiden I decided to take the plunge and the early game is quite dreadful. Lol
But it does feel nice to actually need all of the many power growth avenues.
I'm in Chapter 5 at the moment and It takes 3 whole hits now to kill me finally!... From the basic bat enemies anyway. Oof
Picked up The Walking Dead Teltale game. I remember seeing them raved about when they came out but never got around to them. They are a lot of fun so far, I haven't played any graphic novel type games before and I am really enjoying it
wolf among us and the first tales from borderlands are also good
Seconding Wolf Among Us
Almost hit 200hrs in Noita and somehow it's still fun. It's my go to when I don't have energy for VR, and the first non-VR title that's really grabbed me for the past few years. Really great game for shorter play sessions.
Still on Like a Dragon 8: Inifinte Wealth.
I'm about 45h in. So far I've completed most side stories, the Pokemon League and I'm now doing Dodonka Island. Still have most of the main story before me, didn't even had a fourth party member for close to 35h. It's still great.
Helldivers 2, Cyberpunk 2077 for the first time (40 hours in currently), Dead Space 2023, and surprisingly Rogue Company.
Been playing Rogue for 2-3 years so I'm pretty damn good at it, which is the reason I keep going back.
Cyberpunk has really come into its own. I just wish it had more cosmetic options, outside a few iconic outfits there aren't many options for good looking clothing unless you want to look like a member of a grunge band or go full casual daywear.
i havent been playing much lately, just rock band 4
My friends and I all restarted our Animal Crossing islands at the same time. It's been fun talking to them and playing lol
Mass effect LE, first time playing as a renegade and absolutely loving it.
Never played as a biotic before either so it really does feel new. Just started ME3 last night after one hell of a suicide mission.
I'm replaying Baldurs Gate 3 again. Now with even more mods, bringing my total of "nope, can't possibly play without that one" into triple digits 😄
Are there any mods to bypass annoying puzzles or remove exploding barrels and shit?
Not mods per se, but there's walk-through guides living up to their name by walking you through every step of every puzzle. As someone who loves CRPGs but is absolutely awful at puzzles, they've saved me countless hours in BG3 alone, let alone game's in general.
An example search string would be "Baldurs Gate defiled temple puzzle"
As for the barrels, I can't find one about those specially, but the Fair Fire mod removes unavoidable fire damage fromsurfaces, so that might be of interest 🙂