Video Games

[bbg95]

I think I'll start playing Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth again this weekend.

[mikegarrison]

"Like A Dragon: Pirate Yakuza In Hawaii" -- I think the devs had a drug party and someone wrote this on a whiteboard, and when they came back in with hangovers two days later they shrugged and asked themselves, "Well, why not?"

[Wolfgang]

Metro Exodus

In the forest valley section of Taiga, it seems the game wants me to fight (or otherwise be wary of) wild animals.

I love video games but pleeeeaaaazzzze...don't unleash another pack of wild wolves or some crazy a-- bear on me. I'm kinda sick of it. All the Tomb Raider games, Far Cry games, Assassin's Creed games, the Mimimi games (Shadow Tactics, Desperadoes III), etc.

I love animals!!!!

(Machine "animals" in Horizon Zero Dawn don't count.)

[mln59]

demon's souls

i used my soul farming run to get enough souls to buy the ring of avarice. now my farming run can get 14,000+ souls in about 7-10 minutes. i used it to open 4 magic attunement slots and level up a bunch.

maybe one day i'll try a boss again.

[bbg95]

Ghost of Tsushima 2 (Ghost of Yotei) was announced today. It looks incredible. This may be the game that finally gets me to buy a PS5.

[mln59]

demon's souls

beat the fool's idol tonight. wasn't too terribly difficult. sat behind columns and popped her with my bow

[Timeless]

new update fatalities/animalities?

I'm intrigued.




Mortal

[Wolfgang]

Tiny Tina's Wonderlands

Borrowed my friend's disc again for a quickie. I played three different solo campaigns with three different classes to help me decide which one was the most "fun."

Stabbomancer
Spellshot
Spore Warden

For all campaigns, I entered Brighthoof, met the Butt-stallion queen, and entered Overworld (for the second time). I made it to level 6 in all classes.

All three classes were underwhelming with their action skills and spells. They damaged enemies but didn't kill them outright with a single shot, action skill, or spell. I died the most with Spellshot. I entered Fight For Your Life the most with Stabbomancer. And I performed the best with Spore Warden even though my weapons did the least damage. It's bizarre. I think it's because I'm in the early game stage.

I'm thinking of doing another one with Brr-Zerker to see how a pure melee class might do. Graveborn is interesting but I'm always frightened by the high risk/high reward classes like Graveborn where you have to deplete most (if not all) of your health to get massively buffed damage output. Psycho from Borderlands 2 is another one like this where you have to kill yourself first in order to generate massive damage with your attacks.

For some reason, I have no interest in Clawbringer.

Edit: I just changed the Spore Warden's action skill from the 7 arrows to the tornadoes and it made a big difference! Now the tornadoes are mowing down enemies and incurring significant damage.

[Wolfgang]

Rage 2

I can see why some people called this game repetitive and somewhat boring once you get to the halfway point. I still like it probably because the things I'm asked to do are the very things I love to do over and over again.

But I think the biggest flaw of this game is that just by doing open world exploration, killing lowlifes, and looting, you rapidly increase your skills, weapons, vehicles. It's like jumping 5 levels at a time in a typical Borderlands game. It's unreal. Instead of making you slowly acclimate yourself with your new skills, new weapons, and the like, it just jumps you ahead. Normally this might sound great but when you've acquired several new skills and guns in a short period of time, you don't fully utilize all of them -- and sometimes you forget they even exist.

At one point, I unlocked a powerful rocket launcher. Prior to this, I was doing relatively well with an assault rifle, shotgun, and a simple pistol. I thought, hey, there are good enough to get me to the end game. Then, I unlocked rocket launcher and my first thought was, This is overkill, like, why would I need a rocket launcher? To kill enemies 10x faster? (Actually, it turned out, you do need rocket launchers to do certain things like destroy big enemies and gigantic sentries.)

But the game is still awesome.

[bbg95]

Sept 26, 2024 15:38:57 GMT -5 Wolfgang said:

Tiny Tina's Wonderlands

Borrowed my friend's disc again for a quickie. I played three different solo campaigns with three different classes to help me decide which one was the most "fun."

Stabbomancer
Spellshot
Spore Warden

For all campaigns, I entered Brighthoof, met the Butt-stallion queen, and entered Overworld (for the second time). I made it to level 6 in all classes.

All three classes were underwhelming with their action skills and spells. They damaged enemies but didn't kill them outright with a single shot, action skill, or spell. I died the most with Spellshot. I entered Fight For Your Life the most with Stabbomancer. And I performed the best with Spore Warden even though my weapons did the least damage. It's bizarre. I think it's because I'm in the early game stage.

I'm thinking of doing another one with Brr-Zerker to see how a pure melee class might do. Graveborn is interesting but I'm always frightened by the high risk/high reward classes like Graveborn where you have to deplete most (if not all) of your health to get massively buffed damage output. Psycho from Borderlands 2 is another one like this where you have to kill yourself first in order to generate massive damage with your attacks.

For some reason, I have no interest in Clawbringer.

Edit: I just changed the Spore Warden's action skill from the 7 arrows to the tornadoes and it made a big difference! Now the tornadoes are mowing down enemies and incurring significant damage.

Spellshot is really good if you find the right spells (I used the Calamity variants a lot--obviously, remember to use your guns when you're on cooldown or if you don't want to use your spells at the moment). I multi-classed with Graveborn, as it has great synergies.

Edit: oh, one of the reasons Spellshot is good is because you can get a class skill to equip two spells instead of one. It's better than the default skill.

[mln59]

demon's souls

i recently picked up a miracle called "evacuation". as long as i have enough magic, i can return to the nexus (safe point) anytime i wish. this is SUPER helpful

[Wolfgang]

Sept 26, 2024 18:05:48 GMT -5 bbg95 said:

Sept 26, 2024 15:38:57 GMT -5 Wolfgang said:

Tiny Tina's Wonderlands

Borrowed my friend's disc again for a quickie. I played three different solo campaigns with three different classes to help me decide which one was the most "fun."

Stabbomancer
Spellshot
Spore Warden

For all campaigns, I entered Brighthoof, met the Butt-stallion queen, and entered Overworld (for the second time). I made it to level 6 in all classes.

All three classes were underwhelming with their action skills and spells. They damaged enemies but didn't kill them outright with a single shot, action skill, or spell. I died the most with Spellshot. I entered Fight For Your Life the most with Stabbomancer. And I performed the best with Spore Warden even though my weapons did the least damage. It's bizarre. I think it's because I'm in the early game stage.

I'm thinking of doing another one with Brr-Zerker to see how a pure melee class might do. Graveborn is interesting but I'm always frightened by the high risk/high reward classes like Graveborn where you have to deplete most (if not all) of your health to get massively buffed damage output. Psycho from Borderlands 2 is another one like this where you have to kill yourself first in order to generate massive damage with your attacks.

For some reason, I have no interest in Clawbringer.

Edit: I just changed the Spore Warden's action skill from the 7 arrows to the tornadoes and it made a big difference! Now the tornadoes are mowing down enemies and incurring significant damage.

Spellshot is really good if you find the right spells (I used the Calamity variants a lot--obviously, remember to use your guns when you're on cooldown or if you don't want to use your spells at the moment). I multi-classed with Graveborn, as it has great synergies.

Edit: oh, one of the reasons Spellshot is good is because you can get a class skill to equip two spells instead of one. It's better than the default skill.

I know why I died more with Spellshot than with the other classes. It's that damn skeep (looks like sheep). I'd activate the action skill and the targeted enemy turns into a floating skeep. I'd immediately spend time shooting at the skeep while it's float-running in circles. And I could never kill them with a single shot, so it took some time to ultimately kill them. Meanwhile, because I'm busy with that skeep, other enemies are taking potshots at me. So, what I did was ignore that skeep and focused on killing everyone else. Then, that skeep transforms back into the enemy and it gets involved in the fight. It seems like such a waste to use this skill on an ordinary grunt. But when I use the skill on a stronger enemy, I suffer a barrage of gunfire from everyone else because I'm not focused on them.

The Ambi-hextrous action skill unlocks at level 7 and I'm at level 6. Perhaps once that's unlocked, I won't have to bother with the stupid skeeps.

[bbg95]

Sept 26, 2024 21:11:08 GMT -5 Wolfgang said:

Sept 26, 2024 18:05:48 GMT -5 bbg95 said:

Spellshot is really good if you find the right spells (I used the Calamity variants a lot--obviously, remember to use your guns when you're on cooldown or if you don't want to use your spells at the moment). I multi-classed with Graveborn, as it has great synergies.

Edit: oh, one of the reasons Spellshot is good is because you can get a class skill to equip two spells instead of one. It's better than the default skill.

I know why I died more with Spellshot than with the other classes. It's that damn skeep (looks like sheep). I'd activate the action skill and the targeted enemy turns into a floating skeep. I'd immediately spend time shooting at the skeep while it's float-running in circles. And I could never kill them with a single shot, so it took some time to ultimately kill them. Meanwhile, because I'm busy with that skeep, other enemies are taking potshots at me. So, what I did was ignore that skeep and focused on killing everyone else. Then, that skeep transforms back into the enemy and it gets involved in the fight. It seems like such a waste to use this skill on an ordinary grunt. But when I use the skill on a stronger enemy, I suffer a barrage of gunfire from everyone else because I'm not focused on them.

The Ambi-hextrous action skill unlocks at level 7 and I'm at level 6. Perhaps once that's unlocked, I won't have to bother with the stupid skeeps.

Yeah, once I unlocked it, I never went back to the default ability except in extremely niche situations where I just wanted to neutralize one enemy.

[mikegarrison]

BG3:

Something I had heard was possible but I had never done before.

There is a location in the Temple of Shar where a bunch of portals open up and undead Sharran warriors come out. Meanwhile you have other undead warriors on your side, being controlled by a necromancer named Balthazar.

If you fight the Sharrans and win (it's easier if you kill their portals before they send too many reinforcements through), then Balthazar opens up a door to where he is and you can go talk to him. (Usually I then try to kill him.)

The door to where he is has a DC30 lock. That means you need to roll a 30 using a d20 to open it up. Even with bonuses, that's pretty hard. Obviously you would need at least +10 in bonuses to even have a chance of getting up to 30. There is always a 5% chance of rolling a 20, which is considered a critical success and always works. Or ... you can cast a fairly simple spell called "knock" that opens almost any lock.

So ... I did. That added Balthazar and a bunch of undead goons to the battle. Then I just bravely ran away, and I let the undead Sharrans fight the undead being controlled by Balthazar. In the end, the Sharrans killed Balthazar and all his minions (which I was gonna do anyway), but mostly were killed themselves. Nice!

So I quickly mopped up the remnants of the Sharrans and simply looted the remains.

(It did take, oh, at least half an hour for the fight to play out -- it's turn-based, and these undead are kind of tanky but don't have great to-hit chances, so they did a lot of swinging and missing at each other. But it was actually kind of fun watching them fight each other.)

[mln59]

demon's souls.

beat two bosses yesterday and found a new souls farming run. can clear 5505 souls in about 38 seconds (i used my phone to time it out). it's insanely quick and super easy. able to level up like a crazy person