T w e n t y S i d e d
This week I’ve just played Minecraft. I intended to play other games but I didn’t realize that it had been so long since I last played. So I got to explore some new stuff and hopefully I will not run into a Warden.
What are you guys playing?
Top 64 Videogames
Lists of 'best games ever' are dumb and annoying. But like a self-loathing hipster I made one anyway.
Mass Effect Retrospective
A novel-sized analysis of the Mass Effect series that explains where it all went wrong. Spoiler: It was long before the ending.
Quakecon Keynote 2013 Annotated
An interesting but technically dense talk about gaming technology. I translate it for the non-coders.
Video Compression Gone Wrong
How does image compression work, and why does it create those ugly spots all over some videos and not others?
Who Broke the In-Game Economy?
Why are RPG economies so bad? Why are shopkeepers so mercenary, why are the prices so crazy, and why do you always end up a gazillionaire by the end of the game? Can't we just have a sensible balanced economy?
Played some more The Last Spell. Been a while, but it is a really fun tactical turn based roguelite game. It does get really complicated though, when you have 6 heroes and enemies coming from all 4 sides and just so many things to think about.
Also, I feel like poison multitarget build and big beefy melee build are top tier and other builds, including crit/isolation which does get you fun big numbers, just don’t really compete. Putting 5000 points of poison on a big enemy (or 250 points on 20 different small enemies) is very strong, momentum (moves that gain power for each space you’ve moved this turn) is a massive multiplier, other things just don’t seem as good.
I find poison is very appealing, right up until it isn’t (contagion can and will infect your own heroes, yet is required to deal with the hordes). Crit/isolation builds definitely seem like they won’t work, but they definitely can: that basic dagger stab can 1-shot big stuff if you build the character up right, you just need to bring something like an axe to clear out some of the chaff, or a scroll of the big spear cone attack for when there’s just too many things.
A lot of stuff doesn’t seem like it works until you’ve got characters that have rolled extra action points on level up, gear with bonus action points, and those free action scrolls, and they can actually bring everything they need together. It’s also really easy to get extra base physical damage with certain perks on top of your level up stats, and lots of stats are boosted by gear that’s not unlocked at first.
The thing I’m stuck on feeling is completely non-optional, is sniper ‘warlocks’ (what I think of the Tome of Secrets weapon). I just don’t see how you can handle the sheer numbers without spamming the chain lightning attack from two characters every run. You have 6 characters and 4 walls, but you pretty much have to have some snipers that can cover across corners, and the only way they can deal with hordes is either poison (which I’ve found of sketchy reliability later on even when I try to go all in), or just lightning over and over. Specifically lightning and crit build. And even then, you have to learn to carefully prune the available targets so the chain doesn’t cut itself off.
Meanwhile whenever I try to go 1-handed sword, which just feels so dang good, it eventually fails for just not having enough “AoE”.
Generally my poison guy can deal with hordes just fine, the dagger multitarget skill hitting 9 enemies covers that. I haven’t hit my own guys with contagion yet and hadn’t even thought about it, that would be pretty funny.
I haven’t really felt the need for the chain lightning. It does great damage but it’s awkward that it’s a once per turn thing. And there are a lot of chain attacks in the game – the scepter one stuns, which is pretty awesome.
I also haven’t tried a lightning crit build, because the biggest crit boost in the game requires you be out of mana and lightning, uh, costs mana. Haven’t tried a dagger crit build either, it’s just been bows for me, I haven’t done that many runs because each one takes quite a while.
Well if you’re also boosting multi-targets yeah, you’ve nearly doubled the base hits there (multi-target build is also fun, though it can get tiring clicking through all the hits). And if you’re still on the first few maps, oh those hordes will increase, don’t worry. Or, be worried?
You use the low-mana crit skill by increasing your maximum mana (usually primarily with the other perk in the tree that gives you +3/level), and the trinket I mentioned. A while back they added a type of trinket that gives you a skill which burns action and move points to get around 12 mana back, with about a -10% damage penalty for wearing it. The penalty can be offset, and that’s enough mana per turn to basically cast anything you want, actually makes ‘caster’ style character play viable. The chain lightning snipers do have that problem where their 1/turn skills whiffing is bad, but there’s a perk to help mitigate that too. Of course, builds relying on perks is how the randomly filled perk trees determine your characters.
I have played a bit more of Chronicles of Myrtana got to the city, it’s layout is confusing me.
Started Yakuza 3 the PC remaster, I’m only a couple hours in, so far it seems on par with the other Yakuza games I’ve played if I adjust for the fact they were effectively remakes (the “Kiwami” editions) and so 3 is a bit of a downgrade in some regards. It’s too early for me to comment on the plot yet. The hostess minigame is awful in this one and I hope I don’t have to interact with it for the rest of the game.
Grinded some more of the “Into the Light” filler event in Destiny 2. It’s a good thing there is time because I want to get the pure black shader (read: dye) but I no longer have the drive to grind this game in earnest.
With my co-op buddy we’re closing in on the end of Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands. The internet tells me the DLCs are short so despite the fact our schedules are a bit out of whack right now I predict we should wrap the game up mid-May.
Fell Seal: Arbiter’s Mark is far enough in that I’ve hit the Underleveled Character portion of the game, where someone dropped a few levels behind and can’t recover because their stats are too low and the enemy prioritizes attacking them because their stats are so low. I’ve hit the first optional hard fight, which has killed me a few times now, and it might have sapped my will to continue. But I made it past Chapter 2, so I’ll count that as a win.
Into The Breach has been revisited. It’s as fun as I remember, a nice bite-sized strategy game. But I ran into a bug for a while, where whenever I tried to reset a turn, it would instead load a particular turn from island 3 of a previous run with a different squad. I don’t remember seeing that one before, and don’t know why it chose that turn because I finished that whole run with that squad; but it survived closing and reopening the game. Eventually fixed itself, but that’s killed my enthusiasm for starting new runs.
Arm has inexplicably recovered enough to hold a controller again, so I’m finally playing Tales of Berseria again, and finishing the writeup I thought would be finished back in December. Fought a dragon in a sidequest; remembered the fight being easy, but didn’t realize just how easy, or that the music reinforced the fight being entirely one-sided. It’s basically an interactive cutscene, you’re not “fighting it” so much as “putting it down”.
Recent LP watching of Octopath Traveler 2 convinced me to play it again, this time trying to pull off a one-character completion like I did with 1 (now that my arm can hold a controller again). I’ve completed the chapter that’s built around having only one character, with no difficulties; extrapolating from there, this run should be easy.
I really liked Fell Seal at first, but having a boatload of underleveled characters activated my video game OCD, and I just bounced after that.
I have since finished the story content for Exoprimal, which was good, and I’ll keep playing it in general for a while yet ’cause it’s fun. I wasn’t quite right about how long the grind takes, since the third form of each suit is unlocked after only 10 levels (rather than the 20 needed to get the second form), but the biggest thing is that there was a double xp event, and surprise surprise, doubling the rate of gain makes everything feel great. But where say Deeprock Galactic will run those for 2 weeks at a time, Exoprimal’s wasn’t even a full week (though I think they might do so more often since they seem to be associated with the two post-game challenge run modes).
The final boss was. . . kinda meh though? A little too video game final boss making it less exciting than the previous big story boss, or the wacky megaman crossover boss that’s also running right now.
The ‘ultimate exosuit’ just being a giant nigh stationary lump is way less exciting than the previous boss’s normal sized suit flying around with six floating uber weapon things.But one of those post game challenges is supposed to be a souped up run on the final story mission so we’ll see. And the story while cheesy and often dumbed-down feeling sci-fi, was still engaging enough to keep me going through the end, I enjoyed it though to the end.I find the flying healer Skywave’s quasi-flight far more satisfying than I’d expect. It’s just a “dodge” which swoops you up into the air followed by slowfall, but with up to 2 stored charges and the natural reflex of hitting a jump first for just a little more air before ‘takeoff’, it’s just really satisfying getting and then keeping yourself airborne to you can rain healing down on your team whilst ignoring the hordes below. It’s got enough “flapping” that you’re not just no-clipping into the air, but also enough hang-time you can actually do your job, but also has a drawback of putting you out of range for some abilities so it’s not always a no-brainer. And the smooth slightly sideways into upward swoop really sells the thing.
I’m finding myself in a build state of “Drill Fist goes on everything.” Healer? Drill Fist. Gunner? Drill Fist. Tank? Drill Fist. It’s not even that crazy of damage against many targets, but it’s just nice and reliable to have that extra point blank attack on anything that isn’t already melee damage based. The goal is to kill dinos faster, Drill Fist helps kill dinos faster, qed.
I didn’t get time to play anything this week, mostly because it’s spring. In the spring and in the fall, I have lots of things to do that don’t fit into my normal routine (prepping for being able to cut the lawn in the spring, preparing to rake the leaves and raking them in the fall, and so on and so forth) that I end up with that entire routine messed up for a month or so. In summer and winter I have extra stuff to do (cut the lawn in summer and shovel snow in the winter) but cutting the lawn fits into the routine and snow shoveling is obviously not something that I can put into a routine but is also something that is easy to fit into the routine by my simply tossing aside what I had planned for that day. I hope to get back to more regular game playing early in May.
I’ve been mostly playing Total Warhammer 3, trying to finish my Katarin campaign before the impending update breaks all my saves. I’m currently working my way through Khorne’s Realm, which is the last of the four I need to conquer to unlock the endgame.
Skarbrand is also working on taking the last soul of four, but there’s nothing I can do about that because he’s in another Realm. Greasus is working on taking a third soul, which I wouldn’t mind so much except that he’s in Khorne’s Realm too and he keeps stealing my kills.
N’Kari seems to have bowed out for the moment; he decided for some reason that he wanted to conquer Marienburg. I’m allied with them, but not at war with N’Kari. I own most of Marienburg and Couronne, with the Burghers being limited to just Castle Tancred and Broekwater. N’Kari threw himself and a full stack at Castle Tancred plus half a stack of Marienburg’s finest, and was beaten back. I wasn’t expecting that and honestly, if the Daemons had won it might have been better for me since I could have taken the cities from them and cemented my control over the provinces. But hey, never look a gift horse in the mouth.
The west is peaceful. I’ve got garrisons set up so even the Rifts don’t open there. The Greenskins and Skaven are dead, and no longer a problem. Four out of the twelve Imperial provinces still survive: Nordland, Ostland, Ostermark, and Stirland. All the others were defeated by the various menaces and are now owned by me. The North is mostly under my control; I’ve taken almost all of Norsca, and the tribes are almost completely gone. I haven’t dared venture into the Chaos Wastes yet, so the Daemons and Warriors of Chaos are doing as well as ever.
In the East, I’m fighting against the Chaos Dwarfs. They started it, and currently they’re losing a lot more cities and armies than I am, but Kislevites aren’t fond of deserts so I’m not sure if I’ll bother to conquer their lands as opposed to just razing and moving on. We’ll see. (I did lose a highly veteran Ataman, but that’s relatively minor). After the Dwarfs, there are the Ogres. I don’t think I’m going to bother fighting them, but eh. Maybe if Greasus decides he’d be up for a scrap.
What update is this? I have been itching to play Warhammer 3, but if there is a big save breaking update arriving soon then I will refrain until then.
The Thrones of Decay update will break all saves, I’m told, so that’s what I’m racing against. It will supposedly drop on the 30th of April.
Okay, thanks for the heads up. 4/30 isn’t long, so I can postpone my download until then.
Playing Guardians of the Galaxy (2021). It’s doing the cinematic adventure game genre very well, with great pacing, dialogue and blending of the player-controlled sections with cutscenes. The combat is okay; feels great for the simplest battles, but a bit of a pain for tougher enemies when your guns do nothing and you have to kite around waiting for cooldowns to recharge on all the super-abilities.
They shelled out the cash to provide the kind of all-star soundtrack you expect from a Guardians property. Overall, well above grade for a licensed game.
I’ve been playing Anodyne, on the Switch. A Pokemon/Stardew looking thing with vrey basic combat with a broom, which you can use to sweep up dust in places and then use that dust to float on water (?). It’s fun! I’ve not done much gaming at all of late, least of all on the Switch Lite, so this has been quite nice, chill-out gaming.