Gaming Thoughts

I have some random commentary about games i'm playing sometimes that don't seem like they deserve a full thread but I still want to comment on. I guess kinda like the rant thread and the happy thread. Share some of your random gaming thoughts or experiences.



I was playing Sims 4, you know how hard it is to get the $350,000 household life aspiration goal? Hard. I put in big tvs and big appliances and lots of art and a pool and two stories and ugh. That's super freaking hard and you're still $150,000 behind. I ended up just putting expensive $12,000 bathtubs across the top of my house until I hit the $350,000 cap. So my entire top floor was just bathtubs. Tons of bathtubs. Hit the cap, deleted them all and threw the roof back on. Problem solved!

Share your random gaming thoughts/experiences!

So I'm playing Dragon Age: Origins on PC because it is so much better than the console version like they are two completely separate games.

They've added a move to point button, which the console version desperately lacks, a tactical mode which is great, and AoE targeting can be centered on an enemy so even if they move it'll go to them. Then my list of mods add many improvements and bug fixes beyond that!

The one baffling thing they omit in this version though is the junk button. The junk button. Such a simple yet helpful inventory tool, and they remove it in the PC version. What!

They just want to make sure you carry all that junk in your trunk ;)

Oh I have so many of these that come up!

Like Firis is adorable and games like Dengeki Bunko and Nitroplus Blasterz make much more sense if you know the source material which, in my case, I usually do not

So yesterday in Dragon Quest IX I did this quest that rewarded me with a Flamenco Shirt. At first I thought that's so lame. Then it turned out it boosts the stats of my main character who's a Minstrel (not actually a bard, more like a jack-of-all-trades). And then it turned out it looks fantastic on him and suddenly I'm way more into the game. Because my pink shirt looks great.

In Horizon the separate the quests into categories and I love that. Where am I in the main quest? Oh here I am. Where was that last sidequest at? Over there, omw.

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Originally Posted by Freya

I have some random commentary about games i'm playing sometimes that don't seem like they deserve a full thread but I still want to comment on. I guess kinda like the rant thread and the happy thread. Share some of your random gaming thoughts or experiences.



I was playing Sims 4, you know how hard it is to get the $350,000 household life aspiration goal? Hard. I put in big tvs and big appliances and lots of art and a pool and two stories and ugh. That's super freaking hard and you're still $150,000 behind. I ended up just putting expensive $12,000 bathtubs across the top of my house until I hit the $350,000 cap. So my entire top floor was just bathtubs. Tons of bathtubs. Hit the cap, deleted them all and threw the roof back on. Problem solved!

Share your random gaming thoughts/experiences!

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I feel like there's a commentary on the futility of consumerism in there somewhere.

Atelier Firis should update quests locations as you progress through them, not just keep it on its original objective point

Why do so few multiplayer games have local splitscreen these days? :noidea:

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Originally Posted by Mr. Carnelian

Why do so few multiplayer games have local splitscreen these days? :noidea:

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They were pretty rare last generation for most of the life of the systems. But after a while there was a bit of a revolution and even pc games started bringing it back. I developed a pretty big collection of local co-op games of last gen and even a fair few this generation. Are you looking for cooperative games or just multiplayer? And if cooperative then what types would you prefer? Borderlands, Tales games and Divinity Original Sin Enhanced will probably be your top tier experiences. But there are also a lot of indie and lesser known titles as well

Edit: I actually have a worksheet on my computer cataloging my collection and I've helped out some other forum members. Maybe I should make a thread and request it be stickied and list all the good local co-op games that went under the radar in the last generation or so

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Originally Posted by Mr. Carnelian

Why do so few multiplayer games have local splitscreen these days? :noidea:

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Because it's a surprising technical difficulty and the usage numbers just aren't high enough to justify it for most companies. Since online multiplayer became such a big deal, the local audience has become relatively tiny. The trouble with splitscreen is you have to do everything twice: rendering graphics, calculating physics, processing audio. All of which completely tanks the performance, and it takes a lot of work to get it back.

Back in the day when it was the only way people ever really played together, it was seen as a worthwhile investment to do that. But nowadays online always takes priority.

So yeah, there's your answer. It sure does suck though :shrug:

Maybe I was underleveled, but the Tartarus Level 36 boss ("Change Relic") was one of the most brutal boss fights I've been up against in a long time.

So this was Breath of the Wild. I don't want it to be over. Hopefully story DLC will be actual story DLC.

There's this character in Persona 5 and all I could think was, "I want her hair in FFXIV."

Why does everyone let me loot their homes and houses all the time? Oh it's the protag, yeah that's fine. It was my last 30 gil but whatever

Oh hey look all my social links are coming along fine, all around Level 5 or so- OH MY GOD ALL THESE NEW SOCIAL LINKS now what do I spend my time on!?

At least I had some fun Mazio'ing the Floor 47 boss to death.

Been playing FFX for fun again. It cracks me up that Seymour has such obvious bad guy hair.

I just got to Atlantica in KH and I just realized I can buy weapons from the item shop. Oops

So Mass Effect: Andromeda is really fun, but I can't shake the feeling that the combat is strangely more simple than before. I mean, you get all these options and abilities that are no longer class-restricted, which is great, but you can only choose to have three active powers. You can switch between your 'favourites' mid-combat, but that activates all your cooldowns, so there's not much point switching up.

For example, Mr. Carny's been using Pull+Throw pretty much the entire game. and there's barely any incentive to switch it up. He's maxed out all his biotics at this point but I don't see him using backlash, lance, singularity etc. anytime soon. Why should he?

Combat issues aside, probably the best thing is exploring and sidequesting. Compared to DA: Inquisition, there's much better engagement with people and characters on all the different worlds, which I love.

To be fair, I'm replaying ME2 right now and the combat is painfully simple really. I've always felt that the original Mass Effect played like a really troutty third person shooter. 2 and 3 were really just average third person shooters but they were so good by comparison they get away with it.

I feel there are two myths that shroud Dark Souls that are not really true.

1) The game is ridiculously hard - Not really, it's just a basic trial and error style of challenge like old school arcade games or some modern mobile titles even. If you have the patience to just keep nudging along, you'll quickly start to see it's easy to make progress, and the consequences are really just a slight slap to the wrist. Hell by the end of the game, I would be more annoyed about losing humanity than a few thousand souls. In some ways Demon's Souls is more challenging, but that has to do with other features that were more frustrating than fun that Dark Souls had the good fortune to remove.

2) The game is completely fair, unlike other games - I would put a little asterisk by the word fair. "Trial and error" style difficulty is not exactly fair challenge since the entire basis is to learn from your mistakes, but these games tend to always place you in unwinnable situations that only hindsight could ever hope to overcome. So yeah, you're still going to feel like the game cheap shots you a lot and there are certainly a few situations where the game stacks the odds in it's favor or gives unfair advantages to enemy units. The ghosts of New Londo can kiss my ass with their ability to take pot shots through walls and remain completely invincible. I doubt there is anyone who successfully completed the Bed of Chaos on their first try without getting some kind of help. That's not to say the game doesn't offer a fair challenge but it does cheat occasionally in ways other games do, it just doesn't do it as often ,which is why its not called out on it. The real fairness comes from the game making death trivial, so you don't get as pissy about the cheap shots, hidden enemies, or learning the hard way about the aggro range of Gwyn's Black Knights.

That's one thing I always hated, hindsight was required more than skill. There's a lot of situations you're not supposed to win the first time you go in blindly. Which is disparaging

So in the Witcher, I couldn't get the drop I want from ghouls until I got the bestiary entry for them. But you don't just get the bestiary entry by beating a ghoul - you have to talk with some grannies and give them food before that.

Now, at first I was pretty annoyed with that, but then I realized this actually made the game more involved and really integrated story and gameplay. Because you won't know how to effectively extract a ghoul's blood just by killing it, so you have to scout for information. And who knows old stories about all the fantastic beasts better than the grannies. And who doesn't like free food?

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Originally Posted by Fynn

So in the Witcher, I couldn't get the drop I want from ghouls until I got the bestiary entry for them. But you don't just get the bestiary entry by beating a ghoul - you have to talk with some grannies and give them food before that.

Now, at first I was pretty annoyed with that, but then I realized this actually made the game more involved and really integrated story and gameplay. Because you won't know how to effectively extract a ghoul's blood just by killing it, so you have to scout for information. And who knows old stories about all the fantastic beasts better than the grannies. And who doesn't like free food?

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That makes sense. Why would you suddenly know a data entry all about ghouls just by killing them? Getting information from wise women seems like a nice bit of gameplay!

I've been playing a string of games lately. The UI has stuck out to me after playing Persona 5 most recently. The two before it were Final Fantasy XV and Mass Effect Andromeda. Persona makes me appreciate how a good UI can enhance the gaming experience. I wonder why some games struggle with functional maps and menus more than others. I've played some games in my old crotchety life where the map, menus, and/or HUD were just atrocious. They don't have to be stylish (though that's cool) so much as helpful. Are things changed during development too fast for those in charge of this to keep up? Is it just not considered priority much of the time? I dunno. And I'm too lazy to research. But I thought about it.

You'd think I'd learn that when an already story heavy game pops up a message saying that a lot of plot is coming, that a LOT of plot is coming.

FFXIII-2, Noel's pants are terrible, but he's pretty cute isn't he

Mjolnir + Thor = suddenly doing 2x-3x the damage of your allies even when they're hitting the enemy's weakness

Sweet.

I remember being kind of sour towards Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance, but I don't really know why anymore. I like that we got a lot more different Disney worlds, and the gameplay is fun if a little challenging for me towards the end. Getting close to beating it again, so maybe something towards the end stuck out to me in a bad way?

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Originally Posted by Scotty_ffgamer

I remember being kind of sour towards Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance, but I don't really know why anymore. I like that we got a lot more different Disney worlds, and the gameplay is fun if a little challenging for me towards the end. Getting close to beating it again, so maybe something towards the end stuck out to me in a bad way?

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Perhaps you were like me and didn't particularly care for the story revelations by the end? I remember feeling pretty good about the game until the end myself.

Probably. I'll find out soon. I think I've warmed up to the story stuff though.

I kind of feel the game killed my interest in the series sadly.

How can a game be so good yet barely be a game?

Honestly, Dream Drop Distance was ruined for me by the Drop mechanic. Automatically swapping characters and resetting your current progress every five minutes utterly killed the game.

I feel like I'm the only person who genuinely loved every part of Dream Drop Distance.

I actually really enjoyed every part of it from beginning to end this play through so I don't know what my deal was before

Not so much commentary on games I'm playing as on games I should be playing. I have a few games I started and didn't finish that I should go back to now that I have more time

But which one first hmm

I'm doing everything I can in XV because I have to give it back to my sis soon! :(

Playing Suikoden II for the first time, and I'm pretty excited. I'm hoping it's as good as people have made it out to be. First one was enjoyable. I did lose my save from the first one though... Will I be missing much by not connecting suikoden II with a save from the first one?

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Originally Posted by Scotty_ffgamer

Playing Suikoden II for the first time, and I'm pretty excited. I'm hoping it's as good as people have made it out to be. First one was enjoyable. I did lose my save from the first one though... Will I be missing much by not connecting suikoden II with a save from the first one?

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The major thing you'll lose out on is level adjustments for returning characters, a few characters have equipment changes as well. The biggest change is that I don't think you can recruit one of the game's secret characters. There are also certain books that awkwardly call back to what you named things in the first game.

Old save bonuses are awesome. I got my best armor and swords really late in the Witcher so didn't get to use them much, but now that I've imported my save file to the Witcher 2, I have them from the start :3:

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Originally Posted by Fynn

Old save bonuses are awesome. I got my best armor and swords really late in the Witcher so didn't get to use them much, but now that I've imported my save file to the Witcher 2, I have them from the start :3:

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They really screw you over if you're changing platforms though.

Anyway, started back up my FFIV LP. Just about lost the rust in terms the combat again and the story is beginning to pick up steam.

Of course now I've got the airship so watch while I neglect the main quest in favour of side-quests. Also wow you get the airship early in this game.

Still not as early as FFIII :p

Why are the townies generated in sims 4 so lame looking? Why can't they make them look cooler?

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Originally Posted by Fynn

Still not as early as FFIII :p

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You don't even have that airship for five minutes before your party wrecks it.

Still, both games went crazy with the number of airships tbh

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Originally Posted by Fynn

Still, both games went crazy with the number of airships tbh

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Like four at most, and in FFIII you get one for five seconds and the other is only needed to reach two locations while FFIV has three with the last one letting you travel to the last two locations in the game. I'll take it over the point and click travel of the more recent installments. :p

In other news, I have completely forgotten how cool Terra Battle is. I'm not a huge mobile phone fan, but this game has seriously advanced to something pretty cool. Character collecting like Suikoden, class upgrades, weapons with their own class upgrades, monster collecting, great music by Nobuo Uematsu and half a dozen other great musicians from the RPG genre. Gorgeous artwork, and most importantly: pretty cool gameplay. It's only a shame it will probably be another two years before we hear anything about the console version considering how slow Mistwalker works.

You guys know who should play the Witchers? Everybody. But read the books first, the whole thing is way more enjoyable that way

Metal Gear Solid: Twin Snakes. Why does this game have to be so harrrrd.

Early access for fantastic games is almost as bad as early access for crap cash-ins. It makes me yearn for what doesn't exist yet

Just reached the WHAM Episode of Terra Battle, and the game has now turned into Xenogears or possibly Terranigma.

My brother said that the XV bros should be in Mario Kart 8 with the Regalia. That would be hilarious. I would totally play as them lol.

I fused Helel with Victory Cry.

It's a mixture of hilarious and tragic.

How many dogs can I get to follow me on minecraft. I need an army of dogs

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Originally Posted by Freya

How many dogs can I get to follow me on minecraft. I need an army of dogs

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Like your sig! I try to get an army of dogs when I play Minecraft too. I always have so much fun naming them and giving them different colored collars!

I killed Lu Bu in a duel today in Romance of the Three Kingdoms XIII. Ya pretty stoked about doing that.

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Originally Posted by FFNut

I killed Lu Bu in a duel today in Romance of the Three Kingdoms XIII. Ya pretty stoked about doing that.

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That's cool! if Lu Bu is anything like he is in Dynasty Warriors, that's definitely an achievement!

Tales of Zesteria is really fun so far! The combat system is pretty 'overstuffed' of mechanics to keep an eye on, but it is otherwise a very fun game.

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Originally Posted by Lyndis Highwind

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Originally Posted by FFNut

I killed Lu Bu in a duel today in Romance of the Three Kingdoms XIII. Ya pretty stoked about doing that.

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That's cool! if Lu Bu is anything like he is in Dynasty Warriors, that's definitely an achievement!

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His duel stat is rated 107 out of 100.

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Originally Posted by FFNut

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Originally Posted by Lyndis Highwind

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Originally Posted by FFNut

I killed Lu Bu in a duel today in Romance of the Three Kingdoms XIII. Ya pretty stoked about doing that.

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That's cool! if Lu Bu is anything like he is in Dynasty Warriors, that's definitely an achievement!

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His duel stat is rated 107 out of 100.

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Whoa! Nice!

Competitive Overwatch

King's Row, Defend 0-3
King's Row, Attack 3-0
King's Row, Defend 1-0
King's Row, Attack...

60 seconds to capture the objective. Assuming you are random player who has not yet picked, the rest of the team comp is D.Va, Mercy, Tracer, Winston, Pharah, do you:

a) Pick a 3rd tank, such as Roadhog for flanking or Reinhardt for pushing
b) Pick a 2nd support, like Lucío for sustain or Ana for the CC and Ult
c) Pick Soldier 76 for the immediate pressure, burst and flank potential
d) Pick Hanzo, with no immediate pressure on a mostly open part of the map, pretty much providing nothing to the team

If you guessed D, congratulations!

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The Support-main life is a real struggle at times.

(Needless to say, we lost)

Speaking of Lu Bu, they made him a berserker class in the Fate/Extra games.

Lu Bu was really just good at one on one fighting. Surround the guy and he flopped historically. He went in and head hunted which was his legacy.

Holy crap they are not kidding when they said the Perfect Ambrosia run of the Snow Queen Quest is insanely hard in Persona 1.

Also Persona 5 is amazing and everyone should play it.

Things about superhero characters from Injustice 2:
Black Canary is sassy
Poison Ivy likes to kiss everyone
No one likes to kiss Poison Ivy

I find that for challenging games I prefer overcoming skill based challenges rather than memorization and pattern recognition. While there is some overlap where you have to know what does what in order to skill your way around it, but the difference tends to be the options and speed that tends to work more towards my play style

Congratulations Drakengard, you join such illustrious series like the MegaTen franchise and Xenosaga Episode 1 that all prove that moral guardians in the west don't give a trout about RPGs and thus you can show and do crap that would get other games pulled off the market in a heartbeat if they were even implied in a game like GTA and Call of Duty.

You are also the first game I've played in a long time that actually allows you to kill children. In fact, Drakengard's world seems to be a bad place for kids in general. If the evil empire isn't sacrificing you fr their nefarious rituals than one of the three playable main characters is either murdering you with uncontrollable rage, screwing you, or eating you. Crapsack world indeed.

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Originally Posted by Wolf Kanno

You are also the first game I've played in a long time that actually allows you to kill children. In fact, Drakengard's world seems to be a bad place for kids in general. If the evil empire isn't sacrificing you fr their nefarious rituals than one of the three playable main characters is either murdering you with uncontrollable rage, screwing you, or eating you. Crapsack world indeed.

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I am so glad that Drakengard is never too blunt about this. While it is true that it happens it never happens in the same fashion stories could show it because that is actually one of the absolutely no-gos in fiction for me.

Just wanted to share this because its fun

http://i.imgur.com/qUqRy1u.png

Man, way back in the day I totally didn't realize Arthas was leveling backwards in the TFT UD campaign. Such a clever way of implementing story into gameplay.

I just came to the realization that I've been playing Super Smash Bros Melee for almost all my life. It's always been there, so I never really thought about how long I'd been playing it.

Went back to Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age for a bit to do a challenge fight against the ultimate superbosses. It went well, but then I ended up figuring out a completely and utterly broken strategy that can win the fight without any danger in 3 minutes.

Sigh.

It amazes me games I used to play on a home console can be played on my tiny phone now. I'm playing Dragon Quest VIII on my phone. I think about how crazy this is every time I play it. Also I am old.

I had to have the bowling pack for my sims.

I bought it and haven't used it yet because okay, they can't afford a bowling alley in their home! They're a new blended family! He hasn't even adjusted to being a step dad and I expect him to fund a personal bowling alley?!

The Materia System in Final Fantasy VII is so robust, it's surprisingly fun to plan challenges for. My current run has me using only materia, and the only items I can use are items I find in the field or steal from enemies.

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Originally Posted by Lyndis Highwind

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Originally Posted by Freya

How many dogs can I get to follow me on minecraft. I need an army of dogs

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Like your sig! I try to get an army of dogs when I play Minecraft too. I always have so much fun naming them and giving them different colored collars!

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I found all the dogs in Suikoden 3, and used to go around with my all dog party.

They had a team up attack where'd they'd form a sort of.....wagon wheel...., and run over the enemy for decent damage.

Always made me chuckle.

I NEED CATS AND DOGS FOR SIMS 4. I NEED IT. Tell it to come out already.


Also i found myself just playing creative based games. City building, park building, sims, stardew, minecraft.

less story based things. hmmm

I've become determined to top off my Wii U library before the games become really hard to find and the first one I picked up was Xenoblade Chronicles X. So far I've logged around ten hours and haven't even begun chapter 4 yet.

I see where this is going already.

Just started replaying Tales of the Abyss a few days ago. I know know Luke is effectively a seven year old in a teen's body at the beginning of the game, but seriously, he needed an attitude adjustment long before Tear showed up. How does any parent let their kid get that bad?

Jun is p great

https://static.zerochan.net/Kurosu.Jun.full.593258.jpg

Mega Man Zero why you got to be busting my ass so much? Still enjoying it, but I forgot how steep the difficulty curve was in this game.

After continuing my Dragon Quest collection with DQVII for 3DS, I realized that I needed to return to DQIV and beat it. It had been dumped when Zelda came out and come to find out I was basically at the end already.

Tonight I took on the final boss and after an underwhelming easy fight... got slaughtered by the final form. I'll try again tomorrow.