What are you playing at the moment? - December 2017

[Shadoko]

I am strongly tempted to switch to the easiest difficulty for good in TW3. It’s not that the combat system is bad per se, just that I don’t have any interest in it. At low level (I assume you get more powerful afterwards) fights can be a real slog, even if not too difficult (Werewolves for example) and the easiest difficulty seems to be quite fitting narratively speaking, as Geralt waltzs through bandits and low-level monsters but still has to use oils/signs/potions for harder, more unique monsters.

[sonson]

Guess it depends on your build but I found the opposite to be true, I switched to the hardest difficulty for the final third with my sword heavy Geralt and got the illusion of fights that were something of an event without requiring much effort. Anything below my level by much was an insta kill but things that were a bit more formidable took a little work, but not much. Given that you might not even notice higher tier enemies if you go low.

[LTK]

I could be wrong, but I think enemies that are more than x levels above you are practically unkillable and will kill you in a few hits regardless of the difficulty level. They really wanted to hammer home that “you should not be fighting this right now”.

@Shadoko I think if you knock it down to easy, you won’t regret it. Having challenging combat is good for immersion, but the game doesn’t suffer if you can just breeze through everything.

[theantmeister]

Played through Life is Strange and now I’m sad.

Merry Christmas everyone.

[LexW]

Guess it depends on your build but I found the opposite to be true, I switched to the hardest difficulty for the final third with my sword heavy Geralt and got the illusion of fights that were something of an event without requiring much effort. Anything below my level by much was an insta kill but things that were a bit more formidable took a little work, but not much. Given that you might not even notice higher tier enemies if you go low.

It also depends when you played TW3 and whether you had crafted gear - in fact I think that’s a much bigger deal than build. I had a pretty good build and fights were kind of tedious - not hard but annoying. Then I crafted some gear which wasn’t even like, cutting-edge, and suddenly it was a faceroll (because even “not cutting edge” is ridiculously better than the stuff I’d got from quests and so on).

If you played in, what, the first few months, too, equipment was even more extreme, and you could easily wear gear that made the whole game a joke.

[EPICTHEFAIL]

Finally wrapped up Heat Signature. The big update a while back (which I completely missed and only found out about after the fact) added a number of new features I, none of which I really experienced apart from the liberator characters (who are awesome). It’s still a fun and funny game, repetitive though it gets, wish the ending had been a bit better though - there really isn’t much of one, just a short cutscene followed by a credits roll and then a new galaxy. I might start playing through again, or I might forget about it again, haven’t decided yet.

[sonson]

I played it a year or so after release so I think what balancing there was done by then. The master crafted stuff is vastly superior to anything you can find aye, especially if you go for a full set.

[Sarfrin]

If you have 2000:1 A Space Felony in your backlog, play it now. A short, beautifully crafted detective story. I’m a little bit blown away by how well crafted it is considering the creator has very little track record and it’s a tiny indie game. The visual design, sound design, writing, everything is really good. It’s funny too.

[Viral_Frog]

All this talk of The Witcher 3 and I’ve been on an RPG kick lately. Soooo I bought the GOTY edition. I just restarted on Divinity: Original Sin 2 though, so chances of me starting TW3 soon are low. But who knows, maybe I’ll alternate the two to lower my chances of burning out on one too quickly.

[alms]

If you have 2000:1 A Space Felony in your backlog, play it now.

FWIW for anybody who, like me, missed the giveaway, it can be played with an active Humble Monthly subscription, thanks to its being a Humble Original and available through Trove, a full list of such games can be found here, and a link to download them, too.

Having dropped the twelve on January '18 for The Long Dark, I have 2000:1 (and Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy, among others) in my downloads folder, I may give this a try since it’s apparently only half an hour long.

[Baines]

Finally wrapped up Heat Signature. The big update a while back (which I completely missed and only found out about after the fact) added a number of new features I, none of which I really experienced apart from the liberator characters (who are awesome).

I got bored before liberating half the galaxy, only popping back for a few days for the Halloween event. The game is just too long, padded with all those unnecessary base liberations. Or, more accurately, it is just too repetitive for its length. The defector missions are entertaining, it is just the main game that is boring.

[Sarfrin]

It is short, but be aware that it doesn’t seem to save your progress, so it needs to be played in one sitting.

[MantisTobogganM.D.4]

Oh man, this rocket powered wing suit in just cause 3 is amazing. The wing suit in general may be my favorite in game loco motion system since spider man 2.

[Shadoko]

TW3 here.
Looks like I’m the worst witcher, ever.

Yes I’m talking about the Bloody Baron questline. So, now the baron has hanged himself, his wife Anna is dead because I can’t lift a curse properly (nor can the Witch Hunters from Oxenfurt but that was expected) and I’ve freed something that might or might not be Cthulu, quite litteraly.
This quest line is supposed to make you feel awful, right ? Out of the two possible outcomes (i’m ruling out the potential third one because it requires previous knowledge of the story and I went in blind), there’s no happy ending. It’s either the Bloody Baron kills himself and Velen his ruled by rapists and murderers or you’re directly responsible for the death of a dozen orphans and the Baron’s life is forever shattered.
Yay.
The best thing is that I never felt like I was making the obviously wrong choice. Freeing the spirit, for example, felt quite in character. I’m a witcher. Witchers lift curses and kill monsters only when they can’t do anything else. Besides, it had been emprisoned by the Crones and the Crones were awful people anyway (like, even without knowing that they had tried to eat Ciri, they’re three creepy witches who control people’s souls).
And in the end it was an awful choice.
It’s interesting to compare it with Dragon Age Inquisition where some quests can also have dreadful endings (looking at you, Solas), but with a decent knowledge of the setting and characters, there’s always a moment when you feel that you’re doing something wrong. Not here.

So, yes, the Bloody Baron quest line is great, mostly because it enables you to royally fuck up without ever feeling that you’re doing it wrong until the end.
I mean, yes, the writing is great, but it’s not exceptionnal either. For video games, yes, but that’s a low standard anyway. (And I feel like I’m summarizing the reason why TW3 got so much praise for its writing.)
There’s still some problems though.
Geralt has some…dubious dialogue choices in the quest. “You and your wife are the same”, what ? On the one hand you have a cheating wife, on the other a murderer, brutal husband and likely rapist too. Even by medieval standards, it’s pretty clear who’s to blame here. Even for you, Geralt.
Also, the Crones. There’s an amazing build-up, with the (awesome) music, the tapestry made of human hair, the creepy altars in the swamp…and in the end they’re just monsters. Creepy, awful monsters but just ugly things in the end. I would have liked to see something more elusive, more subtle. Maybe even not seeing the Crones would have been good. But I’m nitpicking.

And I feel awful.

Nice to see that so far the game seems to be much better when it comes to sex. Geralt is not the ultimate womanizer he was in TW1 and TW2, and so far I’ve managed to escape everyone except Yennefer, yes, even Keira Metz (Seriously, how can you be less subtle than her ? )

If someone can explain to me what’s the point of durability, I’d be grateful. So far it’s just an annoying icon on my screen. Weapons don’t seem to break (even a 0% durability sword is still usable) and low durability can’t result in more than a 10% loss in damage output, which is negligible at medium difficulty.
So…what’s the point ?

[Tritagonist]

If someone can explain to me what’s the point of durability, I’d be grateful. So far it’s just an annoying icon on my screen. Weapons don’t seem to break (even a 0% durability sword is still usable) and low durability can’t result in more than a 10% loss in damage output, which is negligible at medium difficulty.

So…what’s the point ?

I’m under the impression that the durability penalty scales both with the game’s difficulty and the level of the item in question. Losing 10% at level 8 won’t be as big a deal as losing 10% at level, whatever the higher ones are - I don’t recall.

But given that losing durability is always bad, and there are always vendors around to repair it, and always plenty of repair kits to be found to fix things in the field - it’s one of those things that could have easily been scrapped. It just bloats the game needlessly.

[Lukasz]

And to conclude 2017 gaming I have beaten Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.

What a game!

Happy New Year everyone!

[LTK]

I concur, it doesn’t actually promote any interesting gameplay choices like having to switch up your weapon choices, because you have no reason to use anything but a sword and repair kits (and their crafting components) are so common that it’s easy to always keep your weapon in top condition. It would have been better if they had Geralt maintain his weapon ‘off-screen’ during meditation or something, and restore durability that way.

[sonson]

There’s no happy ending no. You’ll find out in a bit what the spirit does. In terms of collateral damage you got all the worst outcomes.

The Crones are really bad news though, there’s no way of getting round that. The fact that as a device they play on Geralt’s monster empathy and the morally confusing peasant superstition in the area in a way which you think you understand but don’t is seriously clever. Lije you say Inquisition gives lots of hard choices but you know they’re going to hurt at some point. Whereas in this you’re honestly in the dark throughout without realising til it’s far too late. In the whole series there’s not much outwits Geralt or freaks him out which makes them even more memorable.

[theclockworkrat]

Still slowly working through Opus Magnum. I like the secondary challenge of Zachlikes where you try to optimise the solutions for speed, size and cost. So far the puzzles which have given me the most trouble are the infinite chain molecules because my head just wasn’t able to work out how to push molecules in a straight line.

I picked up Darkwood and Songbringer in the sale, but bounced off the latter pretty quickly. It looks pretty and the soundtrack is interesting, but the hack/slash combat was just not my thing.

I might pick up All Walls Must Fall instead. That looks like all sorts of awesome (like seriously, how many games are there which are set in gay nightclubs?).

[Viral_Frog]

I think I really trusted too much in others’ opinions on The Witcher 3. I’m about 3 hours in and I’m wondering when this becomes the game that everyone seems so fond of. That’s not to say it’s been a hugely negative experience, it has just been… severely lacking. The combat itself is absolutely terrible. That alone is nearly unforgivable, considering the fact that I’m a Witcher. You know, monster slayer extraordinaire.

The writing is definitely quite a bit better than what I expected from a video game. Not saying much there, really, but it’s better than your standard fare. Typically by the 3 hour mark, I’d be fighting off a headache from rolling my eyes over the awful writing. It’s only happened a handful of times now with TW3, so that’s fairly impressive. Quite possibly one of the only other RPGs in recent years other than Divinity: Original Sin 2 that hasn’t made me want to smash my head into my desk by having conversations with the denizens of the world.

So far there’s nothing about TW3 that makes me want to quit, even with my gripes. I’m having more fun than not. But there’s gotta be something to happen within the next 10-15 hours to keep me interested in it, otherwise it’ll end up in my pile of “80+ hour RPG’s that I played 20~ hours of and got bored with, never to return”.