What are you playing at the moment?

[Similar]

It’s an unofficial diffculty patch which I’m not using.

oh. I remembered it as an official one, but it turns out to be quite hopeless to search for (and since the game was on and off Steam for some reason, they don’t have much update history there either).

[ToomuchFluffy]

I was a little confused, since that’s the only patch I can find. Otherwise I’m playing a completely unpatched version. Perhaps because of all the iterations the game already went through before that? With Tension and Turgor and whatever else.

[Similar]

It seems like a lot happened before it even got an English release.

Apparently it was made easier at one point (that’s probably what I remembered reading about)
“Some changes in mechanics: Nerva doesn’t need to be collected now, it is transported into Palette automatically. Trees don’t die forever after being used once. Use of Color in locations of a certain Sister damages her realm, while the colour income from the trees becomes poor. You don’t “charge” golems with Lympha now.”

But then there’s also this
"The game was rebalanced once more. Unfortunately, it has become way harder than original. The balance in the second half of the game was tweaked yet once more time to make it at least honest and not rely on player being lucky."

So I don’t really know what the balance ended up as.

[ToomuchFluffy]

But then there’s also this

“The game was rebalanced once more. Unfortunately, it has become way harder than original. The balance in the second half of the game was tweaked yet once more time to make it at least honest and not rely on player being lucky.”

So I don’t really know what the balance ended up as.

Yep, that’s the paragraph that always confuses me. Perhaps I’ll find something in the IPL-forums or on steam.

[Qazinsky]

I am sorry for doing this, but all this talk of The Void makes me think of recently starting to listen to The Voidz, I hope a music recommendation can be forgiven here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhVefqaUhTg

[Det.Bullock]

Halo: Combat Evolved (PC)
So, this was what kids were playing then? Nice enough and has some sense of narrative set pieces and scale, though the aim is visibly helped because I don’t think it would be possible for me to get so many head shots in a normal PC-only game.

Finished Dishonored Definitive Edition (PC)
All without killing anybody. One thing I noticed in the main story last level: while I am rubbish at “ghosting” (I gave up on getting that achievement long ago) this one was incredibly easy to ghost even with the high density of guards.

Gave up SW:Squadrons for now, after one time where I was tasked mid mission to fend off tie-interceptors, gave a chase after one for about 30 seconds and 2 km from main battle I was greeted with “Return to battle” flashing like in old Call of Duty game.

Started Tie-Fighter instead and it feels so much better, I am very fragile in my Tie-Fighter, one stray shot can destroy my sensors, or engine and that’s death or mission restart but I am also nimble and agile.

Weird thing is that it never happened to me, usually the AI rarely goes too far from the allotted battlefield and in general even Tie Fighter doesn’t really allow to go too far from the middle of the action because there is usually something that needs to be protected and straying far in the wrong direction is usually a mission failure.

[LexW]

Finished Dishonored Definitive Edition (PC)

All without killing anybody. One thing I noticed in the main story last level: while I am rubbish at “ghosting” (I gave up on getting that achievement long ago) this one was incredibly easy to ghost even with the high density of guards.

I’m still mad with Dishonored for not giving me the Clean Hands and Ghost achievements, apparently on the grounds that I killed someone, when I sure as fuck didn’t! I also didn’t get Shadow, even though every single level I Ghosted it. I felt like I should be allowed to drag the game into court and it would be forced to either testify as to exactly where and when it was saying I killed someone, and who exactly supposedly spotted me? Presumably the same person. I got Specter for less than 5 kills/spots over the game, but that’s not right! I didn’t save/reload that many times to not get Clean Hands and Ghost, people!

I read now that apparently there’s some kind of explosion that you are required to set off (and I think not close to) that can cause someone to get killed and make you not get them. I feel like any game that’s going to give out those kind of achievements needs to tell you IMMEDIATELY when cease being able to get them though.

I was actually so mad about this it caused me to not buy Dishonored 2 for a very long time until it was on deep sale lol.

[Skalpadda]

Not as simple as an unconsious guard eaten by rats off screen or fallen off something/drowned?

There were a couple of levels (in both games) where I was sure I hadn’t been seen or killed anyone but I apparently was and had. Luckily I didn’t really care and was just trying to be sneaky for the fun of it, rolling with the punches when I failed.

[Det.Bullock]

Finished Dishonored Definitive Edition (PC)

All without killing anybody. One thing I noticed in the main story last level: while I am rubbish at “ghosting” (I gave up on getting that achievement long ago) this one was incredibly easy to ghost even with the high density of guards.

I’m still mad with Dishonored for not giving me the Clean Hands and Ghost achievements, apparently on the grounds that I killed someone, when I sure as fuck didn’t! I also didn’t get Shadow, even though every single level I Ghosted it. I felt like I should be allowed to drag the game into court and it would be forced to either testify as to exactly where and when it was saying I killed someone, and who exactly supposedly spotted me? Presumably the same person. I got Specter for less than 5 kills/spots over the game, but that’s not right! I didn’t save/reload that many times to not get Clean Hands and Ghost, people!

I read now that apparently there’s some kind of explosion that you are required to set off (and I think not close to) that can cause someone to get killed and make you not get them. I feel like any game that’s going to give out those kind of achievements needs to tell you IMMEDIATELY when cease being able to get them though.

I was actually so mad about this it caused me to not buy Dishonored 2 for a very long time until it was on deep sale lol.

Did you do the Granny Rags thing in the sewers?
Because that counts as a kill, and it’s the only kill that is not “officially” counted in the level end screen.
To get the achievement you need to just steal the key and get out without interfering.
I had to redo the last levels on speedrun mode to get the achievement.
However since I didn’t go for ghosting and I had a save pretty close to that point it took me about half an hour to do it.

Not as simple as an unconsious guard eaten by rats off screen or fallen off something/drowned?

There were a couple of levels (in both games) where I was sure I hadn’t been seen or killed anyone but I apparently was and had. Luckily I didn’t really care and was just trying to be sneaky for the fun of it, rolling with the punches when I failed.

Again, apparently the only kill that influences the achievement but not the “did not kill everyone” checkmark is the final confrontation with Granny Rags. Even if you don’t strike the final blow yourself destroying the cameo is enough.

[LexW]

Did you do the Granny Rags thing in the sewers?
Because that counts as a kill, and it’s the only kill that is not “officially” counted in the level end screen.

Interesting, that could be it, because I was definitely involved in that situation in some way. That’s some serious bullshit if so, given it doesn’t do the counter/checkmark (I forget which they have) and thus probably wasn’t intended to count as a kill. It has to be something like that, because I assiduously checked the end-level things to see that I’d be fine the whole way.

Not as simple as an unconsious guard eaten by rats off screen or fallen off something/drowned?

Drowning people pretty obviously counts as a kill (found that out early on - made sense because in Thief if you dropped someone really far it killed them and counted as a kill IIRC), and I’m pretty sure rats do too. I know I had to re-do a level because some idiot got killed by wild dogs (as I eventually worked out) and the game repeatedly insisted I killed him.

[BillButNotBen]

I died in Dragonfall!

After cruising through all the combat to that point, it throws up a kinda Dredd/The Raid situation where you have to fight a long series of battles to get out of a building.
Fighting to get out of a building is common, but this was the first time it was such a protracted series without many between-fight breaks.

I’m now realising the importance of the revival kits. Unfortunately, my team was only carrying a couple, and I ended up using them early on… and then I died in a later encounter. Which gives you 3 turns to revive your teammates (in this case, me).
But I had no revival kits left, and medkits and healing spells apparently won’t do.
You get revived if the team survives the encounter, so I was in a desperate race to kill everyone before the 3 turn counter ran out. Which I managed… but because there was another encounter in the next area the game didn’t switch out of combat mode and there was nothing I could do.

The checkpoints aren’t too bad, but I was back to the start of the series. Made it through the first few encounters playing a bit more cautiously and not using any revival kits… but by that point it was getting late and I didn’t have the energy to finish the series last night.

Next time, I’m taking a few more revival kits!

I hope I get an upgrade for Deitrich’s (the mage) armor soon as everyone seems to pick on him and it’s quite possible for him to get killed in a single turn if 4-5 enemies hit him in close succession.

i love Glory. Not only is she the MVP in every fight, but it’s just really satisfying to have her storm in and shred a bunch of enemies with her claws. Very Wolverine!

[icemann]

Sounds rough.

Now if you think that’s bad with the checkpoints etc (not saying it isn’t), but the game was even worse back when Dead Man’s Switch was all there was. Why? Well there was no checkpoints and no manual saves. Those if I remember right weren’t added in until about a year after the initial release.

I could be wrong on checkpoints, but I don’t recall them being in SRR originally. Was only after a MASSIVE fan backlash that it got added in. They initially said it would be hard to implement due to how they coded the game. Well it got put in later (and in by the time of Dragonfall) so couldn’t have been that hard to implement.

I think I remember the bit you mention dying at. Nearly died at that bit. Super hard.

Imagine having to redo an entire level due to 1 mistake. Yeah no thanks.

[BillButNotBen]

It wasn’t too bad, it was just a bit unexpected as it hadn’t really been at all hard and revival kits hadn’t really been necessary up to that point. The checkpointing was actually fine, but replaying the whole section wasn’t really what I wanted to do late at might when I should be going to bed.

IF it had booted me all the way back to the start of the entire level, which would have meant redoing all of the infiltration, hacking, etc… to get into the building, I’d have uninstalled the game right there and never touched it again! But luckily it was nothing close to that.

[ToomuchFluffy]

kinda Dredd/The Raid situation

Memory of the game is already fading for me. The only thing that comes to mind is the whole AI-situation. I remember that one being a bit more tricky than most other encounters.

[LexW]

So I’m playing Hitman 2, which, intriguingly, involved being told to play Hitman 1, which somehow included in the game - I’ve just started on the actual Hitman 2 portion (which may have different rules?). It’s pretty excellent, and not quite what I expected, in that in a lot of ways it’s more like a sort of adventure game or even puzzle game than y’know, an assassination/murder/stealth game. Indeed the stealth elements are much more limited than the disguise element - which are kind of hilarious because 47 is a 6’±looking, solidly-build, blue-eyed, ultra-pale white guy with a completely bald head and a barcode tattooed on the back, you’d think he’d be kind of distinctive. But I guess suspending your disbelief on that is part of the game!

It plays well and smoothly though the way it switches keys around to do stuff, or has the same key for “knock out” and “break the neck of a knocked out person” isn’t great.

My one real point of confusion/complaint is, and bear in mind I’m still going through the story, so if it’s different for other content (the “Escalations” and “Contracts”), is that you have an amazing ton of ways to KILL people, but not many to knock them out (some, just nowhere near as many, and far less effective). But if you do kill anyone, at all, who isn’t the target, it seems like you get a very low score or actually 0 points/stars for the mission. So like, what the fuck? Why game, are you giving me a silenced assault rifle or SMG, for example, given, if I use it, I get Nul Point like like Britain in Eurovision? One mission I was like "Yeah this has gone south, instead of reloading, I’m just going to shoot my way to the second target, and shoot my way out if necessary. In total I killed maybe a dozen “extra” people - but as Arnie says in True Lies “They are were all bad people…”, like literally the henchmen of a scientist trying to create a murder-virus. Surely I should get a bonus, not a reduction? I’m helping everyone out, and in some cases I might even be obscuring who the actual target was.

So I dunno if this is just a story-mode thing, or I’m misunderstanding something, or if the game just likes to troll you with OP weapons you can’t use. I could definitely understand the penalty if I was shooting maids and cooks and random civilians, but armed henchmen, some of whom are talking about how evil they are? I mean whaaaaaaat? Especially as a lot of the kill methods only come up much for them.

Still a great game though.

[Det.Bullock]

Halo: Combat Evolved (PC)
The last third is too repetitive.
Not only that but the last bit with the grenades to blow up the reactor was infuriating, it’s not enough to toss the grenades in the slots inside the tubes, they must be in the precise point the game wants them to be otherwise you’ll have to climb back up to do it again with respwaning enemies all around.
Also the last bit is a vehicle section with wonky vehicle physics and only one checkpoint in the middle that apparently refused to save the first time I did it.
And of course there is the fact that oftentimes the game refuses to save unless you cleaned a room of enemies even if cleaning said room isn’t strictly necessary to proceed.
There are some great visuals for the time (note: I played it with the original graphics and sound) and the first half or so does have a great sense of scale but other than that I can’t believe people thought this was good enough to be considered a killer app at the time, especially considered that one of the people that touted the Xbox to me at the time was a PC enthusiast (an adult PC enthusiast at that). Compared to other console shooters perhaps it was above average (and I can see why cutting down on stuff allowed it to be much more playable than others) but I can think of so many PC FPS games that easily outclass it that came out the same year or even before.

[BillButNotBen]

Halo: Combat Evolved (PC)

The last third is too repetitive.

I remember finding a lot of the first game to be too repetitive. The way the indoor sections basically reuse the same 3 sections (corridor, bridge, circular room) and just change the mix of barriers or enemies is infuriating.

I think the thing to remember is that at the time it did look pretty amazing. It was very ‘next gen’ when that actually kinda meant something.

I think its main advance was in the way it redefined controls and movement to make them fit a pad better than any previous console FPS had done. Almost every previous console FPS had been largely based on stuff from PC, but that often just didn’t translate that well to a pad. Not only the controls, but the level, enemy, combat, inventory and encounter design were clearly more carefully thought out and modified to make them work well on a pad.

Of course, if you play it on PC with a mouse and keyboard then none of that is a strength, and may even be a weakness.
Also, every subsequent game learned from it, so the things that made it feel great on a pad at the time are no longer special.

Unfortunately, I kinda prefered the preceding m&k style FPS design, but the lessons of Halo have filtered through to most PC and Cross platform FPS games, which is why we rarely get successful FPS games that emphasise things like verticality or movement.
(Then again, Jedi Knight is my favorite FPS and its gameplay and level philosophy is basically the opposite of Halo. I imagine it’d also be pretty unplayable on a pad).

[Det.Bullock]

Halo: Combat Evolved (PC)

The last third is too repetitive.

I remember finding a lot of the first game to be too repetitive. The way the indoor sections basically reuse the same 3 sections (corridor, bridge, circular room) and just change the mix of barriers or enemies is infuriating.

I think the thing to remember is that at the time it did look pretty amazing. It was very ‘next gen’ when that actually kinda meant something.

I think its main advance was in the way it redefined controls and movement to make them fit a pad better than any previous console FPS had done. Almost every previous console FPS had been largely based on stuff from PC, but that often just didn’t translate that well to a pad. Not only the controls, but the level, enemy, combat, inventory and encounter design were clearly more carefully thought out and modified to make them work well on a pad.

Of course, if you play it on PC with a mouse and keyboard then none of that is a strength, and may even be a weakness.
Also, every subsequent game learned from it, so the things that made it feel great on a pad at the time are no longer special.

Unfortunately, I kinda prefered the preceding m&k style FPS design, but the lessons of Halo have filtered through to most PC and Cross platform FPS games, which is why we rarely get successful FPS games that emphasise things like verticality or movement.
(Then again, Jedi Knight is my favorite FPS and its gameplay and level philosophy is basically the opposite of Halo. I imagine it’d also be pretty unplayable on a pad).

Funny, Jedi Knight is one of my favourite games ever and one of the games I was thinking of when saying I could think of better titles that came before.

[LTK]

I started playing Signs of the Sojourner which is exactly the wrong kind of game for a perfectionist like me. It’s clear that you can’t please everyone and you’re supposed to take your failures in stride, which is underscored by how the game calls the results of conversations ‘concordant’ or ‘discordant’, but there are obvious benefits to ‘winning’ conversations and I just hate it when the game dangles a reward in front of me and then decides I don’t get to have it because I didn’t draw the right cards. Some conversations have more room for error than others, but even the lenient ones can go from possible to unwinnable depending on your starting hand.

I don’t know what it expects from me either. After every conversation, you have to make a change to your deck using the cards from your previous conversationalist. So I tried to build a jack-of-all-trades, which quickly falls apart when you start to accumulate fatigue. But if I specialized in pleasing a certain kind of person, I’d be sabotaging my chance of success with like half of the characters in the game.

On top of that, once you have your deck the way you want it, bad conversations essentially punish you on top of withholding rewards because you’re forced to replace a card that might have been working well for you previously. And finally, even successes can have negative consequences, as a character I had just met confiscated an item from me that I’d just barely managed to win in a previous encounter.

It just feels like a giant mismatch between the mechanics and the tone of the game. I know, it has themes of struggle and adaptation, and it makes sense that the wrong mindset or fatigue means you just can’t get along with someone, or that even your best efforts can’t undo a bad situation. But it’s all built on a card game that introduces new mechanics every ten minutes, which you’re supposed to play very tactically and think long-term about your deck composition and the tools you might need to salvage otherwise unwinnable situations and it just feels wrong.

Maybe it’s apt, in a way, that I can’t get on the same page with Signs because it asks me to get in a very different mindset, but it sure is not making me want to play it any more.

[Baines]

I remember finding a lot of the first game to be too repetitive. The way the indoor sections basically reuse the same 3 sections (corridor, bridge, circular room) and just change the mix of barriers or enemies is infuriating.

In the early days, I remember hearing the claim that Microsoft ordered the game’s length to be doubled or tripled, and Bungie did so by way of heavy recycling. But that turned out to be just some random internet claim (or possibly even a joke.)

A few years ago, Vice posted an oral history article that gave the real reason for the original Halo being so repetitive. Bungie was being held to a firm deadline, and apparently didn’t have a prayer of building everything necessary for the story. So they started making major cuts to the story (an example was an entire planned level being cut and replaced with a line of dialogue in a cutscene) as well as “shamelessly reusing” environments.