What games are you playing now?

Originally Posted by Darth Tagnan
I personally think player-driven combat should be less about rolling around in general - but that's not really just a Souls thing.

Well if you like pure realistic fights only, sure, rolling are an ugly sight. I'm pretty sure in the long and sad history of melee combats, no armored warrior ever rolled like that (it would be stupid, inconvenient, useless and very dangerous).
It's like exploding cars in action movies, it doesn't make any sense but it's fun.

Originally Posted by Winterfart
Well if you like pure realistic fights only, sure, rolling are an ugly sight. I'm pretty sure in the long and sad history of melee combats, no armored warrior ever rolled like that (it would be stupid, inconvenient, useless and very dangerous).
It's like exploding cars in action movies, it doesn't make any sense but it's fun.

Well, it depends on the game and what it's trying to do.

I like fantastical stuff as much as the next guy - so it's much more case-by-case for my part.

I like stealth and sneaking, so I generally avoid straight-up melee when I can.

The problem with Souls combat is that it doesn't have that, really. Well, there's the backstab move - which I got pretty good at, but that was the opposite of stealthy.

So, you could say the odds are stacked against Souls when it comes to appealing to me.

Especially because I prefer combat to be relatively rare in most games.

Not in Diablo, obviously - but for something like Skyrim, Witcher or Dark Souls - I would have preferred the emphasis to be less on combat and more on exploration.

It's not that I dislike combat, not at all - I just prefer being the one to seek it out, rather than have my experience dominated by it.

But that's me, and I understand that combat is probably the most popular feature of modern CRPGs.

Still playing Hero-U. It's a lot of fun but I find it a bit lacking in content. I'm near, I think, the end of the game and I've done everything except one measly quest which includes beating a certain character at chess. I have most of the best equipment and have explored every nook and cranny of the castle. Basically I'm just waiting for the days to pass and levelling up my Luck and Game skills to beat the chess obstacle. It's a bit of a shame since the game has a lot of things going for it. I hope it will pick up again once the end-game triggers.

Originally Posted by Darth Tagnan
The problem with Souls combat is that it doesn't have that, really. Well, there's the backstab move - which I got pretty good at, but that was the opposite of stealthy.

Oh yeah I get you. When I play Dishonored, I reload every single mistake I make, it drives me nuts!
Stealth means being a ghost, not backstabbing everything that moves!

It's a paradox with immersive sims for me: Highly interactive environments where my goal is to have the less interactions possible…

Originally Posted by Darth Tagnan
Especially because I prefer combat to be relatively rare in most games.

(…) It's not that I dislike combat, not at all - I just prefer being the one to seek it out, rather than have my experience dominated by it.

I find the stories wonderfull in souls games, but they're hidden stories.
If you stays on the surface it's just arcady fights all the way long. It's perfectly fine, but I get why people are not interested in that.

Originally Posted by Darth Tagnan
But that's me, and I understand that combat is probably the most popular feature of modern CRPGs.

Story was the more important part of a CPRG when I was younger. But now, most stories bored me, I've kind of seen them all.
It has to be really good for me to be genuinely interested (and I'm not talking TW3 level, got bored by that story too, I'm talking Planescape:Torment level).
So I end up playing Crpg for their combat mechanics, mostly.

I find the stories wonderfull in souls games, but they're hidden stories.
If you stays on the surface it's just arcady fights all the way long. It's perfectly fine, but I get why people are not interested in that.

They certainly managed to hide it well from me

One of these days, I really must try it again and see if I can find this elusive wonderful story.

Which reminds me, what's the word on the Remastered version of Dark Souls? Is it better or worse than the original with the mod?

Originally Posted by Darth Tagnan
Which reminds me, what's the word on the Remastered version of Dark Souls? Is it better or worse than the original with the mod?

I remember it being said that it's just a cash crab.

In terms of experiencing the story it's imperative to use the wiki so you do things in the right order and don't miss anything. The game is not very forgiving if you screw something up by killing the wrong NPC or doing things in the wrong order. IMO it's not possible to experience all the little story bits on a first run if you don't use a wiki / walkthrough. Unless you get really lucky or are super super intuitive.

Originally Posted by JDR13
You should at least install ThielHater's texture patch. It makes the graphics about on par with Gothic 2 without changing anything artistically. Iirc, there's also another texture patch that's compatible with that one.

I'll have to see the textures. Generally I'm not much of a fan of using fan textures, even if they are of a higher resolution. And in this case in particular, I want to play it exactly as I played it 10+ years ago. This is mostly a nostalgia trip, and I want the experience to be the same. But thanks for the recommendation.

Originally Posted by Darth Tagnan
Which reminds me, what's the word on the Remastered version of Dark Souls? Is it better or worse than the original with the mod?

It's better than the original + mod. On my system I was never able to have it running without issues on Win10, on a 60Hz monitor.

The remastered on the other hand runs very nicely in ultrawide resolutions. And I believe they also changed the control scheme to be the same across all Dark Souls (i think). So in my case running with the mod wasn't even a proper option.

Originally Posted by Darth Tagnan
Which reminds me, what's the word on the Remastered version of Dark Souls? Is it better or worse than the original with the mod?

I guess it's better if you're talking about the PC version.
DS1 port was a disaster, so it's not difficult to do better (but you never know with remasters).

Originally Posted by Lemonhead
I remember it being said that it's just a cash crab.

In terms of experiencing the story it's imperative to use the wiki so you do things in the right order and don't miss anything. The game is not very forgiving if you screw something up by killing the wrong NPC or doing things in the wrong order. IMO it's not possible to experience all the little story bits on a first run if you don't use a wiki / walkthrough. Unless you get really lucky or are super super intuitive.

That sounds like a truly terrible way of telling a story, I'm sorry to say

There's no way I'll be following a wiki to get to experience it - so I'll probably just have to live with what's there for me.

Not sure I'll bother, though - but this thing keeps popping up with people saying the story is great, and I don't like to miss out.

I've been looking for a reason to play Souls games - since I like some of the mechanics and the level design.

Originally Posted by Darth Tagnan
There's no way I'll be following a wiki to get to experience it - so I'll probably just have to live with what's there for me.

You'll get like… half of the stories if you don't go to the wiki.
I personally don't and the other half for me is a mix a mystery and my own take on it.
I find that really pleasant.

In-game item descriptions and vague dialogs are full of infos to decrypt.
But in the end, it's just a video game, so it's understandable if someone doesn't want to have to invest time into decrypting and investigating the story of a product he paid for.

Originally Posted by Darth Tagnan
I've been looking for a reason to play Souls games

The only reason is the same as the one to watch Transformers movies.
So scratch that and go for stuff you actually like. Even if it will be Destiny 2, it's still better than dodger QTE2.0 trash.

Originally Posted by Winterfart
You'll get like… half of the stories if you don't go to the wiki.
I personally don't and the other half for me is a mix a mystery and my own take on it.
I find that really pleasant.

In-game item descriptions and vague dialogs are full of infos to decrypt.
But in the end, it's just a video game, so it's understandable if someone doesn't want to have to invest time into decrypting and investigating the story of a product he paid for.

I would certainly have to be deeply invested in a game to bother doing that, but who knows - maybe I'll change my mind if I get into it

I spent the weekend playing mostly WoW, much to my surprise - as I was planning to focus on Skyrim.

I purchased the expansion on a whim, because of the World PvP feature - which sounded like what I originally asked for, way back in Vanilla. It only took them 14 years to understand how to do this - except I'm not sure they really do.

Turns out it's seasonal when it comes to rewards, like the rest of PvP in WoW - which I'm not too crazy about. But I don't actually know what it means here - and, for the life of me, I can't find any information about the potential rewards - except that world PvP is supposed to reward Conquest Points.

But I don't know what you can buy with those points.

If world PvP is to appeal to me, then I have to be properly rewarded - and if it's still just low-end crap, then it's pointless.

That said, I absolutely love how you can now use your PvP talents in the PvE environment. You get 4 very significant abilities of your choosing - and they're different for each specialization, for each class. That's huge for customization.

I still love the class design in WoW. Blizzard are masters of creating distinct powers with a purpose.

Other than that, though, I have to say I've been very impressed by the quality of the Legion areas. I've yet to reach the BFA areas - because I hadn't played much of Legion.

I wanted to create a Void Elf Hunter - but that race is locked behind a ridiculous amount of rep grind, or so I understand. That's pretty awful, but I guess it gives me a reason to level my Rogue and do the Argus content.

There's just something about how Blizzard create zones that's incredibly atmospheric. Also, the later areas are way, way beyond the earlier ones - it's like night and day.

It's definitely the MMO that's seen the most significant updates to its visuals over the years. It feels quite modern in most ways.

It's almost a sin that they're not exploiting the low-hanging fruit right in front of them, but then - Blizzard never seem to do that in the way you'd expect.

They already have the scaling mechanics - so it makes all kinds of sense to scale the entire world - at least once you reach 120, and fill it with World Quests.

They have so many wonderful zones - it's lunacy to only focus on the newest content.

If they would just go back and update some of the assets and textures - they'd have the biggest MMO world in existence full of relevant content.

Once the season hits, I'll be able to determine if it makes sense to build a character and focus on world PvP.

If that happens, then I'll finally have a reason to play WoW again - because that's the sort of endgame that makes sense to me.

Originally Posted by Darth Tagnan
Actually, the Wildcat mod does quite a few things for melee combat. But since I always go for stealth/archery - there's not a lot of Dark Souls in my Skyrim

I mostly played Demon's Souls - though the combat seemed identical in Dark Souls, to me.

Is there a lot of difference?

A whole lot of dodging and rolling. What was it someone called it? A roller RPG? Seems pretty accurate to me

Not that Skyrim melee combat is very good at all - but the archery is better than most CRPGs. Combined with stealth and all the toys you get in Skyrim, I find combat to be satisfying - but I would never recommend it for a thorougly fine-tuned and balanced experience.

When it's a big free-roaming game - it's very hard to balance something like archery, because it's so easy to exploit ranged combat in that type of game. So, I do what I can to make it interesting. I play without any kind of cross-hair for instance

That said, combat in this type of game is secondary for me. I play Skyrim for exploration, progression and immersion. Combat is just my way of feeling my own progression - as in, my way of testing my strategy and my build.

It's been a long time since I really enjoyed fighting for the sake of it.

Kinda sad, in a way - as I sort of miss that adrenaline and stuff. I remember being a huge competitive shooter fan - and I loved games like Virtua Fighter and the like.

These days, such things bore me to death. Oh well.

Yeah, I was just having a bit of fun. We’ve talked before and I know your feelings toward DS combat.

I don’t think you’d ever get in to DS type games. They’re too combat focus.

Story is cryptic and requires you to read every item description, then piece everything together and even then it’s all speculation and interpretation.

Exploration, ( even though I think it’s great) is only reward by more combat. Either a new area with a boss or weapons and armor for combat.

Combat, unfortunately requires quite a commitment to really appreciate. I think a lot of people would agree with you when you call it a rolling simulator. Hell, I would have agreed with that when I first started playing.

Problem is that the easiest way to play is grab a weapon, lock on, circle strafe, roll, attack when you can. That’s the way I played when I first started playing. Unfortunately that method doesn’t allow you to see the depth of the combat system. Once I started digging in to the combat system I found it offers quite a bit of variety in how to fight.

For example,

My older brother plays a straight warrior type. He grabs the biggest weapon he can find and the heaviest armor and wades into combat. He turtles every thing, no rolling, more standing toe to toe , blocking, managing poise and breaking enemy poise and staggering. A high strength and HP build.

My younger brother plays a mage. Focusing on staying at a distance, circle strafing and using spells and range attacks. More rolling that my other brother but not much.

I play a thief as I do in every game I have the option. Light to no armor, lots of rolling for position and evading attacks, not much locking on as I want to get behind enemies for back stabs. Dagger and target shield or fist for parrying. Dex and luck for stats for bleed build, manage stamina and maximize iframes.

There’s obviously many more builds and hybrid builds, I think DS excels in this area. Just changing weapons with a new move set can totally change how combat feels.

There’s so many things to take into account. Stats for different builds such as bleed or turtle, iframes, encumbrance which affects roll and iframes, poise, move sets, weapon speed, stamina, pvp build vs pvp build.

So anyway, there’s so many different ways to play and they actually feel different but I don’t think many people will invest enough in to learning the different combat mechanics, builds and move set.

I’ve played thousand of hours and I’ll still occasionally run in to someone who surprises me or pulls of something I didn’t think could be done. For instance recently I saw someone parry 3 guys simultaneously. I had no idea you could do that.

So, I’d have to disagree that it’s just a rolling simulator, but I understand the misconception.

Still playing Phantom Doctrine. A few minor comments:
There is one annoying bug where the game gets confused and the interface breaks (this is not during the tactical portion) and you have to force exit (alt-f4).
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Maps do repeat but they are still fairly decent so far.
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The interface for selecting agents for a mission or task really sucks. The problem is that none of the various ways of looking at agents show all the required information. Information that you need include:
hp (are they injured ?)
equipment (for tractical missions)
are they doing something (such as observing an area for suspicious activity - you can only see this on the overland map)
heat (are they nearly discovered)
(something else that slip my mind)
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So you want to move someone to a suspicious activity. If someone is not in the head quarters you can't tell if they are currently observing another suspicious activity so you have to go to the overland map get their name - check their heat status - and then go back and select them (TEDIOUS). You don't want to keep people in your base because it increases travel time and some activity require fast response.
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You want to start a tractical mission - you can't see people HP in the list of agents or if they are observing supsicions activity - you have to first check the world map and then check one of the interfaces that show hp (crew quarter doesn't show hp). Anyway - very annoying interface issue.
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Other than the occasional crash and the interface issue it is fairly good so far but i have quite a bit more to do to reach the end.

Still on STALKER SoC (Radiophobia 2 + my own texture mod). Still fun. Well balanced mod for the most part. This game is so fantastic, i love the combat and the guns in this game. Atmosphere is just oozing.. Level design is fantastic. Just like Gothic 2 its something i feel i can play again and again and always be immersed.

X-COM 2 WotC. I'm giving it an honest chance but i'm still not feeling it. It feels so static, i'm guessing it changes eventually, but even hours into the game you aren't making any real choices, it's all make-belief and you can basically just click "Accept!", how fun is that.. Zombies.. ughh. Enemies being able to respawn the dead - double ugh. These are not fan favorites, for any genre, these devs seem rather clueless. I'll continue though.

I'm continuing my trek through the third Trails in the Sky game, I just hit the Abyss last night so I know the end is near. Excellent game, great series, well worth playing if you enjoy these types.

I believe I'm halfway through Yakuza 0, at least it feels so.
Not skipping any sidequest I can find which means I run through all streets during chapters at least once.

Only sidequests so far I couldn't complete and won't ever be able to finish are karaoke and dancing ones due to atrocious k+m controls that are impossible to remap in these two minigames.

The game is crazy good and I wish my life wasn't so busy lately so I can spend some more time with it than I do.

Most important - I hate races. Yakuza 0 has car races. And I adore it! This is the first game where I actually enjoyed car racing. Yeah, there is a catch but I'm not spoiling!