What games are you playing now?

Hello everybody!

I think this is my first post in here.

I thought people were just mentioning the games they were playing in this thread, I checked it a couple of times, but I thought little was happening so I have not visited this place for ages.

After having checked some Pathfinder threads, to see where the root a branch of recent problem lies, I was pointed in this direction.
So I read the last couple of pages and yes, people are doing more than just mentioning their game. Don’t let me check 634 pages to see whether recent events are an exception or a rule. Just tell me.

Anyway, I have got myself a subscription now, so I hope I’ll notice it if people start discussions that may be very interesting to some/all and request a thread of their own.
If people want to chat more about TB or RTwP, there is an ongoing discussion:
https://www.rpgwatch.com/forums/showthread.php?t=44618

This is a thread about games you are playing, anything else risks being deleted by moderation. (For those of you that have not seen my frustration in P&R some time ago: I now only consider to move parts of threads when I read/get a request doing so, I no longer do it of own accord).
Yes, that is harsh, but in line with the TOS and I got myself two compliments recently so I can take some criticism.

Before I have to delete my own post: at the moment I am playing ‘Gardenscapes’ from Playrix on my iPad. Because I need to know I have a couple of days of free time in order to start playing an RPG. But this ‘stupid’ Gardenscapes, that you can do between chores and even when going to the loo… I end up doing it for days (and little else if no absolute need). Playrix is a big one btw. Must be. They have got lots of my money by now. And others’.
I am in a team, though it is not multiplayer, nor is it TB or RTwP - o and there is still room for two.
Promise, I won’t say you’ll have a bad taste for playing it.

I'm back to Yakuza 0 after a… let's see…. 14 month break. I never disliked it, just got onto other things. I bought Kiwami 1&2 also in a discounted pack, so I plan to get into it for the long(ish) haul. Gotta fill those gaming hours I once thought games like V:B2 and Cyberpunk 2077 were going to occupy.

I'm also on a long Yakuza 0 break, but I could very well not return to it. It has the things I value: story (according to the internet), good characters, etc. but the presentation just doesn't do it for me. It doesn't help I get distracted from the story with all those side quests.

I bought Kiwami by accident (humble bundle). I pondered to just give it away to another watcher. Is there a private forum section where we can have threads like that?

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Hi Eye! Welcome to this popular rpgwatch thread. I hope you feel at home here. Does this mean we will get heavy moderation here now?

I started playing Underworld Ascendant. Yeah…that one.

And actually in it's current version it doesn't seem to be that bad. Still need to play more of it though.

dota2 and cs go

Originally Posted by Kordanor
I started playing Underworld Ascendant. Yeah…that one.

And actually in it's current version it doesn't seem to be that bad. Still need to play more of it though.

Interesting to hear as you proceed - I backed it, and it is even installed on my system, but never opened. Just heard too many bad things, and would rather put time into games I really want to play.

Played for 4 hours now and unfortunately I have to say that the game does indeed suck.

It's a bad mix of bugs on the one hand, and uninteresting world design on the other.

For example the feature to save freely was patched in afterwards. However, when loading some states of the world are reset. Some gates will close upon reload. Depending on where you stand you can lock yourself out. There is also one NPC that puts money on a "table" infront of her. Well…every time you save/reload, she'll put new money there. Saving /Reloading is just broken.

The other thing is the world design: It's very cool that you can burn everything down which is out of wood. But the world itself, the story, and NPC placement is just bad. You have no connection to the story whatsoever. Then you will have lizard people appearing, being the hub of the game for some reason, basically appearing out of nowhere. You find writing everywhere, which just feels arbitrary as the texts also seem pointless. The dungeon structure just feels arbitrarily put together and it isn't really fun to explore. Having to be afraid, that you could potentially screwing something up by saving/loading doesnt help.

Are they still patching it or is this the final product ?

Originally Posted by Kordanor
Played for 4 hours now and unfortunately I have to say that the game does indeed suck.

It's a bad mix of bugs on the one hand, and uninteresting world design on the other.

For example the feature to save freely was patched in afterwards. However, when loading some states of the world are reset. Some gates will close upon reload. Depending on where you stand you can lock yourself out. There is also one NPC that puts money on a "table" infront of her. Well…every time you save/reload, she'll put new money there. Saving /Reloading is just broken.

The other thing is the world design: It's very cool that you can burn everything down which is out of wood. But the world itself, the story, and NPC placement is just bad. You have no connection to the story whatsoever. Then you will have lizard people appearing, being the hub of the game for some reason, basically appearing out of nowhere. You find writing everywhere, which just feels arbitrary as the texts also seem pointless. The dungeon structure just feels arbitrarily put together and it isn't really fun to explore. Having to be afraid, that you could potentially screwing something up by saving/loading doesnt help.

Just started Fell Seal Arbiter - haven't played enough to form a solid opinion but one big negative for myself is the user interface which is heavily consolized. It isn't as bad as some games but it clearly is not a clean pc interface and misses a lot of simplistic shortcuts (like hot key to quick save). I was playing a little of king bounty just before starting this and so the harsh interface really stands out - it is a minor thing but one of those i found esp irritating. After all every thing you do in the game requires usage of the interface. Having said that the game reminds of the charm of another indie - not so much the game play but presentation (art, music, story style, …) - Regalia: Of Men and Monarchs. I can't really comment further yet and i'll play a few more hours to see how much the interface gets on my nerves but i always prefer a game with a proper pc interface.

Originally Posted by you
Are they still patching it or is this the final product ?

Last Patch is from August 2019. So I'd say it's as finished as it will ever get at that point.

I just recommend to also be cautious with System Shock 3 now.

System Shock 3 was supposedly being developed by a different team. Regardless, I don't think we need to worry about that now.

the division 2

kinda boring after a few hours, no major chances from the first game but at least that one had a fantastic setting in a new york covered in snow

Originally Posted by JDR13
System Shock 3 was supposedly being developed by a different team. Regardless, I don't think we need to worry about that now.

Yeah..they laid off their team anyways. Likely not going to happen.

Originally Posted by porcozaur
the division 2

kinda boring after a few hours, no major chances from the first game but at least that one had a fantastic setting in a new york covered in snow

The gameplay was meh, but I really like the atmosphere of the first Division game. The second was on sale for a whopping $3, so I went ahead and picked it up to play down the road.

About 8 hours into Escalin Book 3, thought I'd try out the ranger class for this episode - after only 4 hours there's a monster that's immune to arrows. After 7 hours I'm all out of arrows which is really disrupting the gameflow as I have to cease clearing a dungeon to go and explore for a new shop or grind out time in the hope that the only current trader of arrows restocks.

I met an NPC witch living next to the creatures that are immune to arrows and the dialogue states "oh they don't bother me here, they stay well clear of fire". She's sitting next to a fireplace. In order to defeat these things I relent on being a pure ranger and learn a spell to blast them with. While one of them was following me around while I regained my mana while walking I decided to go veer her house to get the thing off my back.

It goes right up to her and kills her in one hit. Oh well, so much for the "rescue Mr. Bibbles the cat" quest.

It's not as if these games are laden with complex dialogues and mechanics, you'd think these kind of issues would have been picked up on by soneone pre-production.

The Eschalon Book 3 saga continues. I guess Mr. Bimbles is now the pride of my backpack as my very own personal miniature giant space cat. It's pretty cool how it meows when you move it around and purrs when you activate it

This game seems to be buggier/less polished than in the previous two episodes. Or maybe I just didn't notice such things so much in the earlier games. I dunno.

I managed to make a town guard go hostile in the second town. This isn't a problem in the Eschalon series as this usually doesn't trigger the whole town like it might in other games. In fact, I did this in the first town but quickly sorted the situation by luring the guard out of town and bumping them off away from the other NPCs.

However, when I did this routine in the second town, when I went back to town two of the main quest/shopkeeper NPCs were hostile towards me. I reloaded and went even further out of town but the same thing happened & there's no way these NPCs could have seen what was going on by the game's normal rules. AKA, that's some weird-shit bug right there.

So I had to leave it so that one of the guards will chase me about in that town.

Another new introduction in Book 3 is Ceramic Jars that have exactly the same function as Barrels just with a slight twist that 'Tightly Closed' versions can't be smashed open with arrows, the dialogue states they have to be Blasted.

However, the annoying aspect of this new re-skin/mild mechanic variation is that one has no idea whether they follow the rules of Barrels or the rules of Chests. Normally, looting Barrels in and around NPCs will not enrage those NPCs, looting Chests around NPCs does. So where do the Ceramic Jars fit in to this mechanic?

I found out when I looted one and was shot to pieces in nano-seconds resulting in one and a half hours of gameplay lost due to not thinking I needed to save in the safe environments I'd just spent an hour and a half clearing! Ooops!

I guess it's still my fault, I forgot the first rule of RPGs after all, that of save before doing anything one is unsure about. The failure of assumption that just because they looked like reskinned Barrels does not mean they are reskinned Barrels!

Still enjoying it quite a lot though and am progressing well so maybe by the end of the game all this kind of stuff will seem like petty quibbles.

F: NV good except for ’humour’

I still want to play Elex. I'm over 300 hours into an Orc Warden (Champion level 120) in ESO. I started a young Necromancer and I am also enjoying that class. Currently the game is stuck in a huge patch cycle so I'm breaking and playing Wizardry LoLS.

Tried to play Kingdom Come but my PC wasn't on board.

It seems to be a decent medieval simulator, but I can't really tell with my 20FPS ratio…

Oh well, back to Kenshi.

I'm still playing Civilization VI and til now sank 300 hours into it.
In another thread I mentioned the AI as a weak spot. Some weeks ago I started to use the Real Strategy (AI) mod. It got a lot better. However it's still not that intelligent.
I also bought the first expansion (Rise and Fall) for under 15€. It's definitly worth it.

If there was a "best computer game series ever" vote Civilization for me personally would be a tough contender for Baldur's Gate. The game's core mechanics imho are unmatched in the turn based strategy genre.