What games are you playing now?

Yeah I started playing Pathfinder the week it launched, and just ran into too many issues at the time, it was driving me bonkers with all the updates and patches that were coming in. Now, with the enhanced turn-based combat system, it's a pure joy to play, I easily picked up right where I left off. This time no stopping until the world is fully explored!

I'm already done with Divinity: OS 2, at least for now. I explored some of the area around Fort Joy, but it wasn't grabbing me at all. I'm also not a fan of some of the changes they made.

Whoever thought adding the magical armor mechanic was a good idea should be banned from game design. It's a terrible mechanic that does nothing but artificially lengthen battles that would already be plenty long enough without it.

Preach it, JDR, testify!! I still love the company but man, I loathe Original Sin 2.

Yes, you've mentioned that several times already.

Originally Posted by JDR13
Whoever thought adding the magical armor mechanic was a good idea should be banned from game design. It's a terrible mechanic that does nothing but artificially lengthen battles that would already be plenty long enough without it.

That wasn't a move I liked either. Still, I liked the game for its storytelling, the companions, the voice acting, the music, the relaxed approach. The combats are fine once I accepted to look passed the AoE and the double armour mechanics. Actually it adds some tactical elements, there are for example interesting spells that need one armour type gone, which you can achieve with the help of other specific spells or actions. I prefer the tactical mechanics of D&D and Pathfinder, however.

Back to back after D:OS1, that's got to be too much.

Originally Posted by Redglyph
That wasn't a move I liked either. Still, I liked the game for its storytelling, the companions, the voice acting, the music, the relaxed approach. The combats are fine once I accepted to look passed the AoE and the double armour mechanics. Actually it adds some tactical elements, there are for example interesting spells that need one armour type gone, which you can achieve with the help of other specific spells or actions. I prefer the tactical mechanics of D&D and Pathfinder, however.

Back to back after D:OS1, that's got to be too much.

Yeah, I'm fine with the other aspects of the game. The exploration is pretty good, and the dialogue so far seems better than what was in D:OS 1, although that's not saying much.

Any tactical elements added by the armor though are outweighed by the tediousness of having to deal with it in every battle. Physical armor doesn't need to have it's own health bar, and magical armor should have been used much more sparingly imo.

I'm sure having played D:OS 1 so recently is probably amplifying that opinion, but I'd still feel the same way regardless. I wasn't planning on doing a full playthough now anyways though. I'll be away for the weekend, and then probably starting Days Gone on Tues.

I thought the exploration factor in Original Sin two was not nearly as good as it was in the prior game. The real issue I had was with how slighted melee combat seemed to feel, and yes, the armor changes are a huge part of that.

Still just breezing through NG+ in Sekiro. Breezed Lady Butterfly, Genichiro, etc. Being overpowered really makes everything a cakewalk. I haven't died once to any of the bosses. But I'm also starting to get a bit bored. Currently the plan was to 100% the game. So I need to go through most of the game at least once more. But I'm starting to lose interest in getting all achievements. Particularly since one of the achievements asks to unlock each and every skill. So that's a lot of grinding. I may just hang it up now. It's been fun to steamroll everything for a while, but it's getting boring. I think I've had my fill of revenge for the torment they all put me through.

Originally Posted by danutz_plusplus
Still just breezing through NG+ in Sekiro. Breezed Lady Butterfly, Genichiro, etc. Being overpowered really makes everything a cakewalk. I haven't died once to any of the bosses. But I'm also starting to get a bit bored. Currently the plan was to 100% the game. So I need to go through most of the game at least once more. But I'm starting to lose interest in getting all achievements. Particularly since one of the achievements asks to unlock each and every skill. So that's a lot of grinding. I may just hang it up now. It's been fun to steamroll everything for a while, but it's getting boring. I think I've had my fill of revenge for the torment they all put me through.

Since you made me curious with your stories about Sekiro and I am a PC keyboard& mouse only player: Do you believe that playing it with KB & M is viable? When I browse through threads about this in other gaming fora, the answers are very mixed, so I get no clear result.

Originally Posted by bkrueger
Since you made me curious with your stories about Sekiro and I am a PC keyboard& mouse only player: Do you believe that playing it with KB & M is viable? When I browse through threads about this in other gaming fora, the answers are very mixed, so I get no clear result.

I can tell you that I'd never attempt it.

Originally Posted by bkrueger
Since you made me curious with your stories about Sekiro and I am a PC keyboard& mouse only player: Do you believe that playing it with KB & M is viable? When I browse through threads about this in other gaming fora, the answers are very mixed, so I get no clear result.

From what I've seen it is playable with mouse and keyboard. There are one or two keybindings which I would remap, but most are very good. For the first few hours I played using m&k, and I liked it a lot more than controller. Especially since attack and deflect are left and right mouse buttons. I find I'm faster with the mouse than shoulder buttons. The only reason I switched to controller is that I found I would pretty much pound my mouse into oblivion clicking so hard and so much. I have a very nice mouse, and did not want to abuse it in this game. But it's perfectly playable using m&k. I've seen people finish the whole game with m&k.

Another short update to my NG+. I think I'm done with Sekiro. As long as fights went very easily I managed to keep playing it. I've even managed to defeat the Guardian Ape on my first try without dying. But after that I reached the fight that I need to finish in order to get 100% achievements. The fight with Emma and Isshin again. And Isshin pounded me into the ground in his first phase. And that was that. I seriously do not have the patience to repeat this fight again and again. So I'm done with Sekiro. I'll have to live without 100%-ing the game. It was fun while it lasted, but I may also be burned out on it. Maybe in a few years when I've forgotten most of it. Though I doubt I'll pick it back up after I lose even the skills I gained so far. Especially since there will be no motivation to finish it, since I already have.

Originally Posted by danutz_plusplus
From what I've seen it is playable with mouse and keyboard. There are one or two keybindings which I would remap, but most are very good. For the first few hours I played using m&k, and I liked it a lot more than controller. Especially since attack and deflect are left and right mouse buttons. I find I'm faster with the mouse than shoulder buttons. The only reason I switched to controller is that I found I would pretty much pound my mouse into oblivion clicking so hard and so much. I have a very nice mouse, and did not want to abuse it in this game. But it's perfectly playable using m&k. I've seen people finish the whole game with m&k.

Thanks, then it might be worth a try!

Edit: Thanks also to @JFarrell71! Interesting that the views on this are so completely different!

Another short update to my NG+. I think I'm done with Sekiro. As long as fights went very easily I managed to keep playing it. I've even managed to defeat the Guardian Ape on my first try without dying. But after that I reached the fight that I need to finish in order to get 100% achievements. The fight with Emma and Isshin again. And Isshin pounded me into the ground in his first phase. And that was that. I seriously do not have the patience to repeat this fight again and again. So I'm done with Sekiro. I'll have to live without 100%-ing the game. It was fun while it lasted, but I may also be burned out on it. Maybe in a few years when I've forgotten most of it. Though I doubt I'll pick it back up after I lose even the skills I gained so far. Especially since there will be no motivation to finish it, since I already have.

This is not a good sign. When I think back the only really good games for me were the ones I replayed at least two or three times, because either the world or the lore or the character development were interesting enough to see them more than once. The "second best" category is exactly what you describe: You like the first play through, start a new one immediately and bore out through this first replay. I expect that your idea to try it some time later again will end in one of two ways. Either you get bored during this replay because you already know everything or you will get frustrated since you forgot everything and get killed in the easiest fights. Please keep us informed, when you retry it one day.

Originally Posted by bkrueger
This is not a good sign. When I think back the only really good games for me were the ones I replayed at least two or three times, because either the world or the lore or the character development were interesting enough to see them more than once. The "second best" category is exactly what you describe: You like the first play through, start a new one immediately and bore out through this first replay. I expect that your idea to try it some time later again will end in one of two ways. Either you get bored during this replay because you already know everything or you will get frustrated since you forgot everything and get killed in the easiest fights. Please keep us informed, when you retry it one day.

Seems I pretty much made it so I can't easily get the 100% achievement. I forgot to backup my saves before making the story decision where you end the game prematurely. So now, even if I do persevere and fight Emma/Isshin, the game would end right after that. And I'd have to replay it all from start again, for a third time. No frikkin way am I gonna do that. Yeah, I'm uninstalling Sekiro. It's been great to play'ya!

Originally Posted by danutz_plusplus
Yeah, I'm uninstalling Sekiro.

Finally I can return to the forum…

danutz does get a little overzealous with his updates sometimes.

I like his game diaries, but then again, he often plays games I like reading about.

Originally Posted by joxer
Finally I can return to the forum…

Then you're not gonna like this. Seems Sekiro is starting to be a sort of obsession for me. A few hours later I reinstalled it. It's starting to be an unhealthy obsession. It taunts me with its difficulty.

Regarding frequent updates, I think this game and Bloodborne were the only ones I started to do such frequent updates for. I feel most events in these games are such an experience, that you feel the need to share. Speaks highly of the games themselves. I also love to see playthroughs of the games by both elite players and average ones like myself. You really feel for the people raging. It's a special bond between people suffering under the same thing. Now I’m exagerating, but it’s close to that.

On the game itself, having retried the Emma/Isshin fight I notice the AI of Isshin is a bit different. Or I almost never saw him do the grabs in my first playthrough. Now he tries them constantly. I wonder if they really alter the AI in NG+ or did I just never hit the triggers that make him want to grab me. Anyway, it’s interesting. The AI in these games always feels like a black-box. You never know what they’re gonna do. That’s what avoid the fights from being repetitive.

Another thing that's interesting is, the bosses I need to kill for the achievement are the ones that are giving me issues. Almost all others I pretty much breezed through. I'm on retry #5 or so for the Emma/Isshin fight. And I don't see it ending any time soon. Also interesting, the first enemy to kill me in this NG+ run was one of the most annoying ones I had issues in the initial playthrough also. Snake Eyes Shirahagi. God he was an annoying enemy. Grabbing me and giving me shotgun blasts to the face. He actually killed me twice. Took me off my high horse of overpoweredness.

Originally Posted by danutz_plusplus
Then you're not gonna like this.

It was a joke.
I didn't expect you will do it, so had to write something. My sort of absence is unrelated.

Play what you love.

Since I'm pretty much done with Sekiro, I decided to give Dark Souls 1 a try. I've had multiple attempts with it across the years, and always gave up at a various beginning points.

Now that I'm coming from Bloodborne and Sekiro, holy shit is it slow and clunky compared. The movement is like the I'm wading through a swamp. If I get knocked down, it takes forever to get back up. The fight against the Asylum Demon was just terrible. Even though I managed to finish it, it was so slow and wonky. And I did make sure to take off enough armor so that I have decent rolls. But the general movement, getting hit and getting back up, dodging. Holy shit, I hope I'll be able to adapt.

Does the movement and general maneuverability get any better later on? Or is this as good as it gets? I remember seeing streams of later gameplay, but I remember it being more or less the same. They really made some huge improvements with Bloodborne and Sekiro.

Originally Posted by danutz_plusplus
Since I'm pretty much done with Sekiro, I decided to give Dark Souls 1 a try. I've had multiple attempts with it across the years, and always gave up at a various beginning points.

Now that I'm coming from Bloodborne and Sekiro, holy shit is it slow and clunky compared. The movement is like the I'm wading through a swamp. If I get knocked down, it takes forever to get back up. The fight against the Asylum Demon was just terrible. Even though I managed to finish it, it was so slow and wonky. And I did make sure to take off enough armor so that I have decent rolls. But the general movement, getting hit and getting back up, dodging. Holy shit, I hope I'll be able to adapt.

Does the movement and general maneuverability get any better later on? Or is this as good as it gets? I remember seeing streams of later gameplay, but I remember it being more or less the same. They really made some huge improvements with Bloodborne and Sekiro.

25%, 50%,75%,100%. Each percentage you lower equipment rate will make you roll faster and longer. Increase endurance to get more stamina which will allow more sprinting and dodging. Weapon speed is determined by the weapon. Increase poise to not get staggered as much.

There’s no way to increase speed otherwise. It was made much earlier to the games you mentioned as such it is clunkier and slower and won’t approach the speed and smoothness of bloodbourne or sekiro.

I’d say keep playing and see if you can adjust. If you like these kinds of games it’s definitely worth a play.

Edit— forgot to mention iframes will also increase with lower equipment rate and a certain ring will increase them further.