Gaming fleeting thoughts

[Tyndmyr]

Planetside and Planetside 2 have some multi-level tactics. The series is primarily an MMO shooter, but platoon leaders can set waypoints and draw on the map to give orders and coordinate logistics (setting up spawn points, constructing forward bases, supplying ammo for vehicles, etc). When there's high server population the leaders can basically play the game like an RTS where every unit is a real person.

A real person who mostly ignores orders and sprints into the zerg to die horribly. Seems like, anyways.

[rmsgrey]

Planetside and Planetside 2 have some multi-level tactics. The series is primarily an MMO shooter, but platoon leaders can set waypoints and draw on the map to give orders and coordinate logistics (setting up spawn points, constructing forward bases, supplying ammo for vehicles, etc). When there's high server population the leaders can basically play the game like an RTS where every unit is a real person.

A real person who mostly ignores orders and sprints into the zerg to die horribly. Seems like, anyways.

Yeah, match-making is the point I never really figured out - if you have a group of friends, sure, you can arrange a campaign where two people command the grand strategy, while their friends play out the skirmishes between turns, but pick-up games are unpredictable, and farming out your side's battles to random people means you're going to get very unpredictable results (assuming there's reasonable scope for battlefield commanders to affect the outcome - if the outcome is too predictable, though, there's no point trying to play it out...). And, from the other side, how do you get battlefield commanders to stick around when, if the strategy players are doing their job, most of the battles are (or should be) curb-stomps - sure, if a Total War game, you might be happy playing out a battle where your one plucky archery unit bleeds out several times their value in melee units, delaying their attack and giving you time to put together a force that can defeat the survivors. For the guy who turns up to find they're outnumbered ten to one and have been sent on what amounts to a suicide mission, it's probably time to forfeit and move on looking for a more balanced engagement (the guy on the other side of the battle probably isn't having that much more fun either).

Like I said, I never figured it out.

[LaserGuy]

Planetside and Planetside 2 have some multi-level tactics. The series is primarily an MMO shooter, but platoon leaders can set waypoints and draw on the map to give orders and coordinate logistics (setting up spawn points, constructing forward bases, supplying ammo for vehicles, etc). When there's high server population the leaders can basically play the game like an RTS where every unit is a real person.

A real person who mostly ignores orders and sprints into the zerg to die horribly. Seems like, anyways.

Yeah, match-making is the point I never really figured out - if you have a group of friends, sure, you can arrange a campaign where two people command the grand strategy, while their friends play out the skirmishes between turns, but pick-up games are unpredictable, and farming out your side's battles to random people means you're going to get very unpredictable results (assuming there's reasonable scope for battlefield commanders to affect the outcome - if the outcome is too predictable, though, there's no point trying to play it out...). And, from the other side, how do you get battlefield commanders to stick around when, if the strategy players are doing their job, most of the battles are (or should be) curb-stomps - sure, if a Total War game, you might be happy playing out a battle where your one plucky archery unit bleeds out several times their value in melee units, delaying their attack and giving you time to put together a force that can defeat the survivors. For the guy who turns up to find they're outnumbered ten to one and have been sent on what amounts to a suicide mission, it's probably time to forfeit and move on looking for a more balanced engagement (the guy on the other side of the battle probably isn't having that much more fun either).

Like I said, I never figured it out.

I think the answer to your question is Eve Online.

[Tyndmyr]

Eve online is cool, but in my experience, the grand battles tend to be less about strategy, and more about giant zergs.

Smaller battles can be interesting, but most of them are probably not very fair fights. People gate camp and stuff, and basically suck any fun out of it. There's a niche in which solo piracy and such is embraced, and it's a lot of fun, but not terribly profitable. Everything else ends up being fairly weak if you like strategic combat.

Missions are no better. I'd set up a missile cruiser, pop in, see the specific mission, set everything going, and grab a snack or continue watching a movie while the combat resolved itself.

The best PvP was economic. That was actually a blast, but it's a different sort of thing.

[Koa]

Eve just went free to play with ship limitations. I'm going to see if that appeals to me since I could never do the full-time playstyle.

[DaBigCheez]

Eve online is cool, but in my experience, the grand battles tend to be less about strategy, and more about giant zergs.

Amateurs study tactics and strategy. Professionals study logistics.

[Thesh]

So a Civ 6 patch came out a couple days ago, huge number of balancing/AI updates, as well as various new features and bug fixes:

https://civilization.com/news/entries/c ... e-now-live

Changes:

Spoiler:

[NEW]

• Maps
  • Added a balanced six player map.
  • Added a balanced four player map.
• ‘Cavalry and Cannonades’ Scenario Added
  • Combat scenario with reduced unit maintenance costs and no strategic resource requirement for units.
  • Larger starting army and additional starting techs.
  • Time limit: 50 turns.
  • Goal: Possess the largest territory.
• DX12 Support
• Complete Logitech ARX Support

[GAMEPLAY UPDATES]

• Added additional notifications.
• Added a “time defeat” for running out of time. This is always disabled if a Score Victory is available.
• Added additional Hotkey support (next unit, next city).
• Added the ability to rename cities.
• Added UI to show the next tile a city will grow to.
• Added a visual cue for Barbarian Scouts that are alerted to your city.
• Changed Dan Quayle rankings.

[BALANCE CHANGES]

• Added prerequisite project (Manhattan Project) for Operation Ivy.
• Added Metal Casting as a prerequisite for Economics tech.
• Adjusted religious pressure when a religion is first founded to give them more resilience and convert the city.
• Adjusted relationship decay rates.
• Reduced the effectiveness of cavalry production policies.
• Reduced Warmonger penalties in most instances, and adjusted how this reacts to returning versus keeping a city. The last city conquered from a player now provides a heavy warmonger penalty, even if you have a Casus Belli against this player, because you are wiping out a civilization.
• Reduced border incursion warnings if the troops are within their own borders.
• Increased the number of Great Works of Writing slots in the Amphitheater to 2.
• Increased Counterspy operation time.
• Increased the cost of Religious units and applied additional charges.
• Units may no longer be deleted when they are damaged.
• Deleting a unit no longer provides gold.
• Updated Island Plates map to have more hills and mountains.
• Units may no longer remove features from tiles that are not owned by that player.
• Fallout now prevents resource harvesting.
• Barbarian camps must spawn further away from low-difficulty players’ cities.

[AI TUNING]

• Adjusted AI victory condition focus to increase their competitiveness in Science and Tourism.
• Adjusted AI understanding of declared friendship.
• Adjusted the AI approach to beginning and ending a war based on potential gain and loss.
• Increased AI competitiveness in building a more advanced military.
• Increased AI usage of Inquisitors. Especially Phillip.
• Increased AI value of upgrading units.
• Increased AI use of Settler escorts.
• Tuned AI usage of units that cannot move and shoot, like Catapults.
• Tuned AI city and unit build planning.
• Improved the ability of city-states to maintain a strong military.

[BUG FIXES]

• Fixed some production Social Policies, Great People, and Pantheon bonuses that were not applying correctly.
• Fixed Royal Navy Dockyard not getting the right adjacency bonuses.
• Fixed some issues with how the Great Wall was built by players and AI, including proper connection to mountains and removing other players’ Great Walls as potential connection points.
• Fixed a unit cycling error with formations.
• Fixed a bug where the first military levy that expired would return all levied units (including those levied from other city-states) to that city-state. Now it should only return the levied units that actually originally belonged to the one city-state.
• Fixed several issues when Airstrips and Aerodromes are occupied, including forced rebasing of enemy units and UI updates.
• Fixed an exploit that allowed ranged and bombard units to gain experience when attacking a district with 0 hit points.
• Fixed an issue with wonders when transferring city ownership – conquering a city with a wonder would not track that wonder, and could lead to problems when attempting to use Gustave Eiffel.
• Fixed an issue where the Settler lens would not always show the right information to the player.
• Fixed an issue where AI would counter gold changes with the change desired, rather than the total amount of gold desired.
• Fixed an issue where the Tutorial intro and outro videos would appear off-center in certain resolutions.
• Fixed some crashes with units.
• Fixed an issue where multiple leaders of the same civilization would frequently show up in a game.
• Fixed an issue where Trade Route yields were doubling in some instances.
• Units in formations now break formation before teleporting between cities.
• The achievement ‘For Queen and Country’ was unlocking too frequently.
• AI with neutral relationships should accept delegations barring exceptional circumstances.
• Can no longer declare a Joint War if it is invalid for either party.
• Save game files should no longer be case sensitive.
• Certain wonders were sending extra notifications.
• Players will no longer receive any warmongering penalties from a joint war partner for actions in that joint war.
• Liberating a civilization back to life will now bring them back into the game properly.
• Observation Balloon range bonus was being incorrectly applied when stacked.
• Text and grammar fixes.

[VISUALS]

• Buildings on snow will now have snow on them.
• Added an Industrial Barbarian Encampment.
• Added a ranger tower to National Parks.
• Fixed some issues with buildings not culling around other world items properly.
• Fixed an issue with some Districts not showing properly.
• Miscellaneous polish applied to multiple improvements, districts, and buildings.

[MULTIPLAYER]

• Turn timers are always disabled on the first turn of a new game. This happens regardless of the advanced start or turn timer type selected.
• Allow multiplayer lobby's private game status to be toggled once the lobby has been created.
• Cap the max players to 12.
• Added LAN player name option to options screen.

[UI]

• Added the number of specialists working a tile.
• Added some additional icons for espionage, promotions, etc.
• Added additional Civilopedia shortcuts, including right clicking a unit portrait.
• Added the signature to the diplomacy action view/deal view so that we can differentiate between duplicate players. Also added multiplayer screenname in diplomacy.
• Added Trade Route yields to the Reports screen.
• Added City Center to the City Breakdown panel.
• Added rewards and consequences to mission completed popups.
• Updated the leader-chooser when beginning a new game.
• Updated the end game Victory screen.
• Updated the multiplayer staging room.
• Updated city banners.
• Updated Espionage mission chooser flow.
• Updated to display what cities are getting amenities from each resource.
• Changed resource icon backings to reflect the type of resource it is.
• Auto-scroll to the first Great Person that can be claimed.
• Improved search functionality in the Civilopedia.
• Removed Barbarian data from player replay graphs.
• ESC now closes the Tech, Civic, and Eureka popups.
• When loading a game, the era blurb will be the current era of the saved game, rather than the starting era of the game.

[AUDIO]

• Added some missing mouseover sounds.
• Fixed the Oracle quote.
• Fixed an issue where the Advisor voice was not playing in some languages.
• Fixed compatibility issues with some sound cards, especially those set to high playback rates.

[MISC]

• Added a setup option "No Duplicate Leaders" that is enabled by default. This option prevents multiple players from selecting the same leader.
• Updated leader screen to support enabling/disabling bloom according to the 'Enable Bloom' graphics option.
• Plot Tooltip Delay is now available in the Options menu.
• Auto Cycle Units is now available in the Options menu.
• Benchmark updates.
• Credits updated.

Also: Aha!

Fixed an issue where AI would counter gold changes with the change desired, rather than the total amount of gold desired.

[KnightExemplar]

This month is going to be gaming indulgence month for me.

My PS4 Pro has arrived, bringing with it Puyo Tetris, Touhou Genso Rondo, and Blazblue: Central Fiction. I've also purchased Atelier Sophie as an RPG to play on this system (and its actually kinda good. I really like the crafting system, aka the entire point of the game).

Beyond the PS4 Pro, there's Civ6 and Pokemon Moon.

RIP Free Time.

[Thesh]

So giving gifts in civ6 seems to have no effect. The bonus goes away next round, and I can never seem to get any sort of more favorable relationship no matter how generous and friendly I am.

[New User]

I've been juggling several games lately. Rocket League, Crypt of the NecroDancer, DOOM (which I call Doom 4 when speaking aloud), The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D, The Swapper. I also never got all those stars in The Talos Principle, and therefor never started the DLC levels. I'll go back to it one day. Maybe.

I'm also realizing that my satisfaction from video games is changing. I think it's just from me getting older. I don't think it's that I don't enjoy playing games, I still do and it's a major source of my entertainment. It's just that I'm not so sure which kinds of games I like anymore. For one thing, I tend to lose interest very quickly. I want a game I can pick up and play for only five or ten minutes and then I can leave it. That's why Rocket League and Crypt of the NecroDancer are games I've been enjoying lately. When I play DOOM or Ocarina of Time, I sometimes become disinterested and want to take a break from the game, but I find that my current state in the game is not a convenient place or me to leave off, such as in the middle of a dungeon in Zelda. I haven't felt a good sense of immersion in a video game in a long time. The last game I remember looking forward to playing and wanting to play for lengthy sessions was Xenoblade Chronicles, which I played last year.

[poxic]

That's more or less what I'm up against while trying to play Witcher 3. Still going through the tutorial and there's no good place to save. I don't want to spend hours (or even one hour) playing at a time. I got laundry to do...

[Thesh]

Well, now Civ 6 started crashing in this save whenever a unit is damaged. I think I'll wait for the next patch.

[LaserGuy]

I've been juggling several games lately. Rocket League, Crypt of the NecroDancer, DOOM (which I call Doom 4 when speaking aloud), The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D, The Swapper. I also never got all those stars in The Talos Principle, and therefor never started the DLC levels. I'll go back to it one day. Maybe.

I'm also realizing that my satisfaction from video games is changing. I think it's just from me getting older. I don't think it's that I don't enjoy playing games, I still do and it's a major source of my entertainment. It's just that I'm not so sure which kinds of games I like anymore. For one thing, I tend to lose interest very quickly. I want a game I can pick up and play for only five or ten minutes and then I can leave it. That's why Rocket League and Crypt of the NecroDancer are games I've been enjoying lately. When I play DOOM or Ocarina of Time, I sometimes become disinterested and want to take a break from the game, but I find that my current state in the game is not a convenient place or me to leave off, such as in the middle of a dungeon in Zelda. I haven't felt a good sense of immersion in a video game in a long time. The last game I remember looking forward to playing and wanting to play for lengthy sessions was Xenoblade Chronicles, which I played last year.

That's been my experience in recent years too, especially since having children. I don't mind playing something that takes a long time in total, but it needs to be something that I can stop immediately after ten minutes of play, and it would be nice to actually be able to do something interesting during that time. I have a hard time imagining picking up the next Elder Scrolls game, say, whenever it comes out, since I'll basically have enough time in a typical play session to maybe talk to a couple of people and sell some items.

[Koa]

My 11 day old Eve character might have just wiped out a 50 member corporation in a very brief and strange turn of events. I'm going to have to sit on the story for a while though.

[Felstaff]

My 5-day old Eve character managed to simply orbit some kernite for a few days... I haven't encountered any other players in my little 0.4 enclave.

My 11-year old Eve character has lost their name! They're simply "Gallente Citizen 21956747". I got a mail saying my PLEX expires in -4,057 days.

The game is far more beautiful than I remember, not that I can see any graphics, what with the thousand windows open at any one time (don't they know about tabs in this sector of the universe?)

Thinking of expanding my alpha clone's limited business model to gas cloud mining, but every time I save up the 24,000,000 ISK needed, I blow it on the hooker skill and the blackjack skill. (Does anyone else think it's odd that when you buy a skill, its icon is a book, but you have to 'inject' it?)

[Koa]

My 11-year old Eve character has lost their name!

13 years and 6 months, so says my old character. I picked up the game first week of release. That's quite a while ago. My poor apoc and hangar full of frozen corpses is lost with all of the login information. Actually... I don't care. As many bad memories as good ones.

Also, you can drag just about any window into a tabbed window. Then ctrl-f9 hides hud and ctrl-alt-w closes everything.

[ConMan]

Rhythm Paradise Megamix is a much longer game than I originally expected it to be, although I suppose there was a hint in the name. I've finished the main storyline (since when did Rhythm Heaven/Paradise need a plot?), perfected everything except the god-damn Final Remix, and unlocked about 60% of the extra games, and yet I still only have half the badges, including one that references a World I can't even access yet. I wanted to start Pokemon Sun last week, but I have too many half-played games as it is and having filled all my original Rhythm Heaven save slots with perfect plays it's a sore point that I'm still stuck on this.

[Sableagle]

Run half a mile. Kill 6 boars. Bring back 6 portions of boar meat.
Run a mile. Talk to a guy.
Run half a mile. Kill 6 boars. Bring back 6 portions of boar meat.
SERIOUSLY?
If you're going to set seven quests in the same little "valley" (about 80m by 240m, 10m deep) and put the NPCs for all of them at the same campfire, I'd appreciate it if you'd let me have seven quests active at the same time.

Also, do not go into the Old Forest and jump down into the Weaver's Nest. Haunted Barren Oak, giant Spider, lots of spiders, lots of spiders, lots of spiders, Haunted Barren Oak, lots of spiders, lots of spiders, lots of spiders, giant Spider, lots of spiders, Haunted Barren Oak, lots of spiders, lots of spiders, giant Spider, lots of spiders, ... no way back out except the once-an-hour teleport power.

[Magnanimous]

Also, do not go into the Old Forest and jump down into the Weaver's Nest. Haunted Barren Oak, giant Spider, lots of spiders, lots of spiders, lots of spiders, Haunted Barren Oak, lots of spiders, lots of spiders, lots of spiders, giant Spider, lots of spiders, Haunted Barren Oak, lots of spiders, lots of spiders, giant Spider, lots of spiders, ... no way back out except the once-an-hour teleport power.

At first I thought this was act 2 of Path of Exile. I wonder how many fantasy games have giant spiders named Weaver.

[Deva]

Does Queen Araneae, The Shadow Weaver (from Diablo 3) qualify?

Perhaps not many. Sees Spider Weaver (a monster player class in Lord of the Rings Online) and The Weaver in City of Heroes. Probably reserves "-weaver" for normal monsters, such as World of Warcraft's Crystalweb Weavers. Repurposes that easily for different locations.

Hmm. Bets on more Arachnes (plus variations) than Weavers.

[Zohar]

Got myself a Steam controller, since I have my laptop hooked to my TV pretty much constantly and I play some non-controller games (Civ VI, FTL, etc.). I thought it might be more comfortable than my wireless keyboard (not the exact model, but something like this). But it's pretty challenging still. I'm not sure how to configure it, there doesn't seem to be a straightforward guide. Some stuff online says you actually have to copy files around to your game library? That seems strange. Any tips from people who've used it?

[HES]

It is a bit awkward to get set up right, but I've never heard about needing to copy files around. With a controller connected you just right-click the game in your library and select "edit steam controller configuration" or words to that effect (though you might have to be in Big Picture mode? I think I've done it in desktop mode though). For most games you can choose from pre-existing crowd-sourced configurations, I usually start with the most popular one.

The only thing I've had to set up manually was Mass Effect 3, which has perfectly good controller support on console, but forced KBAM on PC. As that's an Origin title, you have to set the controller configuration for the origin client not the individual game, and then launch Origin through steam.

[Zohar]

How do you know which configuration is popular? I only see a list, without number of users, when looking at community profiles.

[HES]

Huh, I'm sure it used to tell you how many users each one had.

[EdgarJPublius]

The Steam Controller software has changed considerably since launch, so a lot of older guides may be out-dated. I believe the moving files around stuff was only needed for sharing configurations or moving them between computers. Now there's a community configuration browser so you can find and use configurations other people have made easily. Also, your configurations are now tied to your controller/steam account somehow, so they move between computers seamlessly as well.
Community Configurations used to be ranked by number of downloads, but that caused a problem where the first configurations started out with the most downloads, and then they kept getting more downloads than other configurations because they had the most downloads.
I'm not sure how configurations are ranked now, but I don't think it's a significant improvement. Last month they indicated that they'll be addressing issues with the community configuration browser, so hopefully that update will hit fairly soon.

Due to the way the Steam Controller works, you may have to do some level of jiggery-pokery with configs if the game can't be detected by or over-rides the Steam Overlay. I believe there's a simple fix for Origin games, so it's mainly a concern for older games, we're talking like DirectX5 and earlier generally.

The Steam Controller subreddit seem to have the most up-to-date guide for getting started, but I haven't actually used it so I dunno for sure.
https://www.reddit.com/r/SteamControlle ... rowse_the/

I'd be happy to offer advice or answer any questions you have. I've been using the Steam Controller for about a year now and love it, just recently beat my top score in a single life in TF2 with it. I set that score many years ago in a pub-stomp and thought I'd never be able to match it, let alone with a controller.

[Sableagle]

Named areas, on various scales. Crossing a boundary brings up a "now entering ________" message. One area is a large depression, full of swamp. The sides are a mixture of quite steeply sloping grass and too steeply sloping rock, so to get from the swamp to the higher ground above it one must follow twisting paths. Obvious path crosses border many times. "Now entering swamp. Now entering highlands. Now entering swamp. Now entering highlands. Now entering swamp. Now entering highlands. Now entering swamp. Now entering highlands. Now entering swamp. Now entering highlands."

[EdgarJPublius]

I forgot how Mirror's Edge is kind of bullshit.

I'm a handful of levels into what's probably my fourth or fifth replay and so far with only on exception, ever level starts off with you facing a fatal drop, and I think the one exception was a dead-end, so the immediate first thing you do in every level is turn left or right rather than move forward.
Every level so far has included at least one way to go that might as well be signposted 'this is the correct path' but is actually a dead-end or fatal drop.
Most levels have at least one jump that looks dangerous unless you get right up to it and look at where you'll land, but is far enough that if you do that you'll have to back up tot take a running start. These jumps are inevitably placed in sections where you are being chased by an attack helicopter (did that ever get explained in the story BTW, the cops and swat guys are somewhat believable I guess, but fucking Blackhawks with miniguns?) and looking before you leap is a great way to become swiss cheeserated.

[Sableagle]

Two more LOTRO points:

1) Whoever is bomping that enormous drum to the south-east, please stop. How that racket doesn't break windows I don't know. What the heck is it for, anyway? Is it meant to remind us that hours of our lives are passing while we sit and play this game?

2) Dying warg: "GrrrRRRrrrrrrrrrrr."
Dying orcs: "Oiiiiii." "Urg." "Uff, ugh."
Dying crow: "Caw."
Dying brigand: "Aaarrrgh."
Background noise frogs: "brrrrrp brrrrrp brrrrrp."
Background wind: "OoooooOOOOOOOOooooooooOOOOOOOOoooooooooooh."
Background owl: "HOOT!"

I'd swear that bird must have the wingspan of two Great Eagles. It is LOUD. That or it's invisible and perched on my shoulder, I guess, but what are the chances of *that* happening?

[KnightExemplar]

Atelier Sophie is the alchemy crafting game for people who want a crafting game with RPG elements.

I've spent the vast majority of the time staring at the crafting screen. With a level cap of 20, the vast majority of your stats come from well optimized crafting routines. The difference between an "Average" class 50 Bomb and a maxed out 999 Legendary quality bomb is enormous. Heck, "beginner" items with high quality and the maxed out traits are suitable for endgame and even the post-endgame megabosses.

I guess there's a bit of "grind" with regards to fetching items. But with a decent loadout (Victor's Charm + gathering gloves), you pickup ~8 items with just one "X-button pickup", and can fill up your basket with 50 items in less than 3 minutes. Backpack to increase your basket to 90 items at a time... and you still fill it up within 5 minutes. The few rare items in the game are available from various shops for assloads of money, but money itself can be crafted through alchemy (aka: High Price Gold Thread that perpetually creates more high-price Gold Thread).

The only "grindy" bit is waiting for the rumor system to RNG-bless you with the megaboss you're waiting for. Megabosses hold unique items (for crafting)... but in my experience the unique-items aren't even that good anyway. The generic sword has more enhancement slots so... its actually better to craft your own sword with 5x enhancements rather than using the mega-weapons which only get 3x enhancements.

Why only RPG elements? There are maybe... 10 monsters in the game tops, each with 5 to 8 skins (and a mega-boss for each of the monsters). The storyline is... really lax. There isn't an antagonist, you just go around town and help people by crafting items they need. For the people who do want a harder RPG, there's a button that makes every enemy tougher (normal mode vs despair mode), but if normal mode is too hard, you can always just drop down to easy mode as well.

If you die, you simply drop half of what's in your basket, so you lose at most ~25 items that took you only 2 minutes to find anyway (just don't die after facing a megaboss and getting a rare item). There's basically no penalty for failure.

So you're basically getting a crafting game with a barebones RPG attached to it. There's storyline for each of the playable characters in your party... but its very barebones (spoilers: the Clockmaker doesn't like to make clocks... but he inherited the clock shop from his father! Now he has to make clocks... ). Music and sound design are pretty good though.

[cyanyoshi]

I am less than 2 weeks away from 100% completing Pokémon Picross, a free-to-play game, without spending any money. If I do nothing else with my life, at least I have this.

[rmsgrey]

I am less than 2 weeks away from 100% completing Pokémon Picross, a free-to-play game, without spending any money. If I do nothing else with my life, at least I have this.

I got there a while back...

It leaves you with a bit of an empty feeling when you realise there's even less point to the daily training puzzles...

[cyanyoshi]

I am less than 2 weeks away from 100% completing Pokémon Picross, a free-to-play game, without spending any money. If I do nothing else with my life, at least I have this.

I got there a while back...

It leaves you with a bit of an empty feeling when you realise there's even less point to the daily training puzzles...

Time will tell if it leaves me feeling proud, empty, regretful, disappointed, or any combination of the above. At least there's Twilight Princess Picross to look forward to....

[rmsgrey]

I am less than 2 weeks away from 100% completing Pokémon Picross, a free-to-play game, without spending any money. If I do nothing else with my life, at least I have this.

I got there a while back...

It leaves you with a bit of an empty feeling when you realise there's even less point to the daily training puzzles...

Time will tell if it leaves me feeling proud, empty, regretful, disappointed, or any combination of the above. At least there's Twilight Princess Picross to look forward to....

Wait! Really? Who? When? Where? Why? How?

[cyanyoshi]

Time will tell if it leaves me feeling proud, empty, regretful, disappointed, or any combination of the above. At least there's Twilight Princess Picross to look forward to....

Wait! Really? Who? When? Where? Why? How?

It's available for approximately 1 buttload of silver currencies earned from jumping through all kinds of hoops in Nintendo's "rewards" program. Come to think of it, Miitomo and those free-to-play Pokémon games sure have helped quash any hope we may have had that Club Nintendo's replacement would feel like a reward for customer loyalty, rather than a trap for people to get sucked into.

[Thesh]

I'm still in the middle of Dishonored 2. Emily's far reach power is really horrible, to the point where I'd say a quarter of the time I end up just falling straight down (I don't know if Corvo and Blink works like it did in the last game), while sometimes I also fly straight past, this all assumes you don't get stuck on something else. That happened to me a moment ago; I reloaded, and to top it all off I found that even though I didn't touch the train tracks previously, I was standing directly on top of and being electrified by them when I reloaded, so now I have to replay from my last autosave which I have no clue how much in-game time has passed.

That said, the stuff in Stilton's house was pretty fun.

[cyanyoshi]

https://arxiv.org/pdf/1203.1895v3.pdf

This paper brings a whole new meaning to the term Nintendo Hard. (Warning: TVTropes link.)

[ameretrifle]

I'm gonna complain a bit about Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask because why not. On the whole it was pretty good and pretty compelling, more so than 4 at least, though 3 is the obvious high-water mark in terms of story. Game-wise it was good enough, though it suffered a bit from the "oh shit we have 3D now how are we going to pretend we actually need it" syndrome. Dunno if the puzzles were a little more annoying or I just have less patience as I'm older. But this guy is dumb as a sack of roooocks.

Spoiler:

So from the beginning Randall's a dumbass teenager, reckless and convinced of his own immortality. Legitimate, but I've always hated teenagers like that. But it just really goes too far to be sympathetic. "Why are you overreacting to my plan to go explore some ruins in the desert with only my best friend in a nebulous time period with no cell phones or GPS location or backup plan of any sort? I mean, as a teenage amateur I'm obviously the best suited to explore this historic find!" "My brother fucking died on an expedition you twat." "Oh. Yeah. Well um I totally won't!" "Just promise you won't do anything dangerous or stupid!" "Too fuckin' late man... I mean of course not! Haha! Women, man. With their irrational worrying."

But teenagers, right? So they take a fuckin' horse-drawn cart to these ruins because Layton has no fucking clue what time period it's set in and refuses to be tied down to such antiquated notions, he gives his friend a crappy shovel so he can do all the digging, and they're off. One level down. Two. Sentry robots. "Maybe this isn't a good idea." "Where's your sense of adventure??" Three, four, etc. Spinning mummy robots with samurai swords. "Maybe we should reconsider this." "But that was awesome!" Couple more floors. Rocks fall, party is split. "Okay I'm fucking serious this is dangerous." "But I'm doing this to prove my worth to my girlfriend's parents! You have to help me!" "First off, that's still stupid, and second, why didn't you tell me before?" "I was saving it up to manipulate you when you got really serious about ditching my dumbass plan."

Okay, I'm being uncharitable. Last floor. Inevitable pit trap. The old "give me your other hand" rag can't get dumber, right? Oh, no, it can. "Give me your other hand!" "But I'm holding this precious artifact because jumping across a river seemed the best time to take it out of my backpack!" "Throw it up here or something, it's made of goddamn metal!" "That is not going to occur to me, so I will ineffectually try to scrabble my feet against this rock wall." "Lovely, could you give me your other hand now?" "No, no, this mask is too important. See, you have to take it and solve the final puzzle for me." "YOUR OTHER HAND." "See... here it... oh fuck I slipped. Bye."

Yes, he won't give Layton his other hand because the mask is too important. Whereupon he falls, with the mask still in hand. And Layton solves the puzzle anyway. It's hilariously pointless.

So they never find a body and it's obvious practically from the first time he's even mentioned that he's totally not dead. Turns out he caught plot amnesia (and a weird case of plot reverse-vitiligo. Thanks, Japanese racism) and he's been in a small town working farms or some shit. Then someone sends him a letter all "look how your friends and family moved on without you! This guy totally stole your family fortune and your girl! You should be pissed off and enact this plan for revenge I made for you." And he's all "OK " and runs off to enact this stranger with no agenda's fortuitous plan for revenge with minimal questioning as to how this guy knows any of this or why he gives a fuck. Shockingly, it turns out he is being played. His old friend has been looking for him for decades! All his old friend's property is actually in Randall's name! He fake-married Randall's girlfriend so she wouldn't have to deal with pressure to marry someone else! He really needs some goddamn self-esteem! And of course it's a fake marriage because god forbid a woman actually move on from her chucklefuck teenage boyfriend after a decade or two, what sort of callous bitch would do that. At least after this is revealed he realizes he is too fucking stupid to live. Whereupon he falls into a chasm and the old "give me your other hand" routine happens a-fucking-gain. Luckily his old friend is around with a "bitch, you ain't getting out of this that easy. We spent twenty fucking years looking for your stupid ass, I am dragging you up if I have to rent a god damn crane."

...If he'd actually phrased it like that, I wouldn't have been so annoyed. Anyway, all is forgiven, love and snuggles and I'm assuming a long-term poly relationship, Count of Monte Cristo has been thoroughly neutered.

I also like the part where Layton is all "This ends here." and Randall's all "Um... well... ok." What a quitter.

Then there's the post credits scene, which I described thus.

ok so you remember the foppish villain from last game with the mask and cloak and feather boa and giant robots
he found amnesia boy and manipulated him into being dumber than normal and threatening the town so that he could get Layton (or whoever showed up) to reveal the magic ruins under the town
so ending scene he's all "sweeeet ruiiiiiins all my life's work" and his butler guy is all "um there's tanks sir" and all these tanks and helicopters roll up with this corporate douchebag
and he's all "balls" and evil corporation guy is all "i love the smell of world domination in the morning"
and he's all "fuck you i'm'a charge at your machine gunners" and these machine gunners are all "your straight-line path and quick running make you an impossible target to hit"
and he's all "boo yah fuck your mooks now i'm'a punch you" and corporation guy is like "bitch please" and basically knees him in the groin
and then corporate's all "ok let's see what you look like under that mask" and butler is all "i am NINJA BUTLER! SMOKE GRENADE RESCUE GO" and they vanish
and corporation guy looks at the mask and is all "eh who gives a fuck. tanks onward"
and that's the post credits scene

No, really, literally, that is the post-credits scene. Except he actually knees him in the sternum.

Seriously.

Nonsense is half the fun of the Layton plots, but it was pushing it a little.

[Thesh]

Beat Dishonored 2 today with a "Emily kills anyone who truly betrayed the Empire" run, with mostly stealth, but no concern for perfection, probably racking up 50-60 kills total and a low chaos ending. With the exception of some crashes and save issues (be careful when saving on top of objects; use a manual save, and not your quicksave), I really only was unhappy with Emily's powers (particularly Far Reach).

I'm going to replay with a "Corvo is fucking pissed and forgoing powers to go medieval on their asses, killing everyone who is even suspected of being disloyal!"

After that I'll go for a no kills, no detection run with Corvo and his powers.

[Sableagle]

OH NO YOU DIDN'T!

Lord of the Rings Online. That was Radagast the Brown, so actually he was being speciesist not sexist. Still ... diplomatic, much?

On the "yay" side, I like the way they've made the player character instrumental in the bits of the plot that aren't in the books but had to have happened somewhere off-page. Also, kittens:

That's actually an aggressive predator that'll attack you on sight if you don't have it massively out-levelled. There are non-aggressive things everywhere too, shrews, frogs, snakes, toads, coneys (wild), rabbits (farm animals), chickens, deer (bucks and does, distinct models) of various species and, as mentioned, that damn big owl.

On the "argh" side, the quest sequence between Combe and the Chetwood has you running the same bit of road maybe eight to twenty times, depending how many quests you manage to do simultaneously, and there is a lot of Middle Earth Ultra Marathon in this game.

Scale's a bit weird. Here's a map of all the lands in the books and here's Eriador, where everyone starts (afaik). Here's Ered Luin, featuring Thorin's Hall in the NW, then of course there's all of The Shire before you get to The Lone Lands and Ost Guruth. I don't know of any significance to Ost Guruth but it's where I landed for quite a while because the quests went from shooting the occasional lone orc-kin who wandered off-base to fighting my way through a horde of heavy infantry and my "drive by one-shot kill" character build doesn't tank. While there, I got into a fellowship for an "instance," meaning a quest someone else is doing (again), and green arrowheads appeared around the radar, showing direction to other members of the fellowship. I was in Ost Guruth. One of the others was at Thorin's Hall. The mouse-over on his green arrow said he was just over 15km away. On that scale, a fit soldier could probably march from Bag End to Minas Morgul in a day. That might even be possible in-game if you get the expansions (or even if you don't but there'll be no quests for you there), but the number of twisty cliff-lines that'd force you to go around rather than straight-lining it would be immense. They're annoying.

Overall impression is that I'm using the Asheron's Call interface to play a City of Heroes character in Middle Earth ... and spending a lot of time running to places.

[Felstaff]

Speaking of Lord of the Rings Online, here's my Hobbit burglar earlier today, aside my pet horse, next to a downed oliphaunt, with the partly-ruined Minas Tirith in the background, just after the battle of Pelennor Fields.

The destroyed Mordorian siege ordnance lies scattered across the plain. It's quite the sight.

I pur-chased a PlayStation 4 Pro several weeks ago. It arrived yesterday and, having only Dark Souls III to play (where I miserably failed to defeat the first boss: I'm not a particularly good gamer, and From Software games are hard af), I decided to download the Resident Evil 7 demo. Having not played the franchise since Resident Evil 4, I was wondering; have they only recently turned to found-footage style? I have Resident Evil 5 & 6 in my 'to-do' Steam list. Anyway, I started playing it, but being alone in the house at night, I found it too scary to continue. I barely made it five minutes through before switching it off. I'll wait until I have company (and daylight) before I try it again.