Whatcha all playing?
Do I even need to ask?! Elden ring!! Shadow of the erdtree! It’s so good 😊
Ofc I know the game is not for everyone though! So, shadow of the erdtree or not, what are you playing :)
Terraria. An old friend popped up to ask me if I’d like to play and it’s been many updates ago and at least a decade since I last played. We are playing both calamity and Fargo souls mods mashed together and having a hell of a time with the extreme difficulty as we work through the boss fights.
Not to mention our life schedules work out to 2 hours a day.
At the end of this week, I will be getting a new game PC. So, I will play:
- The last of us part 1 remake
- High On Life
- Cyberpunk 2077
- Alan Wake 2 (half replaying it, already played 4 hours on the PS5)
GregTech: New Horizons
:)
Yeah elden ring SotA, I finished all the bosses and all the content but 1 optional boss on saturday, and the last boss yesterday. Good dlc but the balancing is kinda whacky and is has the typical complainers about difficulty, the typical defenders that have not finished the dlc, and then people that have done all bosses that know that the last boss is the most overtuned piece of shit to be ever crafted in ER. The other optional hard boss (bottom right) is also kinda stupid but it’s optional and it does give you SOME breathing room, but the last one is just completely un enjoyable.
The Talos Principle 2 dropped an expansion out of nowhere. It hasn’t even been a year since the game released! The puzzles so far are really creative and cool, and of course it wouldn’t be The Talos Principle without a healthy dose of philosophizing about the human condition!
I’m still on the first chapter but it’s awesome. But I got stuck on 2 of the bonus puzzles and age of wonders 4 and Elden Ring both dropped dlc as well so I’m currently playing way too much Elden Ring. I have to say that the philosophising in the first chapter didn’t land with me but maybe that’s because love for me isn’t something to thoroughly analyze.
Against my better judgement, i decided to look into Genshin Impact.
I’ve resolved to not spend any money on it, and I’m fairly happy with my experience so far. I’m currently in act 2 in Inazuma, and I’ve really been enjoying the Archon quests. Despite the fact that I spent 0 dollars on it, this part of the game really does feel like a full retail game experience.
The world quests are alright, though I’m honestly having trouble fitting them into my adventures; too much adventure experience is coming in, which is causing me to hit world level increases, which is causing me to need to grind ascension mats for my roster, which is causing too much adventure xp. It’s a lot! Dragonspine was a fun detour, though.
Story quests are probably my favorite feature in this game. Low stakes hang outs with the weirdos in your party is a fun and important part of RPGs. And Genshin really gets that. The only problem is… A lot of these weirdos aren’t in my party! If Story quests unlocked the characters at their conclusion, I’d have had no qualms with putting $60 down on this game, but they’re pretty much all locked behind the gacha mechanic which suuuucks. Shenhe and Diluc should be in my gang right now, but the funny gacha rocks disagree. Not a fan of that.
The resin and primogem stuff I feel really negatively about. I don’t want that stuff getting in the way of the fun parts, but I’m constantly scraping up against both. It’s not intrusive enough to dampen my experience while actually playing through the quests or exploring though, so I think I’ll put up with it until I’m satisfied with exploring Teyvat.
genshin is surprisingly good (I was also wow’d when I started playing), but ultimately I found the story lacking in a lot of key places for me (justice for Inazuma’s story especially!) which ultimately led me to quit for now. I played for two years, and have a pretty well established account. however, I have really bad fatigue issues and wasn’t able to keep up as well with the adventuring requirements, such as having to unlock chests for free primogems.
I think playing it until you’re tired of the grating parts is a totally valid way to experience it. especially because it’s free!
like the other comment, I tried Honkai: Star Rail and honestly I love it so much more. it is turn-based combat, but I feel like the writing is better, and they treat their characters better storywise (in contrast to genshin, which imho the hangouts for four stars are not comparable to the story quests some four stars get.) it’s my gacha game of choice, and while I’ve had my nitpicks, I have those with every game I play pretty much. I also agree it’s more f2p friendly.
these are all just my opinion tho! I hope you enjoy your time with the game and that you get the characters you want. may your pulls be blessed!
“…and that you get the characters you want. may your pulls be blessed!”
Thanks, I could really use the bless. I have yet to get a fire character I like and can use. I’d take the bomb goblin in Jean’s basement at this rate.
Amber could not leave my party fast enough, and Xiangling is in the timeout corner from the time her rat refused to light the torches on dragonspine. I did get Thoma from the character event, but he absolutely refuses to be ascended past level 20.
I feel you. I dislike most of the pyro characters honestly! and also, oof, Thoma requires ascension materials from a special huge questline island in Inazuma. he’s kind of a pain to level. the pyro four star I like the most is a tie between Gaming and Yanfei. Yoimiya is my favorite 5 star one, and she works well with Thoma, actually.
you can probably guess who some of my favorites are based on profile pic and banner (eventually, anyway, they’re both in Inazuma.)
who do you have your eyes on that you want, anyone besides Diluc and Shenhe? I don’t know what the banners are currently.
absolutely! Genshin is actually a surprisingly good game as a f2p player! If you’re having a lot of fun with it, I’d highly recommend checking Honkai: Star Rail! It’s somehow even more f2p friendly, and it’s clear they learned a LOT from Genshin when making it. It is a linear turn-based RPG though, so quite a different game from Genshin.
I played Daniel Linssen’s Leap Year, and I highly recommend it! $5 for a delightful single sitting. Goofy mechanics whose depth you slowly discover by exploring and experimenting. Some of the most brilliant level design I’ve seen.
ayyy new thread new game!
well kind of. I’m actually playing Caves of Qud a bit, now that I understand it more (I did end up installing the tutorial mod, thank you for that! and I did watch a small non-spoilery tutorial series as well) and I’m having a really good time. I started out with a character the tutorial recommended and have been fighting fish to level up. planning on taking on the first big quest tho!
sadly I’m stuck on an old gaming laptop that doesn’t really like to play games, so I can’t jump into all the games I want to. even my gacha game I play is pushing it, although I still login every day and do my required stuff. the laptop just gets extraordinarily hot. it handles Caves of Qud, because ascii, but I was wanting to jump in to Elden Ring at some point (I don’t have the DLC, does it make new runs more exciting at the beginning or is it a later thing?) and realized it’s not an option I think due to my laptop’s specs and general grumpiness.
so I’ve been wrestling with Borderlands 3 to get it to work, and my partner and I have been playing that for a bit. I love the BL series, although 2 was imho the best for writing. the humor still annoys me sometimes but I started playing the series with the first one when it came out, as a kid, so it has a special place in my heart. my partner hasn’t really ever played first person shooter games, so Destiny 2 (when we played) and Borderlands was their introduction.
Wait. There is a tutorial mod ?! Can you give me a link to it please ?
yep! here it is on the steam workshop and I hope it helps you out! if you want the video series too, I can shoot that your way, it doesn’t really spoil anything and I didn’t know 95% of the mechanics even existed.
live and drink friend!
Still playing Dark Souls 2 - almost 100 hours in and there’s just Darklurker and Aldia left. This game just keeps going and going, really well worth the cost. Since I’m almost through, I can see why it seems to be the black sheep of the series. But, despite some problems (like needing to refer to a guide constantly) I like it a lot, and will definitely do a NG+ eventually.
Also started Yooka-Laylee and I love it already. It’s very true to the Banjo Kazooie style.
I picked Baldur’s Gate 3 back up two weeks ago.
Last summer I played Act 1 of the game and found myself thoroughly satisfied, and decided to wait to play the rest.
Act 2, like Act 1, is just as awesome. We’ll see if I decide to take another break before the third act, haha! This game is nothing short of a masterpiece.
Other than that I’ve been taking a lot of 10-15 minute breaks while working from home and enjoying the minigames on Meta Horizons.
Definitely Shadow of the Erdtree! I’ve already beaten the Dancing Lion boss. Just started playing WoW Classic again too and found a guild filled with super nice people. So that’s been fun.
Yep, shadow of the erdtree :) I’ve been big on invading since Dark Souls 1 and I found that the fog catacombs are a delight to invade in.
- Long zone with few checkpoints
- Lots of traps
- Elevators :D
- Imps that do bleed so moghs great rune is decent
- Marika’s stakes so I don’t feel toooooo bad murdering people right before they reach the boss lol.
Love those cannon imps. Such a goofy enemy, and such a good enemy for invaders. Anything that does aoe and knockback is my bff in invasions.
Fun!
I’ll probably pick it up in a few weeks. I’m having a lot of fun with BG3 right now.
Oh nice! I gotta go back and play that again, they added a bunch of epilogue stuff since I ran through the first time :)
I’ve been mainlining Esports Godfather, which is the surprise hit of the year for me so far. The title is nonsensical and on the surface it looks like it can’t be good, but it’s been so much fun.
It’s a MOBA-themed sort of deckbuilder/autobattler/management game - which sounds like a hot mess but plays so much better than you’d think. At least after you get over the initial information overload.
I wish the AI was a little smarter, but even with the game being a touch too easy it’s incredible how much fun it is. Loads of cards and heroes to build synergies with and rotating version rulesets keeping things fresh even within a single run.
At just €16 on Steam I’d easily recommend it to anyone with an interest in the genre, and there is even a free demo that covers the first couple hours of a run.
Once again, I played far too much World of Warcraft Remix this week. I do have three more maxed characters now though and all achievements for the mode. I found Frost Mage to be surprisingly fun, after I totally hated it (my old main) and completely abandoned magic DPS altogether at the beginning of Shadowlands. This time I’ll definitely take it slower and will try to only play my Druid. It went so well the last two weeks.
Depending on how much I get into the new expansion, The War Within, Balance Druid and Frost Mage are definitely some I’ll consider taking a look, although my Windwalker Monk will most likely stay my main.
Then, more Diablo 4. I’m almost level 90 with my Necromancer, Minion build is still boring, but I’ll keep it at least until level 100, and I’ve checked out more endgame stuff.
Still working on Diablo 4: Season 4 and Mad Max
