What are you playing right now?

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

Starting Stronghold Crusader. Never played a Stronghold game in all my life. And it is the original, yes. Very jank and outdated. Can't find shit in the way of guides for it; this stuff is WAY more complicated than Age of Empires. As a little kid I'd draw up detailed ideas for RTS games (most of them absolute garbage, of course) with 20 resources and logistics and garbage. I actually made a 50 page (I'd type for fun) rulebook for a more sophisticated version of Risk. I would have been really into wargaming if I'd known what it was, but I didn't, so I was just operating off my own logic like "shouldn't there be farms to grow food for the soldiers, and factories to make weapons, etc. etc." Took dozens of pages of paper, taped them together, and drew a vast map of Europe and the Mediterranean that was detailed to the point of having provinces like Galicia and Hesse marked out on it.

Anyways, this is like playing that abomination I had in my mind. Chains of production, logistics. But I really like the idea of an RTS based around siegecraft (in its particulars, with breaches, trying to go over walls, building engines, starving out enemies) specifically.

 

[Road Work Ahead]

Starting Stronghold Crusader. Never played a Stronghold game in all my life. And it is the original, yes. Very jank and outdated. Can't find shit in the way of guides for it; this stuff is WAY more complicated than Age of Empires. As a little kid I'd draw up detailed ideas for RTS games (most of them absolute garbage, of course) with 20 resources and logistics and garbage. I actually made a 50 page (I'd type for fun) rulebook for a more sophisticated version of Risk. I would have been really into wargaming if I'd known what it was, but I didn't, so I was just operating off my own logic like "shouldn't there be farms to grow food for the soldiers, and factories to make weapons, etc. etc." Took dozens of pages of paper, taped them together, and drew a vast map of Europe and the Mediterranean that was detailed to the point of having provinces like Galicia and Hesse marked out on it.

Anyways, this is like playing that abomination I had in my mind. Chains of production, logistics. But I really like the idea of an RTS based around siegecraft (in its particulars, with breaches, trying to go over walls, building engines, starving out enemies) specifically.

I had a copy of Stronghold 2 as a kid, and while I never cared much for the siege warfare, I loved building up my city. I think I still have the CD's somewhere, maybe I'll give it another go. I remember even trying to keep the city running was a challenge for 12 year old me.

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

I had a copy of Stronghold 2 as a kid, and while I never cared much for the siege warfare, I loved building up my city. I think I still have the CD's somewhere, maybe I'll give it another go. I remember even trying to keep the city running was a challenge for 12 year old me.

I had to start in peaceful mode, but I realized that is another one of those games I should have been playing all my life. 99% of the time in Age of Empires I'd just turtle up and build castle-like fortress cities with tons of overlapping fire from towers. It always aggravated me that I couldn't deploy soldiers on the walls or try to scale a wall.

Ultimate castle game

Is there a way to counter tunnellers? Historically the defenders would dig counter-tunnels and rely on acoustics to try to figure out where the enemy tunnel was to attack it.

 

[3D2A]

Been playing Dark Souls 3 for the first time. I never played any souls games until Elden Ring last year. Then recently I've been on an addiction by beating Bloodborne, DS1, 2 hours of DS2 (fuck that shit), and now onto DS3. Currently just discovered Rosaria in DS3 and re-specced into a dex build with the twinblades.

I'm trying to take it super slow and discover everything in the area before moving onto the next. Any advice from the farms about what I should do or look out for? Please no spoilers if possible!

 

[Local Degenerate]

Right now, every game I want to play is within 20 days of an expansion sizable enough to force a restart anyways, or in that nebulous indie dev 'Soon™' that inevitably means it'll drop as soon as I'm 10 days deep, so I'm kind of floating. I was doing Palworld for awhile, but my autistic need for an ending kind of stopped that.

Mostly I've been just shitting around XIV and staring longingly at where the LoL icon used to be, since this Vanguard bullshit finally made me uninstall it.

 

[Asian tech support]

Any advice from the farms about what I should do or look out for?

If you've got the twinswords, you're pretty deep into the game so you probably don't need any gameplay advice.
There are +1 and +2 (and one +3) variants of rings found in NG+ and beyond which you'll need for the all rings achievement. If you're planning on doing pvp, you'll want those. This was a thing in DS2 and obviously Elden Ring.
There is one very hidden area that requires you use gestures to mimic something. I'll let you figure it out.
When you're done, try the Convergence overhaul if you've still got the hankering. It's the best Souls overhaul I've played and I've gone through most of the large ones.

 

[Boiled Pizza]

Been playing Dark Souls 3 for the first time. I never played any souls games until Elden Ring last year. Then recently I've been on an addiction by beating Bloodborne, DS1, 2 hours of DS2 (fuck that shit), and now onto DS3. Currently just discovered Rosaria in DS3 and re-specced into a dex build with the twinblades.

I'm trying to take it super slow and discover everything in the area before moving onto the next. Any advice from the farms about what I should do or look out for? Please no spoilers if possible!

When I rocked the twinblades, I added a bit of sorcery (any magic will do) to buff them. Since you hit twice with the left hand attack (I think left hand atack? One of the attacks has you swing both blades at the same time) it really stacks up the damage. You seem to know what you're doing, though, so you'll probably figure out something cool to combine with them.

When you're done, try the Convergence overhaul if you've still got the hankering.

Also this. Convergence is super good if you enjoy magic. It has some of the most creative spells in any mod I've ever played, and it also adds back normal Poise from previous dark souls. Great for co-op as well if you bother setting up a private server with a friend.

 

[ProfDongs]

Hi-Fi Rush

Solid action game with a very high energy feeling to it, I'm not great with the rhythm aspect of it but you aren't overly punished for it. I feel like if it was half a beat slower I'd be in a more comfortable place with it. Can definitely see why it got such good reception though.

 

[Asian tech support]

Also this. Convergence is super good if you enjoy magic. It has some of the most creative spells in any mod I've ever played, and it also adds back normal Poise from previous dark souls. Great for co-op as well if you bother setting up a private server with a friend.

Souls magic was at its worse in DS3. Scaling didn't kick in until ~60 of whatever stat making it trash for pvp (unless you were abusing the sacred flame shit before it was patched). Shit, they might have fixed it and I wouldn't have known. I had over 2000 hours in DS1, mostly in pvp, and I quit DS3 pvp as soon as The Ringed City had run its course.
The Convergence fixed all of that although I think they made several areas worse (Farron Keep, anyone?). It's impressive that someone made an overhaul centered around magic of all things.

 

[Boiled Pizza]

Souls magic was at its worse in DS3. Scaling didn't kick in until ~60 of whatever stat making it trash for pvp (unless you were abusing the sacred flame shit before it was patched). Shit, they might have fixed it and I wouldn't have known. I had over 2000 hours in DS1, mostly in pvp, and I quit DS3 pvp as soon as The Ringed City had run its course.
The Convergence fixed all of that although I think they made several areas worse (Farron Keep, anyone?). It's impressive that someone made an overhaul centered around magic of all things.

I only engaged with the DS3 pvp when Seed of a Giant Tree still had endless duration, so around the same time as Ringed City iirc. I'd bait invaders with a friend and we'd chase them around. Another fun trick was to use the ring that made you invisible from a distance and sit in the back with a greatbow and shoot unsuspecting invaders down a fall.

Yeah, convergence had some areas that were worse, but they were never as bad as the Cinders mod with it's overuse of Dragonslayer Armour reskin bosses everywhere and insanely overtuned NPC invaders.

With DS1 pvp, I dressed up as a painting guardian and exclusively used Dung Pies and Lloyd's Talisman on the people I invaded. Good times.

 

[Miller]

Back to Fallout 4, new character with a bunch of quality-of-life mods (scrap everything, infinite ammo for companions, energy weapons fix and the most important: keep radiant quests in the Commonwealth).

 

[Baklava]

Just finished playing through Lunacid. Great game, super comfy---I highly recommend it. Ignore the story and picking from 15 billion pronouns at the beginning and the rest is gravy. It's a good modern take on the first-person dungeon crawler, but I like that it has a lot of Castlevania flavor (including voice acting by Robert Belgrade).

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

Mad Max replay, like my Sleeping Dogs replay. Praised it as a great underrated Ubisoft Game just like Sleeping Dogs as a great (cult classic) GTA clone. Also like it I'm underwhelmed, though Sleeping Dogs definitely sweetened in my mind a day or two after finishing it. (You ever have that, where some things are entertaining but don't stick with you, and other things aren't as moment to moment entertaining but they're a lot more satisfying to finish?)

Part of it is that I hadn't played that many games back then, so I had little to compare to. That's a downside of any medium if you consume a ton of it (except for music), it all gets hard to impress. I never did praise the melee specifically, but it does make you do a lot of it. Don't think it would have killed them to have had more melee weapons. If it's going to make you scavenge, a crafting system and cobbling weapons out of random junk would have actually fit this better than 90% of games that do that junk. The auto combat is fun but it, due to muh progression, makes you wait to get most of the pieces. Terrain-wise, I haven't explored that much. I remember it being remarkably good for all being a desert, but it is still, in the end, all a desert.

I'd like to see someone rip off this shtick, but not being beholden to lore they could have more than just desert and could focus it on tribal warfare. I like the dumbass heavy metal aesthetic, would like it even more exaggerated/explicit. I like the tribal war stuff. Like a lot of apocalypse games Max is out of place and the world has no sense of time, they've created Amazon level barbarian culture but he for some reason is just a normal dude and remembers the old world.

 

[Shidoen]

More Star Wars The Old Republic because it’s a retarded mmo.

 

[starborn427614]

Hi-Fi Rush

Solid action game with a very high energy feeling to it, I'm not great with the rhythm aspect of it but you aren't overly punished for it. I feel like if it was half a beat slower I'd be in a more comfortable place with it. Can definitely see why it got such good reception though.

The likable cast and humour helps a lot to sell the whole thing too. It's hard to do comedy like that without it coming off as annoying, but as long as the stupid-yet-endearing protag gets his ass beat it continues to work.

 

[Duiker]

Just finished Garage: Bad Dream Adventure and it was fantastic. Beautiful despite looking like a bad robitussin trip. Great design on both the music and art. I wish there were more unsettling adventure games with unique mechanics that tie with the setting like this.
View attachment 5683301View attachment 5683306

That game was a blast and I played it all when it hit steam.

Currently I bounce between Palworld (got my second base mining Ore) and playing Angel At Dusk. An intense Shmup where you play as geiger-monsters calling themselves angels. It also has two layers of tutorial levels. One to teach you the mechanics of this game, and one to teach you about Bullethell shmups for those with little to no experience with the genre.

 

[YourFriendlyLurker 2.0]

Recently I completed Stasis (an old game) and Stasis Bone Totem that saw light in 2023 and oh boy, how the fuck I hadn't heard about it earlier? Usually, the point and clickers are not my cup of tea but the premise that is something in between Soma, Prey, and Alien really got me. The old game is well...OLD, but the new one is a delight. Loved the characters (almost all characters), loved the quite insance plot, graphics and puzzles. If you are looking something to entertain youself with and want good old sci-fi horror with suspence but with no screamers, etc - can reccomend.

 

[Knud Lavard]

(...)

I also quite like Battle Brothers, despite its flaws. Also curious as to how their upcoming game, MENACE, will pan out - having a publisher, and a good one at that, was something BB could have really benefited from.

A BB-esque game I've been replaying recently has been MORDHEIM: City of the Damned. It's not too demanding in terms of strategy or management, but recieving a defeat when you expected a victory can make it quite cut-throat. With the game being based on playing the same small-scale missions against very similar enemy armies again and again, it's not hard to eat your fill - but it's nice to return once in a while.

I have also played Chants of Sennaar recently. The premise was very intriguing, and I enjoyed it a lot at first. Something that really took away my enjoyment was how the game didn't trust you to figure things out yourself. Hearing a word, taking a stab at its meaning and then refining/changing said meaning when heard in new contexts, was when the game was the most fun. But when you've heard enough of the 'right' words, the game opens up a homework assignment where you match words to pictures, tells you if you're right or wrong, and then changes dialogue into objectively-correct translations. I understand that this was done so more people could buy/play the game, but it felt like a misstep and removed a lot of fun for me.

 

[WelperHelper99]

Playing Bloodborne on and off. Still in the opening areas, but I'm getting better and getting used to the PS4 graphics that feel more PS3 era. Still, gameplay is fantastic.

Also still into World of Warships. Just got into Italian Battleships. Lots of guns, decent armor, low accuracy. On Tier V Cavour rn. Pretty solid and fun.

 

[Meat Target]

Playing Bloodborne on and off. Still in the opening areas, but I'm getting better and getting used to the PS4 graphics that feel more PS3 era. Still, gameplay is fantastic.

I recommend putting points into Arcane early, while leveling up is still cheap. Arcane doesn't become viable till later in the game, but when it does, you'll be wreckin' face.