So, what're you playing?

[Ingmar]

Gonna bore you with XCom ranting again: what is wrong with this game's morale system? The team that aced the alien base is now panicking because a sectoid shot off a single health point? At one point three of them chain shot each other because a rookie took a critical hit.

Random numbers are random.

Naw, too simple saying that. The test difficulty should be weighed according to context, and there ought to be some kind of a threshold. Maybe there's modifiers according to mission type as well? Who knows, but I'd like to.

Wait, so random morale failures are bad, but random enemy placement meaning a blaster launcher goes into your Skyranger on turn one is good?

[jakonovski]

Gonna bore you with XCom ranting again: what is wrong with this game's morale system? The team that aced the alien base is now panicking because a sectoid shot off a single health point? At one point three of them chain shot each other because a rookie took a critical hit.

Random numbers are random.

Naw, too simple saying that. The test difficulty should be weighed according to context, and there ought to be some kind of a threshold. Maybe there's modifiers according to mission type as well? Who knows, but I'd like to.

Wait, so random morale failures are bad, but random enemy placement meaning a blaster launcher goes into your Skyranger on turn one is good?

Eh? I'm wondering about the ruleset because it feels wrong. The blaster bomb thing was very simple to understand, and rare enough to be funny.

edit: I knew something was amiss. The original has a system where morale has to decrease first due to bad events before panic checks happen. The new one just does a panic check whenever something, apparently just about anything, happens. The difference is quite staggering, and has me questioning modern game developers even more. Even Warhammer 40k the miniatures game has more nuanced stuff than the new XCom.

[HaemishM]

Haemsalad: http://www.gog.com/gamecard/divine_divinity

Includes free drinks and black lung. It's an older game, but I figure if you were playing TQ, may as well give it a shot. It's sorta Diablo mechanics meets Ultima world.

Saw that one on Steam for like $2 but wasn't sure if I wanted to bother with it since I just downloaded Path of Exile.

[Yegolev]

Wait, so random morale failures are bad, but random enemy placement meaning a blaster launcher goes into your Skyranger on turn one is good?

Just leave jako alone, New XCOM isn't going to be Old XCOM and so far that seems to be the yardstick he's using.  I'd not mind reading his opinion on TFTD, though.

Divine Divinity is more RPG than Diablo.  LOTS of talking and backstory and shit.

There is an update to Borderlands 2 which I had to get, so I was playing that last night.  Basically it adds eleven levels and a third playthrough.  The best part, though, is that in the third play you are able to reset quest progress.  This means you don't have to run through the story missions only during P2 or P3, which really is one of those simple-but-awesome changes.

Previously more GT5.  My driving has become terrible, also I hate the Eiger Nordwand track.  Will need to get a wheel, then more practice.

[jakonovski]

I was totally into the TFTD aesthetic, but the missions dragged on for too long. I also got stuck with the Tasoth Commander bug and never figured out what was wrong until after having given up on the game. I should totally get it from Steam though, I loved prodding lobstermen with a melee weapon (can't remember what it was called).

[Rendakor]

There is an update to Borderlands 2 which I had to get, so I was playing that last night.  Basically it adds eleven levels and a third playthrough.  The best part, though, is that in the third play you are able to reset quest progress.  This means you don't have to run through the story missions only during P2 or P3, which really is one of those simple-but-awesome changes.

This is awesome to hear. I always thought it was lame that you couldn't do the non-story quests on the subsequent playthroughs. It might be time to fire up BL2 again.

[Yegolev]

While you could do them, it wasn't in your best interest to do so before you beat the game a second time (therefore entering playthrough 2.5) since the p2 rewards would be useless by then, forcing you to get by with regular drops.  Now you can rerun missions and get the rewards at a decent item level.  In any case it takes all the Science out of it so you can just play the game and have fun.

Also there are new things to buy from Earl, and the eridium cap is raised to 500.

I suppose I need to post this in the BL2 thread.

[Malakili]

In addition to my normal rounds of Starcraft 2, Diablo 3 and Minecraft I've also been playing some Counter Strike: GO again.  I really like the new hostage mission victory condition, makes the mode more interesting. 

Instead of having to rescue all the hostages, the hostages now spawn in random spots (within a certain set of possible spawns), and the CTs have to find them, pick them up (which takes 4 seconds), and then haul them to the rescue point, but they only need to rescue one to win the map.  It really makes the cs_ maps more interesting to play (including the recently re-added cs_militia).  Good times.

[Sky]

Mr BW's minecraft server is the bizzle's knizzles.

[Nebu]

Mr BW's minecraft server is the bizzle's knizzles.

Now you're starting to worry me.

[Sky]

Now?

[jakonovski]

Oof, the whole aggro system and teleporting enemies are really starting to grate in XCom. My favourite was 3 Mutons teleporting right next to my team, then getting torn to bits by overwatch when they did their aggro move.  Least favorite was when my first move in a terror mission aggroed 6 Chrysalids. I can't imagine playing ironman, you'd have to abuse the AI constantly to make sure things like that don't happen.

[Hawkbit]

Bought Terraria for PS3 when I found we could play split screen.  The co-op is too much fun with my kid.  I look at how many games I've paid $60 for and never got near the value from the two times I've bought Terraria.

[Ingmar]

Oof, the whole aggro system and teleporting enemies are really starting to grate in XCom. My favourite was 3 Mutons teleporting right next to my team, then getting torn to bits by overwatch when they did their aggro move.  Least favorite was when my first move in a terror mission aggroed 6 Chrysalids. I can't imagine playing ironman, you'd have to abuse the AI constantly to make sure things like that don't happen.

Have you not patched? The teleporting thing is supposed to be fixed, and it hasn't happened to me at all in my latest game.

[jakonovski]

Oof, the whole aggro system and teleporting enemies are really starting to grate in XCom. My favourite was 3 Mutons teleporting right next to my team, then getting torn to bits by overwatch when they did their aggro move.  Least favorite was when my first move in a terror mission aggroed 6 Chrysalids. I can't imagine playing ironman, you'd have to abuse the AI constantly to make sure things like that don't happen.

Have you not patched? The teleporting thing is supposed to be fixed, and it hasn't happened to me at all in my latest game.

Steam autoupdates it, it's all shiny and up to date. It takes quite a few turns for the teleporting to manifest, so far it's happened when I've had to run away and pick off the aliens one by one. At one point I got a real good look with one of those sniper globes, a group of mutons teleported back and forth between three locations on a wrecked ship.

I did have some other weird bugs too, like a heavy who had a perpetually expended rocket, and the sniper who couldn't hit anything (they both sacrificed themselves for the greater good). 

[Ingmar]

I think that might be different than the teleporting bug; the aliens do move around, it might just not be animating their patrol path.

[jakonovski]

Yeah, it seems the patrol routine sometimes misses that there's an XCom squad at the destination, which causes these things.

But now that I'm in the mood again, did I tell you that I hate how the game effectively penalizes maneuver because you run a significant risk of aggroing more units? Just got a map where upon opening a cargo ufo door, I aggroed two muton squads. I moved a few spaces to the side to spread out and get LOS and it activated another muton squad. They all had Berserkers in them so it was effectively reload mission, because it's kind of impossible to do anything at that point without spending an hour enacting guerrilla warfare.

The whole thing is made even worse because on Classic the alien encounter frequency-difficulty curve seems to become such that you cannot train up any rookies if you've lost your best guys. At least in the original, if your overall economy was alright (something that this current one also lacks), you could throw a shipful of cannon fodder at a small UFO and some of them would survive and learn.

/fanboy rant

[Reg]

Do you realize you've dominated this thread for the last week now posting about how much you hate XCOM?  And yet you just keep playing and playing and sharing your misery?

[Ironwood]

Yeah, that's bloody stupid.

Now let me tell you about Diablo III....

[MrHat]

Been playing Dishonored finally.

Damn fun game, glad I didn't let it pass me by completely (that steam backlog is huge after the winter sale).

[Morat20]

That's why you have snipers with -- whatever that "free shot against stuff not in cover" skill -- up high, while you run in a Support squaddie with bonus movement and Ghosted.

Although that sort of makes the game too easy. :)

I'm....most of the way through Deus Ex: Human Revolution. A little irked that I blew my Pacifist playthrough back in the prologue (I didn't think it counted, since all I had was...you know, guns. And no augments). Really enjoying it, although I'm already mentally adding a replay, since I saw a couple of ebooks I couldn't get because I didn't have the "move heavy crap" and "fall from heights" augs at the time. (Although, I admit, the Icarus thing is fun. I jump off of tall stuff just to make it animate).

I'm considering picking up the original Deus Ex to try after this.

[Rasix]

The next person to discuss XCOM gets pistol whipped.

Messing around in Xenoblade while I figure out my next game to play.  Beating a game (in this case Bioshock) always puts me into a gameless limbo for a few days.

[rk47]

ck2, more ck2,
just betrayed my Papal State Liege (Yes, the Pope) and swore fealty under the Byzantine.
I'm a Catholic vassal under Orthodox Empire.

[MisterNoisy]

Finished LEGO City Undercover, and the last chapter is  .  Also some more NFS: Most Wanted.  I'm still sitting on my free copy of Bioshock Infinite, so I guess that's next.

[trias_e]

Just finished Planescape Torment for the first time in many-a-year.  Yeah, still the best RPG in existence.  Looks real pretty in 1920x1080 too.

[HaemishM]

I tried a bit more of Path to Exile and yep, I think I'm just not cut out for the Diablo-genre games. I like their skill tree but the actual art of playing the game is repetitive and boring. The copious amount of utter shit that drops means that item system (which is neat) isn't a draw for me.

So I finally started the original Baldur's Gate and I like it. I can see some of the burgeoning aspects of modern RPG design in it. The map/movement is antiquated enough to make me want to stab a baby panda, and the rather nebulous lack of direction for advancing the main storyline is irritating but still I can tell I'll enjoy this.

[Malakili]

the rather nebulous lack of direction for advancing the main storyline is irritating but still I can tell I'll enjoy this.

Heck, that's practically the best part of the old Biware RPGs! 

[Fabricated]

I tried a bit more of Path to Exile and yep, I think I'm just not cut out for the Diablo-genre games. I like their skill tree but the actual art of playing the game is repetitive and boring. The copious amount of utter shit that drops means that item system (which is neat) isn't a draw for me.

So I finally started the original Baldur's Gate and I like it. I can see some of the burgeoning aspects of modern RPG design in it. The map/movement is antiquated enough to make me want to stab a baby panda, and the rather nebulous lack of direction for advancing the main storyline is irritating but still I can tell I'll enjoy this.

What about starting as a level 1 DND 2.0 character where a random breeze kills you? That's what's driving me fucking crazy with the enhanced edition. I don't necessarily want to ding every 3 minutes but holy christ at least let me get my party to level 3 or so collectively so my non-fighters/non-barbarians don't get dusted by a single crit from just about anything.

[Rasix]

That's why BG2 ends up being a more interesting experience.  You start at, I think, level 7 or 8 depending on class.  Relieves a lot of "random lowbie monster just pwned me" and "bears and spiders are bullshit!".   Of course, this also means you start to get a bit overpowered in the end.

[HaemishM]

Yeah, my party got wiped by a bunch of fucking worgs at one point and I keep looking at the character screens thinking "When the fuck am I going to level FFS?" I'd forgotten just how unholy long it takes to level in D&D or on an RPG where there aren't 50+ levels and skills are getting handed out like candy. Fucking kids these days are spoiled.

/offmylawn!

[Ironwood]

Temple of Elemental Evil was great for that.  Massive, massive slog to create a whole party ;  eaten by a frog.

Seriously, try it, it's BALLS HARD.

[Fabricated]

When I first started enhanced edition, I walked north to loot Gorion's body and me and Imoen were ripped to shreds by a single dire wolf. And I'm playing a fighter. If I was playing a mage I'd have FOUR HP.

[Ironwood]

If you were lucky.  Roll that 1d4.

 

[bhodi]

ToEE was deliberately hard, though. I still liked it, because of the ruleset, although it was such a buggy piece of shit.

Man, I want a tactical RPG to play. I really enjoyed DA:O.

[Shannow]

Kids.

Try the first big fight in the sewers of Pool of Radiance. Go sleep spell go!