What games do you guys play other than POE?

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FCK42 wrote:

I've recently (not refering to the last 4 seconds) gotten into No Man's Sky. Like... WAAAAYYY too into it. That thing sucks you in like it's nothing. I've rarely played a game that made me feel that way. There's so, SO much you COULD be doing there. But you don't have to either, it's your choice.

I'm currently playing with a group of friends and we couldn't be more different about our approach. One of them has built a base with automated mining systems for resources and repairs, then scraps ships to get money. Another one has been looking for ages to find the right planet to build a permanent, most likely absolutely decadent base and gets money from fighting his way through abandoned freighters.

Meanwhile, I've adopted a nomadic approach, after I got offered control over an A class Capital freighter after a space battle. Currently setting up my home there, getting upgrades for my ship(s) and making money the same way people do in PoE... trading.

And none of us are anywhere near their respective goals. I love it.

*won't say I told you so because he's way too mature for that*

:) Good for you, Exile Explorer. You came at a good time: the ability to genuinely make your freighter home was added only recently -- a lot of us were trying to force the game to make it work but eh I'm glad it's been handled with HG's typical approach to overhauls: decisively. They also recently drastically increased scanning speed, so with a few S scanner mods you can make a pretty tidy sum per planet.

And while it might seem hypocritical of me given my outspoken views of this game's subreddit, the No Man's Sky and No Man's High subs are a real delight to just peruse for ideas and community creations. Just don't get base envy. Some of those people make the most amazing shit.

My most recent project was making Stasis Devices, which again involved a lot of on-paper calculations to get all the components from various sources but now has an in-game crafting tree. I still don't recommend it (your method of wealth gaining was also mine, because the two market system is a snap to figure out and once your freighter has the necessary tools it's free money) but it kept me busy.

For actual group play, I recommend nexus missions and derelict freighters. You CAN solo nexus missions (I often do) but they're built for groups. Of all the changes made to the game since release, the evolution of the Anomaly from Nada and Polo's lonely little home to a full multiplayer hub accessible anywhere in space was without doubt the most important.

Oh, and expeditions of course. I think we're between expeditions right now but they're a really fun way to play 'around others' but not necessarily with them. It's nice to go from your own vast corner of the galaxy to seeing other explorers on the same planet doing roughly the same thing as you. And the milestones are rarely difficult -- yet to encounter an expedition I couldn't breezily strolled through.

My current project is to see how close to a true battlemech I can make my Minotaur, while trying to make the inhabitants of a literal Hell planet somehow happier about being there despite their ongoing squabbles. Mostly they thank me in cactus, which is...nice, I guess.

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Foreverhappychan wrote:

*won't say I told you so because he's way too mature for that*

Honestly, the amount of updates it gets is astonishing to say the least.

As for why I was sceptical to buy it for a long time... I'm normally not really interested in survival games. Like... at all. Really not. I'm also rather bad at base building, so that'd make two aspects of the game I'm not really interested in.

Turns out that it doesn't matter because it offers oh so much more.

My current goal is to turn my S rank Solar ship (also a fairly addition I think?) into an absolute beast of warp range, mobility and death. Other than that, I'm trying to build an almost entirely organic fleet to accompany my freighter. And, well, get an organic ship. That kind of thing was one of the reasons I loved the Zerg in Starcraft 2, and I love it here (Different organic ship types and organic freighters when?).

Solar Ships were added with the Pirate update Outlaws (April this year), which brought us rogue stations, smuggling, a fucking cool hooded cape, and recruitable NPC ships for a summonable squadron. Oh, and in-atmosphere frigates which is just the fucking coolest shit.

https://www.nomanssky.com/release-log/

I mean, just look at that. For absolutely *no* extra cost. Everyone has their own threshold for when a company has proven itself redeemed, but for me it was No Man's Sky Next, when they finally got multiplayer in and delivered on the main thing they genuinely oversold with release...but I think of all the updates, it was Sentinel that surprised me the most. A complete overhaul of the multitool enabling much more engaged gunplay requiring more careful consideration of combat than 'chuck grenades, hide'.

Organic ships also affect the passive reward system of frigate missions, which is neat. Also, you can see in the galactic map where your frigates are once on-mission which is a nice touch.

Also yeah, I don't like survival games either. I tried Conan Exiles, Valheim, V Rising (that one's fun but we've sort of bled it of all content for now)...all too fiddly and focused on trying to make a fairly small world feel huge. Which is fine, but sometimes the opposite can work too. There are lots of comfy loops and pursuits in No Man's Sky, backed up by a much more streamlined UI than any of the aforementioned games. Before the game had those, I completely agreed that it was 'a mile wide and an inch deep' in the worst of ways. Now it's more like 'a mile wide and 12 inches deep' so at least you can comfortably submerge your feet into it and enjoy the communal warmth of Every Man's Sky.

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FCK42 wrote:

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Foreverhappychan wrote:

*won't say I told you so because he's way too mature for that*

Honestly, the amount of updates it gets is astonishing to say the least.

As for why I was sceptical to buy it for a long time... I'm normally not really interested in survival games. Like... at all. Really not. I'm also rather bad at base building, so that'd make two aspects of the game I'm not really interested in.

Turns out that it doesn't matter because it offers oh so much more.

Just to piggyback this, I let myself be sucked into a 'I wonder what Star Citizen is like these days?' clickhole after seeing it offer $40k ship packages on a reddit post. My god, I didn't even know a tenth of the story -- it's fucking wild what went on behind the scenes. Fucking. Wild. Stalking. Physical abuse. Seduction. A shady as fuck lawyer who scammed millions from a German tax loop. Video game mismanagement on an unprecedented level. It's gonna make one banger Netflix docco sooner rather than later, I reckon. And no doubt the Roberts will make a buck from that too.

Anyway, it's up to a cool $500m US in funding and isn't even out and somehow we live in a universe where that can happen *and* some people still call No Man's Sky a scam.

I'm looking forward to the big V Rising expansion. I really enjoyed playing on a server with my brother. The game has good combat.

I've mainly been playing SCUM. I have planned to pick up NMS again. I have a few hundred hours in that game, but haven't tested the last 2-3 patches/expansions. The same goes for Valheim and the latest Mislands update.

But when it comes to upcoming games, I can see myself diving deep into Nightingale. That game looks like my cup of tea. Or coffee, as I don't really drink tea.

Killed a day playing The DioField Chronicles having picked it up for half off. Not everyone's thing but I like the real time tactical approach and the emphasis on well-timed skill usage. Valkyrie Elysium aside, it seems I have a strange taste for AA Squeenix games.

Back into Alaloth. Devs just keep adding stuff, but I will admit the limited combat styles (sword and board, two handed weapons, dual wield) and the very slow accumulation of skills (weapon independent) might get old but for the fact that the world is so damn big and I'm hoovering up quests like crazy.

Marvel Snap has replaced Titan Quest as my 'play in bed at the end of the day' fix. I'm shit at it but it has a fail-upwards style so even if you lose you can complete missions and unlock new cards/upgrade existing ones. That and the random nature of the in-play area modifiers means even a really well tuned deck can get wrecked by a scrub like me. :)

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1552080/Deepest_Chamber_Resurrection/

About to try this EA. Saw an ad for it on reddit, seems to have everything I like -- deckbuilding, gear, roguelite structure, fantasy setting, very responsive and involved devs. Will report back soon.

Well, that was a quick-as-hell 4 hours. This is awesome fun. Learning which cards to play in sequence is a bit tricky but once it clicks it makes sense -- playing a card boosts the two next to it, basically, and boosts remain on the card until used even if discarded. I like that all three party members have their own health pool and you can largely control which one takes the brunt of enemy attacks. Each also has a full set of equipment slots that you can fill either by playing through the dungeon or at a shop back at the start of the run.

This is a really good deckbuilder-roguelite. Not as tight as Slay the Spire but more meat on its bones per run. Twice now I've managed to do quite well starting combat with three almost dead heroes and ending combat with three almost dead heroes.

Recommended.

Picked up Cloudpunk on PSN last night after seeing it go on sale (I probably should have paid full price to support the indie devs) and can say it actually captures the cyberpunk thing better than CP2077 most of the time. The writing is great (games like this tend to live or die on their writing), the basic gameplay of driving a flying car through a city that has no tangible connection to the ground is immersive and satisfying. Someone wanted to make Snow Crash x Blade Runner so they did, and I really like it.

I also picked up Patapon 1 and 2 remastered because PATA PATA PATA PON PON PON PATA PON PATA PATA PATA PON!

I've lost myself in Elden Ring since it came out, and I can't get enough of it.