What games are you currently playing?

[coyotecraft]

FFXI got another free week, but I've done pretty much everything I can do without buying another expansion.

I played Diablo 3 the other day. I swear it feels like a completely different game every time I play it. They really nerfed Normal difficulty. I didn't take damage till the end of Act 3. I was literally just mowing monsters down with my Lady Monk.
They have Season rewards to get special items like wings and stuff but the fine print - actually it's not printed anywhere - is that the achievements require the Reaper of Souls expansion pack.
There's supposedly a pair of wings you can get from a chest spawn in Act 4. But if it doesn't spawn you have to create a new game and play through everything again. With an existing leveled up character you could run through the game in about an hour and a half I bet. But I'd needs more documentation on spawn rates. I've played through the game a bunch of times already and have never found them.
Drop rates are weird and the game is always updating an changing. In the past I'd usually get 3 or 4 Green Set Equipment drops casually, but in my last play through I didn't get any.

 

[coyotecraft]

I caved and started playing FFXI again. Leveling my Dark Knight job to 99. Just 1 more level to go. My main was warrior, but I've got a rare sword for Dark Knight that would make it marginally stronger.

 

[Fayte]

Ive been playing Pokémon like a mad man and I CANNOT STOP. Anyone play sword/shield and wanna battle?

 

[Xhukari]

Been playing some Pokémon Moon as a Nuzlocke with a friend, the game is so hand-holding at the start, I'd forgot that...

I'm also playing the original Binding of Isaac (Eternal Edition) and oh boy, Hard Mode should be called Unfair Mode! Especially if I get Champion bosses... there's one specific Champion Horseman, who zooms from side of the screen to the other, spawning these regenerating red guys each time, with seemingly no upper limit to them.

To be honest, if I weren't so stubborn to 100% it, I would've given up by now; Hard Mode isn't fun, seems unbalanced and has questionable design decisions (Champion Horseman from above as an example). It has essentially reduced the number of viable builds to the OP ones, which are really unlikely as the key items to them have reduced spawn chance.

So instead of getting useful items that boost my survivability or damage, I get stuff like 10 bombs or 7 coins (1 heart costs 5 coins, mediocre items cost 15)... Its not like you can grind for items either! You get roughly 12 items total per run, but many of these are activated items, which you can only have 1 equipped and taken to further floors.

 

[coyotecraft]

I took a look at Terraria's newest update. Lots of little things.
There's new modes to play in that I think are pretty cool but I don't have a strong desire to play. I read in journey mode you can "research" items by destroy them, and then you can basically duplicated anything after that. That's kinda cool, no more hallways of chests cataloging everything I picked up.
I got a Piggy bank "Pet". That you can summon and store items in. Omg, I wish I had that years ago.

The problem with journey mode is that you have to start a new character in a new world. Hard Pass for me. I put too much time into my existing characters. I can't give up my flying drill unit mount that cuts through everything like butter. Going back to pick axes? tink tink tink tink tink tink tink tink tink.
NOPE. Then again, they've got items like Scarab Bombs that that blast tunnels pretty quickly. Plus the last update I think started generating worlds with more existing tunnels and minecarts. So they're not as dense as they used to be.
I generated a new world to experience some biomes the my old ones didn't have. If you have too many gravestones in one place it makes a graveyard biome. Everything goes grey scale with fog. Lol, I never picked up grave stones in my old world though. So the entire surface is basically Silent Hill.

The only thing I haven't done in this game is fishing. And the Fishing related achievements. I enjoy fishing mini-games in other games. But it's kinda boring in Terraria. And even when you complete a fishing quest, you can only do 1 per day. So I end up getting distracted doing something else.

 

[Nathaniel3W]

I too started Diablo III again some time ago. I asked someone what the deal is with these "seasons" they have going on. It sounded cool, so I restarted my sorceress at level 1, and then realized I wouldn't be able to complete the achievements unless I bought the expansion. So I said, "Screw it." And I haven't played since. Maybe if they have a sale on the expansion I'll get it. But I probably won't because I won't know about it because I never log into my Blizzard account.

Never played any Pokemon. I have no prejudice against it. I just don't think I have any of the platforms it's on. Maybe I'll play some of the early games on an emulator or something.

I've wanted to play Terraria. It's on sale a few times a year. Maybe I'll get it someday. But I already have such a huge backlog I don't know if I'll ever get around to it.

Right now I'm playing too much Civilization VI. Curse Epic for giving me free games that I've been wanting to play!

 

[coyotecraft]

I finally beat The Moon Lord on Expert mode, in Terraria. Took about 6 or 8 tries. A big change with the 1.4 version update is that his beam attack now goes through solid blocks. And on Expert Mode he does double damage. That's a game changer. I was really fond of my summoner build but I had to give up my Stardust Armor Set for something with more defense.
My new strategy used the portal gun and I just teleported between him left and right. But when he hits, it hurts.
I got generating heart statues. I got potions and buffs. All this regen and defense modifiers. And I still have to run over to the nurse to heal.

 

[Jason]

Been playing Star Wars Battlefront 2 on PS4 since it became free with Plus, it's my new addiction... first game I've played online on console in years, Dreams excluded. Also back into Runescape (It's impossible to quit properly, lol) and Overwatch on the side as usual...

 

[coyotecraft]

I haven't played any mobile apps in a while so I download a few to sample.
Awful. They're all awful. They're pretty. Pretty awful.

 

[coyotecraft]

I got a message through Steam that Final Fantasy Mobius is shutting down. Eh. It's a mobile game. I had played through part 1 or "season 1". When I stopped playing they were just releasing new chapters and characters.
Apparently I missed all the news about it until the last minute. But that's just the age we live in. You have to subscribe to everything or you're out of the loop. Haha. Loop. Mobius. get it?
I went ahead and just watched the final cutscene on youtube. I don't think I missed anything. The story is so vapid.
It's just surprising because it was only around for 5 years. My hope is that Square will get back to developing real games, they've been dead to me for a while. And I was such a fanboy too.

 

[Nathaniel3W]

I've never gotten into phone games. I don't know anyone my own age who has. But publishers keep wanting to sell mobile games because that's where the market growth is. That was the problem with Blizzard's mobile Diablo announcement. Blizzard was making a mobile Diablo because they wanted to cash in on that big fat Chinese mobile market. But they announced it at BlizzCon where all their American fans were expecting a full-size PC-and-console Diablo.

So I got Injustice for free on Steam. I figured I would give it a try. I haven't played a fighting game in 20 years or more. Turns out I suck at fighting games. I couldn't even execute all the moves in the tutorial and there was no way I was going to remember them all. My daughter watched me get to the part where you do Batman's special attack as he's sparring with Superman. I press the special-attack button, and the Batmobile runs over Superman, and we both start laughing. I put the controller down after that because I figured I had just reached the game's high point and it was probably all downhill from there.

 

[Jason]

Batman has one of the most meh super attacks in the game to be honest

 

[coyotecraft]

Got Final Fantasy 3 on Steam. It's been on my wishlist forever. I really should play Tales of Zestiria but I'm just never in a mood for newer games. I want a classic RPG experience. I'm going to shut the doors. the windows. block out the world. And savor this.

Edit: It's got some sound issues. It played fine at first but when I came back from a break it was way loud. Sometimes sound effects don't play at all. The chocobo theme doesn't play - unless I save while riding it and reboot. But then getting off, no other music will play. It's weird.

Only 50% of players have gotten then trophy for beating the first boss. It is a little harsh at the beginning.

 

[Xhukari]

I've been playing a mobile game, with the inventive name "D&D Style Choice Game". It is alright - plays like the "choose your own adventure" books, except you got some stats like gold, life, mana.

The game makes some questionable choices in its execution; such as showing all the statistical changes at the very top of the 'page', before they've even happened; spoiling the outcome of your choices. Plus the game has a scoring system for each chapter, with one of the stats (morale) being the main scorer for it. This results in a pretty clear cut 'correct path' sadly.

In terms of writing, the author is a horndog, with at least one sex scene occuring every few chapters. And of course, the women are always wearing form fitting and / or translucent robes. That aside though, I do enjoy the storyline. The app consists of multiple 'books'; I finished the Wizard's Choice one, and that character is playing a part in the sequel book, Rogue's Choice.

It's a good time killer for now, at least.

Has gotten me wanting to do my own -- I can at least do a better designed app. Just think my dyslexia might let me down!

Only 50% of players have gotten then trophy for beating the first boss. It is a little harsh at the beginning.

The first one is the Djinn isn't it? I don't recall him being hard... After an Arctic Wind he went down quick...
Good luck on the last boss though, I've never beaten it -- it is such a huge stat jump that I couldn't stomach all that levelling for it!

 

[coyotecraft]

It's not so much the boss as it is getting to the boss. I think I restarted/replayed parts at the beginning more than a few times because I wasn't prepared. Like I get out on the world map, half heath, should be able to take a few more hits, want to make the most of the potion. But then *bam* critical hit, and I'm dead, and I didn't save.

The second boss battle trophy is the Salamander, and only 31% of players of achieved that. I interpret that as saying players lose interest in it. There are times where I'm ready to quit but I push through. Like I just made off the floating continent to the world below and it's just the endless featureless ocean. It took me forever to find land.

 

[coyotecraft]

OMG the final dungeon in FF3 SUCKS. You got to climb all the way up. Fight Xande. And after that there's no exiting or saving. You got to keep going and kill 4 more mid-bosses to weaken the Cloud of Darkness.
There's no warp of rest area. I've climbed this thing 3 times now.

 

[coyotecraft]

Aaaand cleared. Spent all day leveling up my characters to 65. The trick is to find a certain enemy that'll summon monsters, and just kill it's summons to stack up exp in one battle. I was about lv55 at the 20 hour mark, And beating the game ended at 30 hours., 22 hours. Steam said I have played for a total of 30 hours. So that's about 8 hours of progress I lost to game overs. The game was obviously not designed for anything past level 60. It'll be a long road to lv99. Why do the trophies for RPGs make the [max out everything] an accomplishment? I'll probably pass on that.
Btw, according to steam, only 10% of players beat the final boss.
And can you believe it doesn't have a New Game+ ? Your clear data just sets you outside the dungeon.
If you want to get those trophies you going to have to spend another 10 hours or so fighting your choice of 2 possible battles that allow you to farm exp quickly. And that's just the character level. It's only possible to go up 1 job level per battle for some stupid reason. 99lvs x 24 job = 2,376 battles minimally required. My game stats say I've defeated 1766 battles.
I've only got a dark knight to 99 so far. The "Master Items" are so worthless. Because even at lv50 I was doing max 9999dmg. It's stupidly excessive and meaningless.
It'd be nicer to be able to play through the story again while you lv up a certain job. And get a second chance to open chests in the dungeon you can't revisit. Or at least create more side-quests to fill up time.

All that said. As annoying as it is, it's not as bad as Agarest War and similar Compile Heart games.
Edit: and the achievements are still reasonably achievable. Not like that Wizardry PS game that had some crazy 200hr and 7000 defeated enemy achievements - but you competed the with all the characters in like 12 hours.

 

[Nathaniel3W]

OMG the final dungeon in FF3 SUCKS. You got to climb all the way up. Fight Xande. And after that there's no exiting or saving. You got to keep going and kill 4 more mid-bosses to weaken the Cloud of Darkness.
There's no warp of rest area. I've climbed this thing 3 times now.

And that's why I would play it on an emulator. Save the state whenever you want and then restart from there.

 

[coyotecraft]

Playing Dragon's Dogma Dark Arisen, which I got a while ago. It's kinda fun. But kinda boring.
I played it all night and don't feel like I made any progress at all.

 

[Xhukari]

Finished GTA Chinatown Wars. Was alright, not going to lie. My biggest problems were UI stuff mostly. Zooming around in cars was actually great fun, which surprised me as it does the top-down style of the first 2 GTA.

I've always thought that GTA games were about organised crime organisations... Be it like a mafia or a gang. And out of all the GTAs I've played (most the series) this one delivers on that core theme the best. You trade drugs, hotwire cars with actual mechanics for that (different cars have different hotwire methods) and like most GTAs... Deal with crime politics.

I've played a bit of Bard's Tale too. The characters are fun, and the general humour. It's just everything else I find to subtract from that, sadly. Don't think I'll play much more of it...