Weekly Recommendations Thread: What are you playing this week? : patientgamers

[–] setsneedtofeed@lemmy.world 12 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

Arcanum. (with Drog's patch)

Somehow I've never played it. As a 90s cRPG veteran it is interesting to go fresh into a cRPG and be smacked with a lot of confusion about mechanics and stats that I don't have from games I'm used to playing. It took me a frustratingly long amount of time to figure out how to use the world map travel.

As seems to be a trend with Tim Cain games, the combat isn't very good but the game is carried by the social detail, world, and variety in how to approach quests. I'm going for a social build with a lean towards magic in order to get the most out of social interactions.

[–] Elevator7009@lemmy.zip 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

curious if you are on !crpg@lemmy.world

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[–] Valmond@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Arcanum, is it that one that starts with a blimp crash?

If so, what's Drogs patch?

Looking for something along those lines...

Cheers

[–] setsneedtofeed@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Yes it is. Drog's patch is the universally recommended patch that fixes bugs and has a lot of optional changes like adding new playable races, removing annoying sound effects, and more evenly distributing party experience instead of a per-hit system.

[–] Coelacanth@feddit.nu 2 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Is Drog's patch the Multiverse Edition? That's what I played back in like January when I played Arcanum for the first time. Fixes a lot of things but still can't polish the turd that is Arcanum combat sadly.

[–] Valmond@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Thanks! I might have a go at it again then. Or if you have any better recommendations 😊!

[–] Coelacanth@feddit.nu 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Better recommendations for... what? For Arcanum or for RPGs in general? 😄Multiverse Edition was pretty good as far as Arcanum goes and I'm glad to have played it, but there are certainly better CRPGs out there.

[–] Valmond@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I'd love a good old rpg 😊! Especially a non group one, or like a side kick or small group but when you start out with 7 it's too much for me.

[–] Coelacanth@feddit.nu 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I will begin by pushing my personal agenda: Jade Empire is a super underrated older Bioware game and I think could fit your description. While you do amass a large set of followers over the course of the story, they mainly reside at camp. While out and adventuring you're only ever bringing with you one at a time: exactly the sidekick you're looking for!

If you want to stay isometric I hold Baldur's Gate 2 very highly as far as retro RPGs go. You do have a party of six there however. You only have 3 companions for the first few hours though, so at least you get eased into it. And you could just choose to not have a full party if you want. Will make the game a bit harder, mind.

Fallout 1&2 are also retro RPGs and pretty much just better than Arcanum in every way. Not really a party focused experience, you can have companions but they're more like the sidekicks you mentioned.

Neverwinter Nights 2 just recently got an enhanced edition and that's also a smaller party experience. The main campaign is decent, but the expansion Mask of the Betrayer is often brought up as one of the best CRPG stories of all time and heralded for its stellar writing.

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[–] Zahille7@lemmy.world 10 points 1 week ago

Getting back into Schedule 1 after a few months, it's still fun and decently chill to just be a drug dealer for wacky cartoon drug addicts.

I have almost all the properties - all I'm missing is the docks warehouse - I have all possible customers, I'm almost done taking out the rival drug cartel in the game, and I'm still only based out of the barn. I also finally got around to hiring my first few employees so I don't have to constantly be mixing up new shit to sell or give to my dealers. I'm excited to see what else they add to the game (it's still in EA).

After I'm done with that, I'll probably jump back into Abiotic Factor and try to finish the story of that one.

[–] B0NK3RS@lemmy.world 8 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Jump Space

Playing with a mate and it's a lot of fun. It's a new game so not quite "patient gamer" but it's cheap enough that I'm fine with it and looking forward to updates.

Football Manager

It got a hold of me these past couple days. I wanted something chill to do while I drink my coffee but then time just flies by... and it's suddenly 3 hours later :/

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[–] AmazingAwesomator@lemmy.world 8 points 1 week ago

just kicked off borderlands 3 over the weekend (it was a freebie on epic a while back).

i can see where they were trying to take the series, but i think they need a "back-to-basics" moment; there were a few decisions that really detract from the ability to be immersed.

(ux)the skill tree system has changed in a way that makes upgrading confusing to the point that i dont even use my special ability (it spawns a mech)

(ui)there are multiple advertisements for DLC that are always on your minimap and block your view of POIs - they look like questgivers

(bug)sometimes fast travel works and sometimes it doesnt (and sometimes it does but doesnt let you travel unless you close and reopen the map)

these 3 issues make it really difficult to enjoy a gaming session without being reminded that i need to spend more money so this convoluted system wont be fixed.

3 days in and i give it a meh 5/10; it seems like the budget was too big.

[–] Suck_on_my_Presence@lemmy.world 6 points 1 week ago

For The King 2

It's definitely got some issues, especially with camera angles, but my friends and I have been having a good time with it. The campaigns are shockingly short, but that makes it way more doable with friends. We all know coordinating time is difficult

[–] BananaIsABerry@lemmy.zip 6 points 1 week ago

Finally playing through Cyberpunk 2077. It still has some bugs but nothing that prevents me from enjoying it. I picked up the game and dlc like 40% off recently.

Seems like it was worth waiting for, it's actually really fun!

[–] lath@piefed.social 5 points 1 week ago

I've had Airship: Kingdoms Adrift for a while and gave it a go. It's got neat broadside naval combat in the air and you can customize components in ports. There's a small chance to capture enemy ships under certain conditions and make yourself a fleet or send trade convoys on their own from port to port.

It has a main mission though and kinda acts like a tutorial so, not sure how far along one has to follow it to unlock everything.
Butt the mission rewards are kind of silly. Gave me some warehouse plans to increase port storage, but no idea when I'll get to use it or where, if at all.
Need resources probably, but i didn't get that far and the costs are way above what i can poach.
Then gave me a piece of equipment too big for the ship I have, so again, useless at the moment.

Anyway, feels off. Maybe I'll get back at it, maybe not... Who knows.

[–] squirrel@discuss.tchncs.de 5 points 1 week ago

I recently started playing Revenge of the Savage Planet. So far I really like it. I've never finished the first release Journey to the Savage Planet, but it was a nice game.

[–] MOARbid1@piefed.social 5 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I’m currently playing through Mass Effect Legendary Edition. I’m done with 1 and am now working through 2. Great games so far!

[–] BurntWits@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 week ago

Enjoy! I’ve been wanting to get back into the ME series again, but the stupid EA launcher requirements have halted me. I know you can modify some files to get around it, and I did do that and it worked, but the next time I tried to open the game steam verified the files and corrected them. I haven’t gotten around to removing the launcher requirements again yet.

[–] Dindonmasker@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I'm back in skyrim VR but i'm using VRocker that let's me walk or run in place to move in game. It's been pretty fun. :)

[–] BurntWits@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 week ago

I just got back into modding Skyrim again. It’s my first time modding on Linux, it’s been far smoother than I was told it would be. I’m using ModOrganizer2, it’s been great for the most part. It’s a little iffy to start up, sometimes it forgets I’ve used it before and I need to reboot a couple times which is pretty annoying, but as long as I don’t fully close MO2 it works as expected.

[–] d00ery@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Doom 3 on the Steam deck. 20 hours so over the average playtime but I keep getting lost 🧭

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[–] Essence_of_Meh@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago (7 children)

Halo 2: Anniversary
The further into the series I get, the less enjoyable my Heroic playthrough becomes. I'm currently doing the first halo mission as the Arbiter and the amount of shotgun-totting floodlings who can one-shot me while running and jumping around like they're on speed is... tiring, to say the least. I actually ended up taking a break for a few days for the first time since I started playing MCC due to this very level. Hopefully I'll be able to start fresh once I'm back.

Other than that I still like the game - not as much as Reach but it's fun for the most part. Gameplay has a nice mix of on-foot and vehicle combat, levels are pretty varied (both visually and in terms of design). New weapons are alright, can't say I like them more than anything I used in other games.
I'm still not sure how I feel about the story, will have to wait until I'm done before I decide on that.

I mentioned it before but boy do I appreciate the presentation when using remastered graphics. All the colour, details and updated art style make the locations look appropriately sci-fi, otherworldly (when needed) and just overall beautiful and pleasant to look at. It's a fantastic upgrade, one that hits even harder if you play like me - constantly switching between the two versions.

I've got another small but annoying problem to mention this week: why does my flashlight turns off randomly? Sometimes it's after a few seconds, other times when moving between the rooms. Either way, it's making it pretty much useless. Why? What possible reason could you have for that? It's not like I'm running out of battery or anything, just let me use it when I want to.

[–] setsneedtofeed@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago (3 children)

I'm waiting for Ruby's Reblanced Halo 2. Based on the quality of the Halo: CE rebalance it will probably fix many of those issues. I hope, but maybe shouldn't expect, that mod includes the proper shading. Part of the reason Halo 2 looks so strange is it was designed for a full dynamic shading system which was pulled late in development for XBox performance reasons. What's left is baked shading and very limited and scaled back dynamic shading, but in a world and art style that was designed with full dynamic in mind.

I recently played though Halo 2 partially with another restored content/rebalance mod and it was alright, though it didn't have the skill of the Ruby Rebalance in making new/restored content feel organic to the game.

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[–] Klanky@sopuli.xyz 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Does No Man's Sky count? I just got it a few weeks ago on sale and have been having a blast!

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[–] s3rvant@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Just picked up Ark Survival: Evolve and No Man's Sky

Been playing a lot of survival craft games with my son in law lately which has been great fun

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[–] mohab@piefed.social 3 points 1 week ago (7 children)

Ninja Gaiden Black, actually. I was watching the Combat Overview video on it, and it made me realize I never really gave it a fair shake because I prefer NG2 by a lot.

BTW, if you in any way like action games, do yourself a favor and follow Combat Overview on YT. No one does what this guy has been doing for last couple of years, sadly. It's been my go-to channel for long form breakdowns of action games since matthewmatosis shifted focus to making his game and TGBS moved on from making videos covering action games altogether.

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[–] HubertManne@piefed.social 3 points 1 week ago

final fantasy 12

[–] Cyberflunk@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago

space engineers on pc, path of exile2 on ps5

[–] RebekahWSD@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago

Still playing Luma Island Pirates with twin and the game is getting super grindy now even on the no energy setting. Looking at other games.

Whenever Long Trip North (or whatever that rv game is called) we'll play that, but I'm also trying to look for yet more farming games.

[–] Coelacanth@feddit.nu 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I have barely been playing any games at all this week. I have managed to finish a grand total of one chapter of Alan Wake 2: Final Draft I think.

Instead I've been spending pretty much all my time modding and fiddling with STALKER: Anomaly. Yes, I've relapsed. I can't help myself. I said I shouldn't do this anymore and should focus on finishing complete narratives instead of playing around in the Chernobyl sandbox but I just got the craving again. And tweaking your modlist until it's perfect is just an addiction in itself - making everything work together and throwing together patches in WinMerge.

Maybe when I feel my modlist is finished and ready to play my hyperfixation will give out a bit and I can at least finish AW2.

[–] BurntWits@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I’ve relapsed too, I’m back to modding Skyrim again. It’s been a while for me, but after talking about it on lemmy a few days ago I got the itch. I’m currently running an evil mage build. Used Alternate Start to start with Windstad Manor, which actually comes fully furnished aside from the add-ons. It’s in the swamp which I think adds to the vibe of my character. I’m also messing around with the Ordinator Perk Overhaul and Apocalypse Magic mods, along with a bunch of graphics mods and smaller gameplay mods. I’m going to explore Bruma again soon too, haven’t played with that mod in several years.

[–] Coelacanth@feddit.nu 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I really need to get into modding Skyrim at some point. After playing and modding Morrowind and Oblivion heavily back in the day I just never got into it with Skyrim. I never played Skyrim much at all frankly. I was too invested in playing and modding New Vegas at the time. And then later on I found other games, and recently over the past years it's been STALKER Anomaly filling the craving of "heavily moddable sandbox game".

[–] BurntWits@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

You should really give it a shot. It’s the most modded game on Nexus by a very large margin. To give you an idea, there are 18.7b downloads and 766.5k mods on Nexus. Skyrim Special Edition is in first place with 9.2b/118.9k. Fallout 4 is number two with 1.9b/68.4k, and Oldrim (Skyrim non-special edition) is at third with 1.9b/72.5k. SSE alone is just under half of all downloads, and combine the two Skyrim versions and you’re at nearly 60% of all mod downloads being for Skyrim. Pretty crazy.

[–] Coelacanth@feddit.nu 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Do you have any large and complete modpacks to recommend? I don't know that I have it in me to learn the lay of the land from scratch.

Also, have you used the Mantella mod any? It's actually a similar mod that got me back into STALKER Anomaly. Really fun immersive use of AI for roleplaying and forming attachment to your companions.

[–] BurntWits@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I’ve never used a modpack before, I actually like doing the research and finding which mods to use. In general I actually quite like the look of vanilla Skyrim so my graphics mods tend to be pretty tame.

Here’s some mods I like to use, with links to their Nexus page. A lot of these have prerequisite mods so you’ll need them too obviously, but I didn’t bother writing them out here. The mod pages will link to their required mods.

Absolutely necessary mods for every playthrough, even vanilla:

Skyrim Special Edition Unofficial Patch - fixes many, many bugs and exploits in the game.

Skyrim Script Extender (SKSE64) - not really necessary if you’re just running the mods in this section as all it does is allow certain mods to work, but I always keep it enabled anyway since it doesn’t hurt at all.

SkyUI - if you’re using mouse and keyboard. The original UI is great if you’re using a controller but it’s definitely not designed with M+K in mind. SkyUI makes playing Skyrim with M+K so much nicer. I’m sure it also works well with controller too.

Mods I always use:

A Quality World Map - makes the map much nicer to look at. There’s a few versions, pick your favourite. I like Vivid with Stone Roads personally.

Realistic Water Two - self explanatory. Makes water look way better.

Alternate Start - definitely necessary to me, lets you choose how to start the game. It’s the main reason I’m able to have so many playthroughs of the game.

Immersive Patrols - adds patrols for different factions, and they can interact with each other too.

Cutting Room Floor - adds cut content to the game.

Blended Roads - fixes weird visual problems with some roads.

Footprints - adds footprints when walking in the snow and ash.

Open Cities - makes cities part of the overworld so there’s no load screens when entering/exiting, similar to Morrowind.

JK’s Skyrim - improves cities.

Some mods I’m using right now:

Obscur’s College of Winterhold - vastly improves the college, which is by far the most underdeveloped major area of the game in my opinion.

Lightened Skyrim - removes some objects you can’t actually see (rocks under the ground and stuff) which makes the game run a fair bit smoother without a noticeable difference in the landscape.

Magic Sneak Attacks - using magic while sneaking counts as sneak attacks. Not sure why this isn’t in the base game but it’s getting used on all future magic runs for me now.

Apocalypse - Magic of Skyrim - adds a ton of new spells to the game, great for a mage playthrough.

Ordinator - Perks of Skyrim - overhauls the perk trees. Works really well with Apocalypse.

Remember Lockpick Angle - when lockpicking, if your lockpick breaks, the new one starts in the position where the previous one broke, making it much less annoying.

Instantly Skip Dialogue - lets you skip unskippable dialogue. Most dialogue is skippable but some of the annoying monologues aren’t. This fixes that.

Beyond Reach - content expansion. Haven’t used yet, so I’m not sure what’s involved with it. I’ve got it loaded on my current character but I haven’t explored there. It’s supposed to be really good though.

Beyond Skyrim - Bruma - adds Bruma from Cyrodiil to the map. It’s so cool to see what the city (and surrounding area) looks like post-Oblivion crisis. It’s been a long time since I’ve used it, I’m really looking forward to going back again. It’s probably my favourite content mod.

Medieval Markets - vastly improves the markets in the cities.

Glorious Doors of Skyrim - new door designs. They look way better than vanilla to me.

I’d recommend getting an ENB, as well as Lux. I don’t usually, since I like the vanilla look, but ENB+Lux definitely looks objectively better.

[–] Coelacanth@feddit.nu 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Thanks, I'll definitely save this for some day in the future!

I also tend to enjoy the process of setting up your own custom modlist, but after being deep in that rabbit hole before with Morrowind, Oblivion, Fallout: New Vegas, Baldur's Gate 2 and STALKER (all 4 games + Anomaly) I don't know if I have it in me to learn the ins and outs of another mod landscape 😅

[–] BurntWits@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Glad I could help! Hopefully in a future Weekly Recommendations Thread I’ll see you saying you’re modding Skyrim and I can ask how it’s going.

I get what you mean, Skyrim can especially be a bit daunting to mod with just how massive the modding community is. Like I mentioned earlier, nearly 60% of all mod downloads are for Skyrim, it’s crazy.

[–] Coelacanth@feddit.nu 2 points 1 week ago (3 children)

I'm sure it will happen at some point as I've mentally had it on my to-do list for quite some time. But... it might take a year or two. My backlog is extensive.

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[–] Rozz@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Going back to Spider-Man one because I remembered I have a lot of DLC I hadn't done.

[–] BurntWits@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 week ago

I’m getting to the time of year I do my superhero binge. Right now is my Bethesda binge and then I’ll do the Batman Arkham games followed by the Spider-Man games.

[–] Elevator7009@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Trying to mod/ROM hack !pokemon@sopuli.xyz Soul Silver, so that also necessitates playtesting that. Never actually fully finished playing the first time around.

You might want to edit the title to Recommendations instead of Recommendstions

[–] BurntWits@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 week ago

Fixed the title, thanks.

Patient Gamers