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Post by Martin Stett on May 21, 2024 3:27:42 GMT
In FFXIV, I am trying to choreograph a full dance number - complete with costume changes - set to "It's Raining Men" in time for the in-game wedding of two friends. My life has come to this. I have many regrets.
(Posted this in the wrong thread earlier because I was reading something there. My mistake.)
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Post by Tommen_Saperstein on May 26, 2024 16:50:13 GMT
finally set up the new XBOX I bought last Christmas ![:laugh:](//storage.proboards.com/6692321/images/30ulL7PvEvGt97femFHx.gif) saw the CDPR sale and immediately snatched up The Witcher 3 for the next gen update and Cyberpunk 2077 complete edition, but first I'm taking a quick journey back to Skyrim.
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Post by theycallmemrfish on May 26, 2024 18:11:45 GMT
I would love Skyrim so much more if it didn't have those long-as-fuck dragon shout scenes and the invisible wall/unclimbable mountain faces that force me to take the stupid zig-zag path up taking 20 minutes.
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Post by Tommen_Saperstein on Jun 10, 2024 16:32:24 GMT
deep into another Skyrim playthrough with all the Anniversary update fixings, most of it really cool and worth shelling out the $20 for if you already have the special edition. I'm a highborn Breton Battlemage escaping political and family strife in High Rock hungry for knowledge and to uncover all of Skyrim's buried secrets. His hatred of the Thalmor eclipses his distaste for Ulfric and will join the Stormcloaks in their fight for independence. Playing with survival mode has been a trip. Completely changes the experience and makes it more immersive (you actually have a reason to lug around a bunch of food now).
Cyberpunk will have to wait, but I did start it up the other day to install Phantom Liberty and was BLOWN AWAY by the menu music. It took everything in me not to hit 'new game'
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Post by stephen on Jun 10, 2024 17:13:30 GMT
Diving back into Final Fantasy XIV with hopes to beat Endwalker before Dawntrail drops next month, but I know it's not gonna happen. I'm too caught up in Culinarian and Botanist, chasing those titles and achievements.
Also finally earned the "Corpse Dancer" title from Palace of the Dead, and now I'm trying my luck on Heaven-on-High.
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tylosaur
Junior Member
Posts: 276
Likes: 143
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Post by tylosaur on Jun 10, 2024 21:16:04 GMT
Spent the last 4 weeks playing Fallout 4, finally completed it yesterday. One of the more irritating games to slog through being a sicko 100% objective completionist. Went full Brotherhood in the end but in retrospect I with I had gone Institute; overall story arc with them seemed more interesting and I think the overall emotional journey with Shaun would've been more satisfying, maybe. Appreciated how morally tricky it puts the player in when it comes to having to commit to a side by wiping out the other factions I've spent so much time with. I actually liked everyone on the Brotherhood side so when it came time to yeet them from existence, almost thought about switching to their side. Ultimately their cause was boring so the good guys had to go.
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bigmilko
New Member
Posts: 213
Likes: 62
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Post by bigmilko on Jun 10, 2024 21:49:05 GMT
Literally finished a modded Skyrim run (put like 200 hours into this one too) and am about 40 hours deep into another Cyberpunk run (haven't played the DLC yet). Just two great games right there
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Archie
Based
![*](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/stars/star_lavender.png) ![*](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/stars/star_lavender.png)
Eraserhead son or Inland Empire daughter?
Posts: 4,014
Likes: 4,688
Member is Online
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Post by Archie on Jun 10, 2024 21:52:51 GMT
Finished the original Borderlands. Nonexistent story, repetitive gameplay, lame ass world and enemy design. Super meh.
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Post by theycallmemrfish on Jun 12, 2024 20:22:20 GMT
Finished the original Borderlands. Nonexistent story, repetitive gameplay, lame ass world and enemy design. Super meh. ![](https://y.yarn.co/2a086965-e99b-436d-b681-42f186dee3b1_text.gif)
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Post by The_Cake_of_Roth on Jun 13, 2024 5:08:01 GMT
Can't remember the last time I actually played a video game, but I kind of can't wait to play this... wish the gameplay was third-person though.
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Post by Martin Stett on Jun 18, 2024 1:45:18 GMT
....Holy shit. I'm replaying FFXIV and this ARR conversation is GLORIOUS in retrospect. The context is that Ilberd is telling Alphinaud about the "Ivy," Garlemald's spy inside of the Immortal Flames. Ilberd must be laughing his ass off in this moment. Holy shit ![:explode:](//storage.proboards.com/6692321/images/njR5RpFamG56z0Bnf_jx.gif)
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Post by Joaquim on Jun 25, 2024 21:25:18 GMT
Spent the last 4 weeks playing Fallout 4, finally completed it yesterday. One of the more irritating games to slog through being a sicko 100% objective completionist. Went full Brotherhood in the end but in retrospect I with I had gone Institute; overall story arc with them seemed more interesting and I think the overall emotional journey with Shaun would've been more satisfying, maybe. Appreciated how morally tricky it puts the player in when it comes to having to commit to a side by wiping out the other factions I've spent so much time with. I actually liked everyone on the Brotherhood side so when it came time to yeet them from existence, almost thought about switching to their side. Ultimately their cause was boring so the good guys had to go. There will ALWAYS be another settlement in need of help, my guy
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Post by cheesecake on Jun 27, 2024 3:55:41 GMT
Tenth run of Stardew Valley.
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Post by Martin Stett on Jun 27, 2024 20:32:36 GMT
I'm playing It Takes Two right now. Not sure what I think right now - I like the old-fashioned elements, dislike the modern ones. It's neat enough at the moment.
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Post by theycallmemrfish on Jun 29, 2024 15:44:55 GMT
Tenth run of Stardew Valley. My wine guru "Joja Man" wholeheartedly agrees with this.
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Post by Martin Stett on Jul 11, 2024 3:48:04 GMT
I'm around 2/3 of the way through FFXIV: Dawntrail. I honestly believe this may be the worst story in FFXIV. Worse than ARR. Which means that this is the worst in all of FF.
Yeeeeaah.....
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Post by stephen on Jul 11, 2024 18:34:20 GMT
I'm around 2/3 of the way through FFXIV: Dawntrail. I honestly believe this may be the worst story in FFXIV. Worse than ARR. Which means that this is the worst in all of FF. Yeeeeaah..... Me still in the Level 81 MSQ for Endwalker: ![](https://media.tenor.com/wVpsnK4HTgIAAAAe/im-devastated-captain-holt.png)
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bigmilko
New Member
Posts: 213
Likes: 62
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Post by bigmilko on Jul 11, 2024 18:46:03 GMT
Finished Cyberpunk and the DLC. Still just an incredible game
Now Im just about 10 hours into my first time playing Baldur's Gate 3
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Post by themoviesinner on Jul 11, 2024 18:49:02 GMT
Played 3 Assassin Creed games these last two months:
Assassins Creed IV: Black Flag - Very good story wise with an engaging main character, but most missions were pretty dull and repetitive. The naval combat was frustrating at first, but after getting used to it, I enjoyed it a lot and it probably was the best part of the gameplay. Good game but nothing I'd rank among my favorites and, probably, won't revisit it again.
Assassin's Creed Syndicate - Much worse story than Black Flag. You just kill people because they're bad guys and you play as the good guys. That's basically it. But this was great gameplay wise, probably the most fun I've had from a game in a very long while. Missions were varied and entertaining and the whole thing felt like a GTA game set in 19th century London. I enjoyed this one a lot.
Assassin's Creed Origins - Probably the least appealing of the three. The main character is engaging, but the main story feels unnecessarily drawn out and scattershot and the whole open world makes the game feel bloated and repetitive. The setting is interesting, but after 40 or more hours of playing this game, it quickly lost it's appeal. I would definitely have enjoyed this much more if it was shorter.
I had planned to start Assassin's Creed Odyssey next, for the setting alone (I'm really interested to see how they pictured ancient Greece in the game), but after being burnt out by Origins, I don't know if I have the desire to start a game that is seemingly even longer than it's predecessor.
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Post by Martin Stett on Jul 11, 2024 19:05:35 GMT
I'm around 2/3 of the way through FFXIV: Dawntrail. I honestly believe this may be the worst story in FFXIV. Worse than ARR. Which means that this is the worst in all of FF. Yeeeeaah..... Me still in the Level 81 MSQ for Endwalker: ![](https://media.tenor.com/wVpsnK4HTgIAAAAe/im-devastated-captain-holt.png) EW is pretty great, but DT is an intentionally new direction... and they're botching it. I could write more, but I won't because of spoilers and because I'm not done with the story anyway. Suffice to say that I hate the new characters and I hate the new narrative. The writer of Dawntrail also wrote Werlyt - I adore Werlyt, in spite of its problems - so I'm holding out hope that he can salvage the utter mess he's made of the narrative. On a side note, DT is kinda sorta lorebreaking in a way that annoys me. The lore I'm referring to actually comes from statements made by Koji Fox - and thus are not, strictly speaking, canon - but it has never been contradicted and only been supported until now. I looked up my Encyclopedia Eorzea for some other lore relating to this... and the spoiler-thing that is suddenly accepted and not questioned by a single character should be very, VERY VERY VERY unlikely, if not impossible. HOWEVER, there is a possibility that the writer is playing with us, as some other things relating to this lorebreaking element don't add up - either they're not adding up intentionally and he's having the characters ignore it for a big twist (which is dumb, as the characters should *immediately* latch onto these inconsistencies if they had any brains), or nobody in the writers' room noticed that there's a potential lore inconsistency that will PISS OFF CERTAIN LOREHEADS WHO WERE VERY INVESTED IN THIS ONE PARTICULAR PIECE OF LORE. (In fact, this piece of lore was the single most exciting thing about DT for me as I went in - I wanted to learn more about it.) That lorehead is me. And I'm not annoyed so much as furious. Again, I think that the writer is intentionally hiding information and this isn't actually a lore problem... but it's dumb. The characters who live in this world would *know* that this doesn't make sense, as it's something that would be known by small children. I can't say exactly what I'm referring to because of spoilers, but I'm already feeling the veins in my forehead exploding over the way this is being handled. Edit: In my efforts to be vague, much of this didn't make sense. I'm referring to two separate pieces of lore - one of them is canon, and the other is inferred from writer interviews and correlating evidence in the game. Both of them should be known by any normal person in Eorzea. The inferred lore is currently being broken, and this breaking has major repercussions for the world. The canon lore is being used as my evidence as to why the inferred lore is being broken. To explain it differently, Dawntrail is doing this: 1. A certain event in canon lore is being referenced heavily. 2. This is being used to set up certain narrative threads in DT. 3. These narrative threads break inferred canon and raise major questions about how the world works. 4. The game seems possibly *unaware* that we now do not know some fundamental issues of how things function in this fantasy world. Water may not be wet in this fantasy world, we don't know! You are currently implying that water is canonically dry. 5. This causes a breakdown of trust in the game's consistency, as things could happen that were previously thought impossible. DT's story seems to have had a mixed response in general, but even people who love it seem to agree that the first half or so is pretty tedious at best, with everybody agreeing that it does get better as it goes on. The more people dislike the early expansion, the less charitable they tend to be towards the end of it, however.
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Post by Martin Stett on Jul 14, 2024 22:23:14 GMT
I finished Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail!
I heartily despise it on the whole, but credit where credit is due: The last zone ROCKS. Is this new ground for FFXIV? Hells no. The ending is a retread of themes and ideas that the game has always had an interest in - and truth be told, the ending zone I like so much is a very direct retread of some ideas in a previous expansion.
And that is okay. (In fact, I think it handled this concept better than the expansion that attempted this before.) As a long-running story, repeating ideas is a perfectly valid narrative decision: This keeps the thematic core of the saga intact, as it continues to ask variations of the same questions ("I close my eyes, tell us why must we suffer?") with variations of the same answers ("Thy life is a riddle, to bear rapture and sorrow..."). If this suddenly became an entirely different sort of story, the central message that has driven FFXIV for all this time would be diluted. Every conflict and trial faced on the Star does, in one way or another, boil down to the cry of Hydaelyn's people: "Tell us why, given life, we are meant to die, helpless in our cries?" It anchors the philosophy of the whole saga, knowing that no matter where the story goes, there will be a consistent answer: "In one fleeting moment from the Land doth life flow[...] In that same fleeting moment, thou must live, die, and know."
None of this excuses that the first 9 levels of this expansion are utter dogshit. The first half of this bloated disaster is COMPLETELY UNNECESSARY IN ANY WAY to the rest of the narrative - which would be okay if it was good, but it isn't - and focuses on one new character to the near erasure of anyone else. For the first half the game we babysit a naive little runt who thinks she can solve all of the world's problems by being nice to people... and the game agrees with her!!!!!!
Look, if you want to write a story for four year olds about the importance of sharing toys with your siblings, that's fine... but not here! A story this childlike and simplistic in FINAL FANTASY XIV - the story that gave us Werlyt, that gave us the Ilsabard Contingent, that gave us Fordola and Tsuyu and the Dragonsong War and the Parting Glass!!! - it's INFURIATING. I'm not saying that this has to be grimdark all the time with political arguments going on for hours (although I welcome those moments - FFXIV has historically been at its most involving when it turns into a political drama), but this is swinging way too far into little kiddie morality for small children. I absolutely understand the concept of what they were attempting, but Wuk Lamat never fails at anything. She's just as insufferable as ARR Alphinaud - the difference being that ARR Alphinaud faces consequences for his naivety and Wuk Lamat never does. The game seems to think that just because her heart is in the right place, she doesn't need to learn any hard lessons.
The second half of the game also has its fair share of problems - most of them logical. If the villains were at all villainous or competent, all the good guys would be dead. There are some major plot issues that I can't discuss because of spoilers that frustrate me because they rely upon the villains refusing to be villains in any conceivable manner. There are also some plot holes that would need to be explained away - sure, you *can* explain them, but I'd prefer not having to jump through hoops to create an explanation that isn't moronic. There are many, many more plot issues where the fantasy elements are not properly explained. I have never - ever - not understood the rules of the world before, but this introduces some elements that confused me to no end - and this lack of clarity in turn damaged the thematic purpose of what the final zone is attempting to achieve.
Added on top of this is one particular element that breaks the lore of the game quite severely. I honestly believe that the writers are aware of this lorebreak, as so many things about it don't make sense that I'm pretty confident that the patches will address the gaping impossibility of this thing existing. That said, it is frustrating that not one character points out how this thing should be impossible.
As for the fights, they're pretty fun... mind you, the game loads most of the fights to the very end of the game, long after I was turned into a screaming ape smashing my laptop with a mallet. There are HOURS of pointless cutscenes between small pieces of gameplay. The third dungeon has a BRUTAL boss that is a lot of fun - not because of the mechanics being at all rough, but because it hits like sledgehammer (we had four first timers in there and my healing was stretched to the limit AFTER we died, like, eight times), and the final boss has some unique mechanics that are really enjoyable (although easy to read once you understand them). The music has a couple of highlights (the themes of the main city), but on the whole is rather middling.
On the whole, this is a frustrating - nay, *infuriating* - expansion. The final zone is very, very good - possibly the best one yet - but putting a cherry on a shit sundae does not stop it from being a shit sundae.
Edit: On a sidenote that really frustrated me... who the hell came up with the nomenclature of places in this expansion? Endwalker also had this problem: they decided that these are foreign lands and places should be in foreign languages, and thus they decided to stick close to the naming conventions of the real languages the zones were based on (such as Turkish and Greek). This resulted in some places being pretty hard for an English speaker with no other linguistic knowledge being unable to identify the meaning of places. Encyclopedia Eorzea can say that this place means "fishing hole" in the native tongue, but if you're just traveling through and see "J'nanndamaipa" (I think that's more or less one of the locations in EW) you won't be able to place a name to a place and what it means culturally. If the meaning of a foreign location is explained to the player, that's great. If not, it's clutter.
Dawntrail does this EVERYWHERE. For example, one zone has places named "Hhusatahwi," "Sheshenewezi," "Tonatenyawi," "Mehwahhetsoan" and my favorite: "Luwateninyawawsa." Try reading that one aloud - some poor actor had to do it, it's only fair that we all suffer. Maybe the writers have devised a language and meaning for all of these... but I do not know one from the other.
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Post by Martin Stett on Jul 18, 2024 12:24:31 GMT
So, you may or may not have heard, but there's a healer strike in FFXIV. I found the concept stupid, but I've had several people ask me about it, and I want to address the complaints. Going into DT, there was a social media movement for healers to "go on strike" and refuse to go into any content as healers, because we've been neglected for so long. Nobody likes being reduced to pressing a single damage button. I personally don't care about *that.* However, healing in a lot of normal content feels really bad, because there's rarely a need for *healing.* If someone takes multiple vuln stacks, that's on them and you try your best to keep them functioning. Outside of that, the only complexity we get out of fights is in mechanical difficulty. And let's face it... mechanical difficulty in EW is not that high (in comparison to ShB in particular). I love healing. I love seeing those big shields go up when I cast Recitation>Adloquium>Deployment Tactics. I love being the last line of defense if everybody else has died. Some other people may like seeing big damage numbers, but I like being a big damn hero and saving the day/keeping everybody living through my shield strength. But... in normal content, I don't do this. I press one damage button over and over and occasionally shield the tank. Healers decided to strike when they saw the job actions for Dawntrail. Practically every DPS has mitigation now - partywide mitigation even! - and now our swiftcast has been reduced from 60 second cooldown to 40 seconds! It became clear that the devs did not care. I thought a strike was stupid, but even though I love healing, I completely agree with the complaints. Yoshi-P told us that fights would be "more difficult" in Dawntrail, but that's a joke: He was giving everybody mits to make things easy. All of this is to say that I have now done level 100 healing in the optional dungeons and raid series. Below is, more or less, the full DT healing experience. No spoilers, I'm just trying to keep this wall of text sectioned off:
Yoshi-P heard that we had nothing to do AND SO EVERYTHING HITS 5X HARDER! I love it so much. For the first time EVER in normal raids and even dungeons, I have to keep an eye on MP management! Raid wide damage MAKES ME CRY. Instead of generic vuln stacks, getting hit by mechanics will stun people, or give them a nasty DoT, or a vuln - these require different methods to resolve the issues.
The mechanics are not *complex* in this expansion - at least on normal difficulty - but they are very new and wacky and require different thinking to resolve. We have "shell game" attacks in which we are shown 8 shells, 2 of which will damage us... and then those 8 shells are shuffled around the arena and we go cross-eyed trying to keep track of them. We have a boss dynamically destroying sections of the arena (based on people's locations) and using pushback mechanics all over the place that require us to identify our safest routes quickly. We have a boss that stuns people left and right during bullet hell attacks. They're all so wild and fresh and BY THE GODS THE DAMAGE THEY DO. Stack markers can legitimately kill anybody with a vuln stack now if shields aren't in overdrive! I'm in heaven. I hate my life, but I'm in heaven.
The current raid tier is so good aesthetically as well. And we have DYNAMIC VOICE LINES! If someone gets hit by an attack, the voice lines acknowledge this. If someone uses a limit break, a voice line will mention it (a different line depending on the LB)! It's so cool to Healer LB3 at the last moment and have the game cheer me on/curse me for doing so. Such a simple addition, but I love it.
I pray to the Twelve they don't nerf the difficulty. I am hearing that the JP servers think this is too hard. I understand that this is primarily a casual game - I consider myself pretty casual myself - but I don't want braindead content. Make me work for the victory. Make. Me. SUFFER.
By the way, you can now wear a gimp suit in this game. I'm not even joking.
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Post by Tommen_Saperstein on Jul 20, 2024 23:59:40 GMT
Cyberpunk. I'm addicted.
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Post by theycallmemrfish on Jul 21, 2024 16:07:15 GMT
Well I see that GamePass has just added FO4: GOTY edition... so looks like I'm going to be doing that again (I haven't played the DLCs since I played them on my PC like 10 years ago).
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Post by Tommen_Saperstein on Aug 15, 2024 16:18:54 GMT
I spoke too soon with Cyberpunk lol. First playthrough just wrapped up at about 112 hours, which is worth the $53 I paid for it but ridiculously short relative to my other open world favs (for reference, my last Witcher playthrough in 2020 clocked in at over 230 hours). The ending I chose was also very anticlimactic action-wise, especially after finishing Phantom Liberty.
There's about 70-80 hours of fantastic gameplay and a fun world to fuck around in, but also a fair bit of slog, especially with the side gigs (got through probably 40% before I tapped out). I'll play it again at some point but I don't see myself replaying it again and again like I have F4 or Skyrim.
back to The Witcher next. Fired it up for about 45 mins and it's looking GORGEOUS
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