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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   2947 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for August 22, 2025

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Gaming subthread.

I have so much free time (and OOMs more money) and I barely play any video games. 15 year old me would cry. At one point, I would have chalked that down to depression and anhedonia, but that's way better now.

I find myself bouncing off 90% of the ones I do try.

  • Didn't finish BG3, though I think I made it halfway.
  • Played like 2 hours of Clair Obscure before getting distracted
  • Reinstalled Teardown, didn't play it
  • Rimworld, an all-time favorite: I refuse to play Vanilla, no insult to Zorba, but it's such a painful experience. I also have an addiction to installing 17 gb of mods for a 500mb game, which is great fun till it all breaks and I have to debug it. Happened again a few months back, after I had already spent 3 hours fixing my modlist, and now a DLC came out and I have to wait for everything to finish updating.
  • Total War Warhammer 3: Another favorite, same issue as Rimworld, down to updates breaking mods, or just mods breaking mods.
  • Arma Reforger: I play it semi-regularly, but it's by far best enjoyed with friends. I was a senior NCO (don't laugh) in an American clan, but then it imploded because of internal drama and burnout. I hop on modded pub matches for a few hours, but it's just not the same.
  • Escape From Tarkov: A good (but uncompromising) game ruined by bad development decisions. I no-lifed it for a while, but just couldn't bother to repeat that process. I had a lot of good buddies in Singapore and Malaysia I met playing on those servers, but the latency doesn't allow for that anymore. Great guys, I personally raised half a dozen Timmies who would shit themselves if they heard a bush rustle into cracked PvPers who are far better than I ever was.
  • There are so many goddamned games collecting bit rot in my SSD. The only saving grace is that I pirated most of them, so at least I'm not losing money.
  • I left my old Quest 2 back in India. Don't feel like buying a new one here, and it would be inconvenient in a shared apartment.

What's wrong with me? I splurged on the world's 4th best gaming pc (1 CPU and GPU down from the best of the best), I have the time. It's not anhedonia, because I clearly still enjoy reading, writing, and arguing with people on the internet. I still watch people play and talk about games, I look forward to new ones and wishlist them, I just don't really play them. I don't like this, what's the point of having all this money and fancy hardware? Don't tell me I'm getting old and crochety :(

At this point I might have a kid just to have someone to play coop with.

We have pretty similar taste in games, although I find ARMA way too boring and love battlefield (as much as they keep insisting on fucking it up).

I too bounce off games really hard, and I basically only enjoy gaming now if I also take cannabis, otherwise it's kind of boring and I stop after 45 mins.

I had the exact same experience with BG3, I feel like I should love it, but I just kinda... stopped.

I tried getting back into modded Skyrim after learning Wabbajack existed (I don't have the patience to manage massive mod lists) and it was INCREDIBLE but again after getting not that far into a run, I just... drifted away

I really want to get into Rimworld and Total war (played Shogun a bit, then stopped) but haven't gotten around to it (lol)

I basically just play heavily modded civ5 (seriously vox populi is insanely good) and Victoria 3, I don't even find either of those games super duper fun anymore as I've played them a lot, but I always end up back on them instead of diving into something new.

I never seem to enjoy video games while high on weed. Drunk? Loads of fun. While my stimulants haven't worn off? Hell yeah, I'm absolutely going to out-camp that sniper.

I find a lot of Arma boring myself, and I do have ADHD. I enjoyed Zeus because there's always something to do. Are the players getting complacent? Arrange for an ambush. Put on mood music. Start setting up an objective while they're cleaning up the last one. Eavesdrop on conversations, which is great fun because that British unit had some funny MFs in it. In contrast, while I do like the PvP, I would definitely prefer less driving between objectives or long hikes.

By all means, you must give Rimworld a go. Play one game of vanilla, or maybe three, note all the major annoyances, and then go hunting for mods to fix it. I probably get more enjoyment out of "hey, that mod looks cool" than actually playing the game lol, especially with how things break once you have too many. Can't blame them, when I've had 500+ mods running at once.

Does Rimworld have curated mod packs a la Wabbajack for Skyrim? My patience to manage mods has a strongly inverse correlation with my age lol

Definitely, but they're less common than is the case for Skyrim. Most Rimworld mods tend to play well together, but I have a taste for massive overhauls.

I don't personally use mod packs, at most, I check compatibility for some of the more comprehensive mods like Combat Extended. However, the best that comes to mind are usually the themed collections made by Mr. Samuel Streamer, he's got dozens of playthroughs up, and each one has a link and setup guide. Do you want Starwars flavored Rimworld? Medieval? Post-apocalyptic? There's a series for you.

You will (and definitely should acquire anyway) the RimPy mod manager. It can import mod lists, handle load orders, note many incompatible mod combinations and will make life a lot easier. The vanilla mod manager, while not useless, is lacking in comparison.

I believe there is like some form of gamers depression, where a game that is too good can truly ruin a gamer. And its not too good in the sense of like "oh my god this is my dream game and the best thing ever".

But more that its like "oh wow this is the perfect feedback loop of addiction, skill up, and reward" and once you hit that game, or a few of them nothing ever scratches the itch quite right ever again. Kinda like a first hit of heroin it ruins everything else. My game was EVE online and Skyrim. The first burned me out on teamwork based online games, and the second burned me out on personal skill up type games. I've been chasing the dragon on both for a while. I think you got burned on Tarkov.

I've definitely been alpha-widowed by my favorite games, lol

Hmm. In the case of Tarkov, the game just got continuously worse. Content came out at a glacial pace, the AI oscillates from aimbot to Helen Keller with an HK every six months. I would play the game if there simply was anything to justify it, such as a new massive map or other content of similar scale. I also refuse to play it solo, so I'd have to build a new social network of like-minded gamers to enjoy it.

The Warhammer branch of Total War killed my interest in the historical titles. They just seem so... boring, when you have tanks shooting at dragons. I played the hell out of those historical titles back in the day to boot.

I've been chasing the dragon on both for a while.

Might I suggest a return to Skyrim? You can't take a shit without one attacking your outhouse.

I’m up for coop if you want but IMO your problem is that you are playing only the hardest, densest games despite being a 28 year old with a serious full time job and other hobbies. Like it or not, this is your body’s way of telling you it’s time to be a filthy cashul.

In all seriousness, try playing some stuff like Subnautica or Hardspace-Shipbreaker or Doom 2016 or the original Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. Stuff where the gameplay loop is a bit more reactions-based and rewarding and the game is a bit less like a second job. See how you get on and then come back to the tougher stuff when you’ve had more sleep or a vacation.

My current thing is Elden Ring and while that certainly has difficulty spikes, there’s also a lot of downtime exploring the world.

(I know none of my suggestions are really to your taste but it’s what I do).

Trust me, I don't just play hardcore games. I had fun with Helldivers 2, before getting bored. I had played a decent amount of Doom Eternal before I moved and lost progress, now I give up after a few levels. In hindsight, I should probably drop the difficulty.

Subnautica? Played maybe half a dozen hours before getting distracted.

Forza Horizon 5? Can't be arsed, and I only played it singleplayer and with competent but not broken AI skill levels.

I will grant that I have a preference for realism or simulationist mechanics. I prefer Arma over Battlefield or Insurgency Sandstorm. I can't go back to Need for Speed after playing Forza, which has a really good balance of accessibility and realism in car handling.

I never could afford the COD games when I was a kid, so my exposure was limited to a few SP campaigns, which were alright. What I strongly dislike about newer CODs is the ridiculous pricing and cosmetics, and I always get an aneurysm with standard video game weapon balancing on account of being a gun nerd. The abominations that Gunsmith allows 😭.

I'm not sure how to describe my tastes. There's that realism/sim thing I mentioned, but also the fact that I'm ADHD brained and get bored easily, while also hyperfocusing on the rare game that I love.

Of course, everything is more fun with friends! What do you have in mind? I should mention that @Cjet89 tried to get me into Factorio, and even offered to buy me a copy. Maybe I will pop my amphetamines and give it a serious go, though I like the concept of the game more than I liked playing it for the odd half an hour.

Factorio is really fun but you basically are forced to restart a few times because it's easier to start from scratch than it is to totally refactor your mineral bus once you've spaghetti-maxxed

It'll probably click for you and delete a few weeks though, it's incredibly compelling, the factory must grow.

I usually start getting burnt out from the complexity around oil, and I tried playing a while ago with a new update, played for a while (got to oil), and then saw the tech/production tree for nuclear and promptly quit and uninstalled the game. Started to feel like I was studying or working to play the game.

Cool :) I don’t have anything in mind right now because I’m away for the bank holiday but I’ll have a think. I wouldn’t mind trying something like Arma but I’d be starting from nothing - I spend 99.9% of my time playing single-player and sims aren’t so much fun on your own.

I like the concept of the game more than I liked playing it for the odd half an hour

I get this a lot. Frostpunk, Factorio, Supreme Commander etc. My steam library is full of them.

I'll hook you up in Arma in no time haha. Just having one additional buddy allows for shenanigans like you won't believe. Hit me up when you're back!

Will do!

Have you tried any roguelikes/lites? Easier to just get one to couple of runs in when you feel like it and then do something else. You don't have to stay super engaged for extended periods of time.

Hmm.. I have played several, though the names elude me. I didn't particularly like Risk of Rain (2?), I did like Hades, but once again, a few hours of fun, then I got distracted and never picked it up again.

You may like Starsector.

It's basically "mount and blade in space" but with an incredibly well designed and tight gameplay loop for the 2D ship to ship combat.

The mod scene is also exceptional (Nexerilin is basically a DLC that massively improves the game by making it a 4x-lite). Although filled with unbelievable amounts of discord drama (totally ignorable, but hilarious).

Your allied ship AI is quite stupid, but my god it's so fun to space battle.

You can also get a free CD key from the Sseth review video (meme-y video game review channel) if you want to try it, developer approved as he's a very chill guy.

I have played Starsector, but only in the most technical sense. I booted it up once, did 5 minutes of the tutorial and then got sidetracked. Surprisingly, the reason I tried it was because I saw that mod you mentioned in an overview video, and wanted to learn the ropes before diving into the modded experience. I'll try and get back into it for good!

Definitely play vanilla first just so you get a sense of what the game is like, just enough that you can win fights against evenly matched up fleets up until mid-game so you don't suck and don't get overwhelmed

Then get into mods and it'll be less overwhelming

I hate vanilla purists though, I recommend getting QoL and UI mods immediately

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