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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   848 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for March 13, 2026

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Video Game Thread

What are you playing this week?

After 20 hours total spent on the game, I finally finished a run in Slay the Spire 2. Very happy. :) I used The Defect and lots of 0 cost attack cards + draws.

Finished Stoneblock 4, at least to opening up the creative chapter. Mixed feelings, like a lot of FTB modpacks, it's got a good early-game but gets bogged down as you go on, and it suffers a lot from making certain progression assumptions that the actual content doesn't back up. By the point you're doing actual automation challenges you have so many raw materials anything you can't just Replicate can be solved with simple spam, and by the point you've unlocked much of the combat stuff you have to beat the hardest available boss first and then it's just facestomping a bunch of also-rans. And it doesn't help that I'm not a huge fan of Mekanism, even if building a silly-large reactor is kinda entertaining. But there's a lot of effort that went into polishing the content and order that was there. Probably 3/5.

Trying Society: Sunlit Valley. It's not the first Harvest Moon/Stardew Valley-but-Minecraft-like I've played, but it's far more committed to the bit. (Most) crops and animals are tied to the day/night cycle for growth and harvest, there's a large number of new processing blocks that are similarly tied to daily cycles, equipment has to either be found in-world or upgraded from stone-iron-gold-diamond-iridium (lots of things drop gold gear!), a lot of fabricated materials can be purchased from villagers, and focusing on profit or collecting a variety of materials for the Community Center. Not perfectly happy with the pacing and progression. Since villagers are used for a pretty wide variety of important components and items you'd normally craft, and only certain materials sell for meaningful amounts of money, that means a lot of optimal play has you either grinding beer, simple meals, or raw ore to immediately dump for sale. On the other hand, props for being one of the first modpacks to put Create late in progression, and still make it meaningfully useful and powerful. But I also haven't had much time with it.

Endless Sky an FOSS remake of the old Mac series Escape Velocity (a top down space ship) game. It's fun but, it really could use some branches to it's major plot.

I like the gameplay direction Naev went more than Endless Sky's. It gives you rechargeable missile and fighter bays, actually-long-distance travel, and severe nerfs to capturing ships and building fleets. Also, fighters can usually dodge heavy laser fire and battleships can largely ignore light weapons, which forces some variety into your builds.

Been playing far to much Vintage Story, still.

I have to confess, this is probably my longest and most accomplished run. The fortress I built is working very well for my needs, I've got a double-stack windmill giving me more than enough power to drive the gear ratios I've got setup and the devices I need, and this is the first time I've actually started to work toward developing steel and building up the end-game Jonas devices. Turns out, melting cupronickel, despite being a copper alloy, requires coke to reach the requisite temperatures. And if I want to start dying clothing, mining chromium requires steel pickaxes.

Goddamit.

My favorite autobattler, Mechabellum, ended season 6 and started season 7 with a new unit, the Vortex.

Also StS2, lots of that. I'm up to Ascension 3 on each character, and up to A6 with Regent. Had my first Ironclad run go infinite, albeit erratically, at A4. I'm struggling with Defect. Everything will change, of course, it's EA and only been out a week.

Timberborn 1.0 is out, and it's been two years since I last played it, so I'm planning on taking a look at that.

Working on finishing RDR2, hopefully I'll finish this weekend. I have found the game to be very overrated - the story is good, but it isn't uniquely so, the gameplay is worse than the previous game due to Rockstar pursuing "immersion" over fun in various ways, and the game is a buggy mess (at least on PC). I have enjoyed it well enough, but once I finish I doubt very much if I will ever play it again, and I certainly don't think it's as good as it gets hyped up to be.

Have to disagree. The slowness is the point. I feel strongly that Red Dead 2 is a game designed to be played in ~10 8-hour sessions. One must be fully immersed, this is an all-day activity. That is inconvenient, but it’s hardly unique, plenty of hobbies have that kind of time commitment, just not most video games.

The slowness is the point because the game is holistically and intentionally designed to reject game convention. Like GTAIV (Rockstar’s other masterpiece, and the game closest to Red Dead 2 in both tone and style, albeit compromised by immaturity and GTA convention), it is as much about the slice of life activities and the general vibe as about the actual main storyline. The minimalist soundtrack is a masterpiece, tense beats, the occasional restrained strum, a handful of songs that fit perfectly deployed at precisely the right moment. The story is more conservative than any major comparable game, the rich inner lives and stories of Arthur’s companions fully present (and clearly known to the writers) but revealed only in fragments, rarely explicitly, just there, if you care for it. The game does not care particularly for the player, which is a great argument in its favor. You may come to camp at the right time, on the right day, in between story missions and see an entire, extensive, motion captured and voiced and acted vignette between Arthur’s companions. Other players may miss it, the game doesn’t care, unlike any other game, in which there would be a mandatory reminder to return to camp and the event would only trigger when the player did so.

the gameplay is worse than the previous game due to Rockstar pursuing "immersion" over fun in various ways

While I've never played RDR1, I agree wholeheartedly. The second game wastes so much of my time. I get Rockstar's desire to flex both their auteurial taste and their massive development budget, but come the fuck on. I don't need a ten second animation everytime I skin a deer or pick up a bottle off a shelf. At the very least, give us a fast-forward button.

Unfortunately, I've been spoiled on the plot by virtue of just being around the internet too long, so I'm unlikely to come back to the game. Damn shame, the plot was interesting for the half a dozen hours I played, but I am categorically unwilling to tolerate that pace till the end.

I have enjoyed it well enough, but once I finish I doubt very much if I will ever play it again, and I certainly don't think it's as good as it gets hyped up to be.

Those were more or less my feelings about the game too. I played it on the PS4 at launch and I figured I would at least fire it up again on a stronger PC just to enjoy the visually beautiful 'nature experiences' of fishing and hunting in that world again. But I never really did. Possible spoiler: I felt the story (Arthur's) ended so badly that the whole thing became a bit meaningless. And the way 'everyone' on the internet were so impressed by tHe sTorY and dialogue (the tone everyone drones on in wore on me), made me think most of them had never read a good novel.

I have about 35 hours in STS2, Just finished ascension 10 with the silent and am on ascension 7 with the Necro. I think Silent is really overpowered. The shiv decks are strong, discard is strong, that one poison power that causes poison to trigger twice (3x upgraded) is downright nasty. The discard 2/draw 2 in a deck with sly's is broken. Meanwhile the regent just feels bad.

From what I've read, The Regent is very situational and more random as to whether you'll succeed. I think it can be really strong with tons of stars.

Silent does seem to be the strongest class in STS2. But her aesthetic is crap IMO. My least favorite character by far.

I've done a couple ascension 2 runs with the Regent, and stars is the way to go, but it just feels so restrictive. Like here's the "box that you can play in" it's very small. The one consolation is that the game is still in early access so I imagine there will be buffs to the newly designed character

I also played STS2! I immediately won my first run with the Ironclad (mixed build). Then I won my first run with the Silent (poison). Then I lost two and won on the third try with the regent (mixed build). Then I won my first with the Defect (claw, just like you probably did). Then it took me another few tries with the Necrobinder until I got a win in. The pattern is pretty clear - game knowledge from the first STS is still fully applicable, and the top builds from back then still work. So it didn't take me 20 hours to get that far. Around 3, I think.

and the top builds from back then still work

Sorta, the lack of energy relics is definitely felt, as is the removal of certain cards. I do miss fire-breathing on Clad

Now that you mention it, I did feel more energy constrained. High-draw decks with +energy cards are still viable, though.

Ironclad in general seems to have been tuned much more for spending health as a currency - which IMO is not viable overall. I will use Offering to pay health to jump-start each battle, okay, but paying health for every attack, or paying health every turn, that just goes over my head. You only get 6 health back per fight normally - and I can't really picture myself routing through bonfires only to heal up, and pass up on upgrades and shops. I'm probably wrong here, but so far I don't feel it.

The thing about blood wall, blood letting, hemokinesis and such, is that they often end the battle with less total damage taken including the self damage. If you can't full block anyway, blood wall is just a block 13 for 1 energy. Blood letting is take another turn but you failed to block by 3 and the enemy doesn't scale. Playing hemokinesis twice (4 hp) instead of strike is about another full turns worth of damage.

I get it. I do. It just doesn't seem sustainable compared to more conservative high-block strategies.

You really need that strength from self damage power if you want to go a blood build in my opinion. I haven't tried a lot of Clad yet.

So it didn't take me 20 hours to get that far. Around 3, I think.

Except it sorta did. You leaned on all your STS knowledge where you no doubt spent many hours.

Absolutely true. Many more than 20, then.

I'm actually playing STS1 now. It's alright, though clearly less polished than the sequel, even in the latter's EA state.

I just finished my first real run in it, using The Silent. It seemed way easier than any run in 2. I barely even lost any hp to the act 3 boss. Maybe Silent is even more OP in 1 than she is in 2?

I wouldn't give too much weight to a one-run impression. It is a roguelikeish after all, and randomness plays a large role.

True. The skilled streamers always(?) win their runs though. So skill can apparently make up for bad luck.

I failed at sts1 with Ironclad and I have now failed with Defect too. Still need to git gud. :)

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