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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   2487 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for March 8, 2024

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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I started playing Rogue Trader this week, as I'm on vacation. For some reason people call it a CRPG, but it's as much an RPG as Final Fantasy Tactics or Paradise Cracked were: it's just a fight after a fight after a fight. I hope it gets better in Act 2, I really miss a proper hub with factions and quests that don't always require you to murder everyone.

I am enjoying it more than BG3, though. Still lots of "why would I ever pick that" abilities, but there are enough abilities that turn everyone into a murder machine. Except the Sister of Battle, whose bolter is laughably weak and won't shoot straight.

I hope it gets better in Act 2, I really miss a proper hub with factions and quests that don't always require you to murder everyone.

I have bad news for you...

Argenta, with an optimized set of perks, becomes an absolute monster with the bolter and heavy bolter and can clear rooms of enemies. At that point, the inaccuracy becomes a good thing as you're distributing damage, and there's a guaranteed item spawn that makes the first aimed shot always hit. You keep giving her ability points with buff characters, and she solos God himself.

Of course, you need a build guide to actually figure out how to do that, the perk system is horrendously designed and explained, especially to someone not steeped in Owlcat's ways.

For some reason people call it a CRPG, but it's as much an RPG as Final Fantasy Tactics or Paradise Cracked were....

I mean, people absolutely call FFT an RPG. I've never heard of Paradise Cracked, so I can't speak to that.

But I also think you're really underselling how much role playing there is in Rogue Trader (granted I'm only on chapter 1). It's not just fight after fight, there are side quests that come up (which you don't have to fight to resolve), and lengthy dialogue/story segments. Things can, and do, play out differently based on your choices from what I've seen. I think there's no doubt that this is a proper CRPG.

Also in the theme of keeping games-related comments together, some good news!

Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri is now on Steam!

It's old and the UI is a bit clunky (though fan patches can help), but it's a beloved classic for a reason. Prokhor Zakharov is my guy all the way for gameplay reasons--probably a popular choice in these parts--but there's something to love in each character. For a (very) deep dive into the interplay of game mechanics, storytelling, and philosophy of SMAC, I also recommend the classic blog series Paean to SMAC: Meditations on Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri.

My fave quote is the Free Drones' introduction. I don't know who had the idea to turn an Australian folk ballad usually associated with the caprine tones of Bob Dylan into a haunting and ominous oath, but it turned out perfect.

I was just thinking of giving my copy of SMAC another spin. I have a P233 MMX that would probably be perfect for it.

SMAC actually came front of mind in the culture war thread about SBI and bad writing. Because while the flavor text that reflects the viewpoints of the various factions is deeply political, none of it feels like cheap shots. It's like every factions ideology is steel manned. At least that's how I remember it. Maybe going back to it in my middle age will change that perspective.

I believe it still holds up, but if you do give it a whirl, post a report? If a game in the 2000s can make a sympathetic Christian fundamentalist, it's gotta be doing something right.

SMAC is tragic. They can't make another one because the publisher went bankrupt. All of the IP rights were bundled and poorly split and auctioned off. Now it's not clear who owns what.

Any attempt at a remaster will be met by lawsuits from people with various claims.

Why'd you even play it, there's an AI patch that unfucks the AI and iirc you could run it through Dosbox or something else pretty well.

It has avaliable DRM-free on GOG for 13 years. The strange thing is EA sold it for so long on GOG, but not on steam, while the Command & Conquer: The Ultimate Collection (which was also just released on steam and is also published by EA) never was on GOG (and still isn't).

I'm currently playing BTA3062, a full overhaul mod for Battletech. It's also in the full murderhobo tradition of games, but ultimately these usually keep my interest longer than story-based games. I liked Cyberpunk 2077's atmosphere quite a lot and it has plenty of interesting characters and sidequests, but in terms of gameplay it's utterly trivial, so in raw hours I have less than BTA on it. More extreme was Disco Elysium, it was fun for a single playthrough (which for DE is very short to boot), but once I get what it's attempting to say it's not really that interesting anymore. In CP2077 even just wandering the city is surprisingly fun though. I was for example very impressed when I stumbled over a museum to a tragic past event by pure accident, it was well made and afaik you would never find it if you just followed the main and larger side quests.

On BTA itself, it's fun, and both the mech bay and the tactics are significantly enhanced. But it also didn't even attempt to fix the issues with the base game, such as an atrocious AI and a really slow and buggy engine. Nevertheless I spend hours over hours designing my team, such as the perfect light mech scout, or heavy mech artillery platform, or a medium mech generalist/brawler, etc. and blowing up teams that on paper are far stronger than me through a strong, consistent tactic with a team deliberately designed for that purpose is very satisfying. Also, the game has enough of an element of getting random stuff that you have to make work so that it stays somewhat fresh.

I liked Cyberpunk 2077's atmosphere quite a lot and it has plenty of interesting characters and sidequests, but in terms of gameplay it's utterly trivial, so in raw hours I have less than BTA on it.

I was on a good run of CP2077 lately, to celebrate the RTX 4070 Super I finally splurged on when my NVDA shares 10x'ed. Gets 60-100 FPS fully path traced with all the DLSS shit turned on. I was totally in love with the atmosphere, the characters, etc. But at some point my character just got absurdly OP, and the triviality of it's ubisoft completionist minimap game design came out in full force. There is something just so disheartening about pro-actively exploring, and encountering nothing because you must first activate the quest somewhere else that turns that hollow shell of a bunker or abandoned warehouse into actual gameplay.

I'll probably start focusing as much as I can on the main story when I have the time to play a game again, just to get it done and move onto something else. It goes against everything in my nature to not try to compulsively do all the things in a game, but that's how they get you, isn't it?

I just gave up on my STALKER: Anomaly character because I think the main story got bricked in this fashion.

I was exploring Pripyat and saw an alarming number of zombies shambling into a department store, so like any red-blooded Ukrainian, I decided to try out the underbarrel grenade launcher. They weren't alone, though, with about a dozen Monolith troops coming out of the woodwork to investigate. It turned into a close-quarters fight as I navigated the building, and when the dust settled, I found some excellent loot. I also found a generator near the top which, when activated, turned on a few lights, including one by the defunct elevator. Turns out it wasn't actually defunct, because approaching it gave me a confirmation: "Move to Laboratory X-8?"

Unfortunately, I had no reason to take my overloaded ass down into a concrete hell, so I left the area to resupply and sell off the junk. I didn't come back until several hours later, when I'd completed more of the main quest. Only now that I had to descend into a local lab for secret documentation, the elevator was no longer working. And the generator already ran, so I couldn't trigger it again.

Annoying. I installed GAMMA instead to spin up a new character and ignore the story.

BTA 3062 was always my favorite modpack. What did you think of the factions BD added in the empty area? They gave me a heck of a fight the first time they showed up as an ally spawn but once I learned more about them found them to be fun opponents with interesting gear.

What's your favorite start?

I've been playing through a Roguetech company but find it too grindy to be fun for long, so will probably flip back to BTA fairly soon.

Admittedly I'm still on my first career of BTA itself and haven't gotten there, started near Terra with the Blakists and mostly stayed there except for a little bit of Clan action. But I'm in general a slow player for this stuff bc I spend way too much time in the mech bay.

If it's your first game definitely enjoy the ride! It's a wonderful modpack!

More extreme was Disco Elysium, it was fun for a single playthrough (which for DE is very short to boot), but once I get what it's attempting to say it's not really that interesting anymore.

I didn't even make it through one. I was so annoyed by being punished for being a nationalist when every other ideology can be taken to a comical, murderous extreme while giving bonuses was too annoying to me.

I couldn't make it thru one playthrough either, but not because of whatever ideologies it was trying to sell. It was just the uninteresting, unlikeable characters that gave me no investment in figuring out the murder. I found the setting very boring, too, so exploring the area and meeting its various inhabitants and witnesses was just a drag. I can only imagine how bad the writing must've gotten later on as the story developed and the characters had time to breathe, because the writing started off very stilted and unnatural and only seemed to get worse as I kept playing. Shame, since the RPG system for investigation/interrogation/other detective work seemed pretty neat.

Punished? If you're racist enough it cures your alcoholism and gives you noticeable buffs. I was a nationalist and it didn't feel like I was being punished..

Guess this is the "what are you playing" thread for this week.

I'm almost done with Persona 3 Reload (PC). I started playing it 5 weeks ago. I don't usually get this hooked on a game. I've put in almost 3 hours per day on average. :o

It's been a good journey. Enjoyable and satisfying. A bit too much grinding involved, given I'm playing on Hard and didn't want to super-cheese anything. But this is known as the grindy Persona game. :)

I like what they did with this remaster. They've combined some of the best elements from later games while keeping most of what made the original P3 great, and it looks and sounds good. Only thing that disappointed me a little is that "The Answer" is not included. They'll release that as a big DLC/secondary game late this year. So I'll have to pay up again. Atlus are pretty damn greedy, I've come to realize.

I played P3R last month, and I think that both its strongest and weakest point is that it's a very faithful remake. They didn't fix what wasn't broken, which is great. But the problem is, they also didn't fix what was broken. Namely:

  • There's still no definitive version of P3, even with The Answer coming out as DLC (no FeMC)
  • Tartarus was bad game design in 2006 and it hasn't gotten any better since. 263 floors of monotonous randomly generated dungeon is horrible to play through
  • The story is still very repetitive as you go through the full moon operations, and the gameplay segments there are overly short, perfunctory even

I wouldn't say I hated the game, but I do think Atlus missed the mark. People didn't clamor for a P3 remake because they wanted prettier graphics (though those never hurt), they did it because P3 has serious issues that needed a remake to fix. But Atlus chose not to address those things and just gave us a facelift.

I've finished it now. I think they hit the mark quite well. It's not the perfect Persona game, but it's a great one IMO. I only expected, and clamored for a facelift while sticking close to the original, and I got a bit more than I hoped for. Judging by the steam score, most people seem to agree. Don't really care about the lack of femc personally. Tartarus wasn't improved? It is, somewhat. At least you can control all your characters now, and there's Monad stuff, which I think is new? It's still a bit boring, but passable, and improved from the original. They couldn't have drastically changed it without making this not-P3. The need for grinding got a bit boring, but the grind was almost worse and just as gamey in some palaces in P5.

It's still a cash grab while also being a good remake. I didn't like the price they put on it. Should have been at least 10-15 lower. I'll probably be annoyed again when the Answer price is revealed. I kinda expected that part to be included in this release, to be honest, like it was in FES.

Tartarus is only tolerable because they made it faster (smaller floors, a decent sprinkling of "skip to the next floor" opportunities). And unlike in portable (the version I played before), you won't fall behind the level curve if you just go through floors as quickly as you can. But it's still bad. They really needed to cut the number of Tartarus floors in half, and give each full moon operation its own lengthy gameplay segment similar to P5 palaces. To be honest I don't really care if purists would say "but that's not P3", because it's necessary. Sometimes you have to break with the old to fix bad design.

And the point of the FeMC thing is that we are still lacking a definitive version of the game. The single biggest reason people wanted a remake was because if someone new wanted to try the game, they would go "which version do I play", and the answer was "it depends what you want". And the answer is somehow still "it depends what you want", even though they did a remake. It's just stupid. Compare this to P4 or P5, where it's easy - you play Golden/Royal, and those are the most complete versions of each game. People wanted them to do the same thing for P3 (and also to fix Tartarus), but Atlus was too faithful to fix the real glaring problems P3 has.

On the pricing of the answer, the three waves of DLC cost $35 all together. If we assume that the music pack and the costume pack will cost $5 each, that means the answer will cost something like $25 on its own. So now you're talking $95 to get the full story, which is.. not good. I'm not super upset because I knew damn well there's going to be another P3R version with all the content (and maybe finally FeMC) in 5-6 years, so I used game pass to play it. But if I had spent $70 and then needed to pay another $25ish to get the full story, I would be pretty mad.

I guess I don't currently feel that a definite version has to include FeMC. Maybe if I were a woman or someone who had played and loved P3P as FeMC I would share your opinion, but I'm not, and I haven't. As for Tartarus, getting through the levels of each block once didn't take very long, and the gatekeepers along the way were somewhat fun. I liked the full moon fights. It's the grinding of needing (at least on Hard) to go through the Tartarus levels over and over to gain XP and spawn gold hands to get money/gems that got too gamey and grindy for me.

I paid nearly full price via a key site to have it on Steam, and I didn't like that, but I'm Atlus' favorite type of sucker, someone who gets so much joy out of the Persona experience that I pay full price on day 1 to own it and be able to replay it whenever instead of just using Game Pass... I was miffed again at finding out I have to pay for The Answer too - if it's worth playing? If it's just combat and no life sim, I'm not overly interested.

For me, a definitive edition needs to have all the previous content. I haven't played FeMC (because P3P recommends you do the male route for your first time, and after that I had zero desire to ever play again), but it does exist so I think it has to be there to have a definitive version of the game.

As far as the answer goes, I haven't played it (because it wasn't in portable), but my understanding is that there's zero life sim. It's just a Tartarus-like dungeon and a story. I watched a video with all the story scenes and I remember it being 2-3 hours, so pretty light on story too. Who knows what they'll do for P3R, though.

I've also been working through P3R, though I've been interrupting my routine a bit to make some progress in TOTK as well. I'm mid-September in Persona, just pushed to the first border floor in Tziah. I've previously played a bit of Portable, which I kinda bounced off of once I reached Arqa and got roflstomped, and FES, which I played through to the Priestess fight like a week before Reload was announced.

It's kinda funny that 5 (or 5 Royal specifically I suppose) is the best Persona game mechanically (in my mind anyway), but that as I play backwards through the older games I feel like the PThieves are the least interesting characters. I feel like 3 and 4 have the group dynamics nailed down better. Plus Koromaru > Sparkly Bishie Teddie > Teddie >>>>>>>>> Morgana, you can't change my mind on the animal/mascot party member tier list. I am very grateful that they brought Baton Pass Shift over from 5, not having it in Golden was a bit of a learning curve. It doesn't feel like as much of a crutch as it could be in 5, but that could just be that I got gud somewhere along the line.

Hmmm I don't really have a direction here. Anyway, I've seen some out-of-context clips of later game fights (Jin) that seem to happen in January, so hopefully I'll have enough time slots to max Yukari/Fuuka/Mitsuru and all that. Still need one more Academics rank to even start Mitsuru though.

Romance picks per game, first playthrough:

  • 5: Makoto
  • 5R: Hifumi
  • 4G: Yukiko
  • 3R: Yuko

My partner says I have a type. She might be onto something.

I'd like to see The Answer in P3R, I've heard it's great. Maybe when if they release FeMC.

Some unsolicited advice: Prioritize the social links that have to be done from school. School is closed for quite a few days, especially towards the end of the game. Holidays etc. Leave the always/nearly always available links for last in terms of maxing. I made this mistake and now I'm around 5-7 days short of maxing all social links before ending the game. ;( Unlike in 5, there's a (small) reward for maxing all links in this game. Don't start efforting by looking up guides though, that'll just make the game less fun.

I agree that 5 Royal is excellent mechanics wise. And I agree that the PThieves characters are weaker. Especially Ann and Ryuji. I got tired of their low IQ whining pretty quick. 4 has great characters/group of friends vibe. And I really like most of the ones in 3 too.

Hmm, Yukari isn't very similar to Makoto, Hifumi, Yukiko, IMO... I don't like Yukari, but I like all the others in your "type". Mitsuru is the queen babe in 3R though! :D Btw you can't start her link before mid November. So you have plenty of time to max Academics.

I think you've got a wire crossed: Yuko is the sports club manager, Yukari definitely isn't my type. 😛

Good to know about Mitsuru's time frame, that makes me feel better about putting off Academics. My partner is probably gonna be a bit annoyed that it's so far into the game though, she's been simping for Mitsuru since Anime Expo.

Re. P5, I just think there's not much by way of group chemistry, though I could just be biased by how much Morgana makes me cringe. I didn't have this problem on my first playthrough of OG 5, but it started to grate on ng+ and especially after I played 4. I don't even mind Ann and Ryuji being dumb since at least the other team members mostly counterbalance them. Those two meatheads are perfect for each other.

Oh whoops, I had forgotten the sports manager's name. Sorry. I just thought you had given Yukari a pet name, haha. Yuko is alright. I wasn't won over by her earliest interactions, but she grew on me later. I'm not able to max her though, so I kinda forgot about her. Next time! I'll probably play a NG+ before The Answer.

I wonder if we'll get a remake of P4G... It kinda sticks out now as a PS2 era game next to P3R and P5R...

t's kinda funny that 5 (or 5 Royal specifically I suppose) is the best Persona game mechanically (in my mind anyway), but that as I play backwards through the older games I feel like the PThieves are the least interesting characters. I feel like 3 and 4 have the group dynamics nailed down better. Plus Koromaru > Sparkly Bishie Teddie > Teddie >>>>>>>>> Morgana, you can't change my mind on the animal/mascot party member tier list. I am very grateful that they brought Baton Pass Shift over from 5, not having it in Golden was a bit of a learning curve.

Interesting, I've only played 3 & 4, and I'd compare 4 to 3 like how you compared 5 to 4/3 - mechanically, 4 Golden was basically the perfection of the 3/4 gameplay formula, but it was hampered by the fact that the characters just weren't as good as in 3. I also preferred the darker tone and themes of 3, though perhaps the story is mostly a wash, since 3 kinda dragged in the 2nd half while 4 had solid pacing with its murder mysteries throughout.

Kinda sad to hear that P3R suffered from being too close to the source material, according to a lot of people. It really would've been great if it had combined the best of the gameplay the series had to offer with the best of the characters and perhaps tightened up the story. But perhaps the exclusion of FeMC and the Answer portion from FES was a sign that this was more of a cash grab than an attempt to create the definitive version of the game (obviously any remake is a cash grab, but there's a spectrum).

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