Vidya Games Thread

[UberSoldat]

A digital con for strategy game lovers, here's the lineup.

TactiCon 2023 - Selected Games

www.tacticon.games

Takes place July 18th - 22nd. Among the included games are Tempest Rising, Songs of Conquest, Rogue Trader and Pathfinder

 

[MrProcessor]

I wonder if he'll be friends with me...

 

[ScarletCorrupt]

I wonder if he'll be friends with me...

I'm sure you'll be fast friends. He looks like he'll give you a very... warm welcome

---

Spoiler: DLC Spoilers

Spoiler: Seriously, I can't give specifics so this might spoil something for you. I'm many hours in so far.

Spoiler: Don't say I didn't warn you.

I just spent the last 40 minutes getting my ass beat by a Death Rite Bird... I'm so rusty lmao. This fight is clearly way deeper into the DLC than I'm supposed to be right now. In any case, the area leading up was incredible. That size of that fucking dragon was insane... I also took down the boss in Belurat. Absolutely incredible fight. It was tricky at first with how odd the movement is, but once I got the patterns down? Oh man... so much fun.

Just fought a boss named Death Knight. HOLY HELL does he hit hard. Parried his ass to death though, that felt amazing. Dude has an absolutely killer move, if you know you know.

I hope you guys enjoy the DLC. They knocked it out of the park with what I've played so far, I'm falling in love with this game all over again.

 

[reinigen]

I wonder if he'll be friends with me...

Nice screenshot *squits* NoScope BigTitLover69.

 

[God's Strongest Dragoon]

Spoiler: DLC spoilers

Just fought a boss named Death Knight. HOLY HELL does he hit hard. Parried his ass to death though, that felt amazing. Dude has an absolutely killer move, if you know you know.

Spoiler: DLC spoilers for Castle Ensis and Fog Rift Catacombs

Yeah, DK is pretty cool but he's very vulnerable to heavies. The main issue I'm having with the DLC, which was what really annoyed me about the base game Elden Ring overall, is that some bosses just have stupidly long combo chains while they cover the entire arena. It's like they designed some of these bosses with Sekiro in mind but forget that you're dealing with sluggish Dark Souls dodging.

Add in the fact that enemy damage and health is absolutely fucked until you get a lot of the fragments and it's just dumb. I gave up on the boss in Castle Ensis and decided I'll do it later when I have more fragments because her moveset is easily one of the obnoxious I've seen.

 

[ScarletCorrupt]

Spoiler: DLC spoilers for Castle Ensis and Fog Rift Catacombs

Yeah, DK is pretty cool but he's very vulnerable to heavies. The main issue I'm having with the DLC, which was what really annoyed me about the base game Elden Ring overall, is that some bosses just have stupidly long combo chains while they cover the entire arena. It's like they designed some of these bosses with Sekiro in mind but forget that you're dealing with sluggish Dark Souls dodging.

Add in the fact that enemy damage and health is absolutely fucked until you get a lot of the fragments and it's just dumb. I gave up on the boss in Castle Ensis and decided I'll do it later when I have more fragments because her moveset is easily one of the obnoxious I've seen.

Spoiler: Dlc Spoilers for Castle Ensis

Yeah I'm not the biggest fan of the fragment scaling stuff. Just seems a bit odd to layer it on top of levels. I actually just got over to her earlier tonight and she whooped my ass for a good few hours. I'm too stubborn to leave a boss alive so I just bashed my head against the wall til she fell. Frustrating as hell to fight with the combos at first, but damn does it feel good when they finally click in your head. I will say though, her most egregious move is the Dancer of the Boreal Valley-esque spinning slashes, that was a fucking nightmare to dodge. I think I only managed to a few times.

 

[MrProcessor]

This sword is pretty fun. If you two hand it, it turns into two swords. It has a nice moveset and I think the horn calling weapon art is pretty cool. However, it's not an over powered weapon. The horns do stagger damage but it takes a while to build up. I've upgraded to the next highest level with Somber Smithing Stones (Didn't want to use an Ancient Dragon Somber Smithing Stone on it).

 

[Ballpark_Look]

There was a post in the General Thread about what MiHoyo does with all the gacha money other than make more gacha. Well this news reemerged and MiHoyo *checks notes* invests in nuclear reactors.

 

[A Source Filmmaker]

Context: the devs were supposed to add the migration system to the isle, in update 6, to which users were pointing out. The players then got gaslit.

Dondi, the Isle game's developer, deserves a thread in KF. He's basically been dubbed "Yandere Sim dev, but for dinosaurs".

 

[PleaseCheckYourReceipts]

There was a post in the General Thread about what MiHoyo does with all the gacha money other than make more gacha. Well this news reemerged and MiHoyo *checks notes* invests in nuclear reactors.

While interesting, reality is that Fusion needs billions. The problem is containment has to be actively managed. Since it's high speed reactions, that requires happening at the design stage. It's hard. Really, really hard. Also, it'd basically end half of the other energy supplier types, which is why there will always be a lot of friction.

 

[Awoogers]

There was a post in the General Thread about what MiHoyo does with all the gacha money other than make more gacha. Well this news reemerged and MiHoyo *checks notes* invests in nuclear reactors.

Ah yes the sequel to genshin impact

Nuclear impact

 

[God's Strongest Dragoon]

Planned on collecting sneedtree fragments so I wouldn't be nerfed too much as I only had a blessing of 3 and had 1 fragment on me. After spending a few hours of playing, I got zero fragments until the last 10mins where there was 3 of them right next to each other. That got me to blessing 5 and now my damage and damage negation substantially higher and I dumpstered Rellana on my first attempt. This leveling system is fucking awful.

 

[IdenticalPlateaus]

This leveling system is fucking awful.

It will be interesting how opinions develop on it. Eventually repeat players will know where they are and it'll be like how people can rush +10 Bloodhound Fang in the base game. Whether it's fun/good or not it seems like it achieves it's purpose. It forces exploration in the DLC so people can't run through it with their endgame builds and stops base game threats like Malenia from being trivialised by DLC power creep.

I'm glad they are still trying new stuff, I wonder what their next souls like will do. This borrowed power system, horizontal progression or maybe a linear approach where the DLC carries on after the main game so none of the power creep matters. I wish Sekiro got DLC that did the latter, how linear it was gave it the tightest balance design of all the games.

 

[God's Strongest Dragoon]

It will be interesting how opinions develop on it. Eventually repeat players will know where they are and it'll be like how people can rush +10 Bloodhound Fang in the base game. Whether it's fun/good or not it seems like it achieves it's purpose. It forces exploration in the DLC so people can't run through it with their endgame builds and stops base game threats like Malenia from being trivialised by DLC power creep.

I'm glad they are still trying new stuff, I wonder what their next souls like will do. This borrowed power system, horizontal progression or maybe a linear approach where the DLC carries on after the main game so none of the power creep matters. I wish Sekiro got DLC that did the latter, how linear it was gave it the tightest balance design of all the games.

My major issue is the distribution/placement of the fragments. If they were tied to things like Sites of Grace to make them more consistently rewarded for exploring as opposed to "oops, there's no fragments in this are of the map so you've spent hours not getting stronger", this would be much more tolerable. Couple with how rough the game is at fragment level 0-3 and it's just ass. I'm probably just going to play the rest of the DLC with a map of the fragment locations on a second monitor because it's such a core thing to the gameplay that it's stupid as fuck.

 

[IdenticalPlateaus]

My major issue is the distribution/placement of the fragments. If they were tied to things like Sites of Grace to make them more consistently rewarded for exploring as opposed to "oops, there's no fragments in this are of the map so you've spent hours not getting stronger." Couple with how rough the game is at fragment level 0-3 and it's just ass. I'm probably just going to play the rest of the DLC with a map of the fragment locations on a second monitor because it's such a core thing to the gameplay that it's stupid as fuck.

Maybe they should have taken Sekiro's boss soul power-up formula and have them drop with every boss? Maybe more for major bosses? There are 50 SF and 25 RSA so if you scattered them across all the named fights that would actually work out pretty nicely.

Spoiler: My Experience, Castle Enis / Jagged Peak

DLC has been fun after I realised that if I hit a wall I need to divert. I ended up killing Bayle pretty early, visually cool but I felt like he fell short in regards to being the ultimate dragon. Rellana's second phase reminded me of my first Dark Souls 3 playthrough where I didn't realise Vigor was important, PTSD from getting oneshot by a glancing hit from Pontiff Sulyvahn's twin swords.

I think my favourite little moment so far was in the first area in the southern end. Hearing the birds sound off like they are alerting something so I crouched in the shrubs, then the hunter beast-guy comes along. Kino hunter becomes hunted moment that gives the player enough info to prevent an ambush.

 

[Zizara]

My major issue is the distribution/placement of the fragments. If they were tied to things like Sites of Grace to make them more consistently rewarded for exploring as opposed to "oops, there's no fragments in this are of the map so you've spent hours not getting stronger", this would be much more tolerable. Couple with how rough the game is at fragment level 0-3 and it's just ass. I'm probably just going to play the rest of the DLC with a map of the fragment locations on a second monitor because it's such a core thing to the gameplay that it's stupid as fuck.

I'm not looking forward to repeat playthroughs having to drop what I'm doing and go on a world tour collecting the same mcguffins yet again so I can have a decent fight, either. Being forced to explore is fine the first time, but the fourth? Just let me grab the things I want and get to the parts I'm interested in. Fragments feel like added tedium and an artificial difficulty padding mechanic to me.

 

[Thomas Talus]

I'm not looking forward to repeat playthroughs having to drop what I'm doing and go on a world tour collecting the same mcguffins yet again so I can have a decent fight, either. Being forced to explore is fine the first time, but the fourth? Just let me grab the things I want and get to the parts I'm interested in. Fragments feel like added tedium and an artificial difficulty padding mechanic to me.

You have to do that in the base game with seeds and tears.

 

[UberSoldat]

 

[ScarletCorrupt]

Does anyone know how many remembrance bosses there are in the DLC? I heard the number 10 thrown around, but that seems like a lot. And on the topic of the upgrade system, the distribution is my issue as well. I recognize the benefits of having separate scaling, but they could have dished out the power in a better way.

Spoiler: DLC spoilers for Darklight Catacombs

This summoner boss is the Dark Souls 2 of Elden Ring bosses, fucking hell. Picked up Death Knight armor in there though, so not all bad.

Spoiler: additional spoilers for shadow keep, ruins of unte and fog rift catacombs

Not gonna lie, finding the illusory wall in the Shadow Keep was pretty fucking cool, man. And seeing the classic chest in Ruins of Unte? That was nice, but it's a shame it wasn't a mimic. The payoff of the Stone-Sheathed Sword was really cool as well, glad they did something with that instead of it just being a neat lore item.

Spoiler: Forsaken Graveyard and beyond spoiler

I noticed an enemy in the distance, and made a comment about it reminding me of Winter Lanterns from Bloodborne. Especially after reading those dev messages on the ground. Not 5 minutes later I pick up a 'Winter-Lantern Fly'. They really nailed this area, this has incredible atmosphere. Okay yeah this area is cool as fuck.

 

[Ginkgo Balboa 🌾🗡]

So, uh, do you guys think there will be another Elden Ring DLC?

I got spoiled on some story stuff, and with some of the gameplay changes I'm reading... I ain't paying 40 bucks for this.