Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2025-11-25, 17:49:

Currently playing Dark Souls 2. I got the "DX9 bundle" on Steam, which (I think) includes the original version of the game and a […]
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Currently playing Dark Souls 2. I got the "DX9 bundle" on Steam, which (I think) includes the original version of the game and all of its DLC. I'm only a few of hours in, so here are some first impressions.

The controls feel "floaty" for lack of a better word, and don't seem to be as precise as in DS1. I also had to turn off all the "helpful" lock on assists. For some reason, those were enabled by default, which made me nauseous due to the way this "assist" jerks the camera around. I never used lock on in DS1, but this game seems to really want me to. No thanks.

There are more bonfires around, but you only get one healing flask at the start, and need to use other, non-replenishable consumables when that runs out. Feels kinda weird. On the plus side, fast travel between bonfires is unlocked right from the get go, which is nice. Oddly, weapons seem to degrade much faster in this game, and their overall durability seems to have been lowered. I hope this doesn't turn into a micro management thing, where you need to constantly swap weapons, because I really disliked that in Doom Eternal.

Anyway, I just beat the first boss, that stone giant thing. Movement still feels weird with these new controls, but I managed somehow. Got a bunch of souls as a reward, so I upgraded my weapon a bit, and put some points into that adaptability stat, which supposedly improves dodging. I hope this works out, because it still feels kinda clunky, and I'm not sure if it's due to the altered controls or something else. Lastly, despite all of the little differences, Dark Souls 2 still mostly plays like its predecessor, which is good. Maybe I just need more time to get used to the changes.

The controls are indeed clunky for the PC version, but they can be easily fixed to feel just like Dark Souls:
https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Dark_Souls_ … roller_deadzone
(I really recommend this, as I consider the clunky controls a result of a poor PC port... the console versions did not play like this.)

Durability is definitely much more of an issue in this one. Hitting walls and other objects also drains durability, so you want to be careful swinging your weapon around. There are also certain objects that emit a corrosive cloud that quickly drains durability, though you might not have run into those yet (you'll know when it happens and figure out what to look for). Most importantly, striking corpses with your weapon drains durability, even more so than hitting living enemies!

Having said that, durability is honestly never much of a problem, since resting at bonfires restores it and there are so many bonfires all throughout the game. The game warns before something breaks, so you have plenty of time to use a repair powder and restore some durability. Still, it's a good idea to carry a couple of weapons just in case.

newtmonkey wrote on 2025-11-26, 01:44:

The controls are indeed clunky for the PC version, but they can be easily fixed to feel just like Dark Souls:
https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Dark_Souls_ … roller_deadzone
(I really recommend this, as I consider the clunky controls a result of a poor PC port... the console versions did not play like this.)

Looking at that guide, it seems to be based on a Steam forum post from 2017. The names of certain controller settings have changed since then, but I think I managed to make the adjustments as instructed.

Still doesn't feel quite like Dark Souls 1, but it's a bit better than before.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2025-11-26, 09:56:

Looking at that guide, it seems to be based on a Steam forum post from 2017. The names of certain controller settings have changed since then, but I think I managed to make the adjustments as instructed.

Still doesn't feel quite like Dark Souls 1, but it's a bit better than before.

I haven't used the Steam Input method (didn't even know this was possible!), but had good luck with the Durazno XInput Wrapper. You might want to give that a try, too, and see if it feels any better.

I haven't gotten around to actually completing The Witcher (paused it at the beginning of Chapter 5 - the final one). Moved to some casual play - Toonstruck and Bejeweled 3.

newtmonkey wrote on 2025-11-26, 10:10:

I haven't used the Steam Input method (didn't even know this was possible!), but had good luck with the Durazno XInput Wrapper. You might want to give that a try, too, and see if it feels any better.

Yup, the Durazno wrapper worked fine, and the controls now feel much better. Thanks!

dr_st wrote on 2025-11-26, 10:19:

I haven't gotten around to actually completing The Witcher

I paused my Witcher 1 playthrough circa 2009 and haven't gotten back to it yet - I did really enjoy that game though, particularly the atmosphere. I think the backtracking got to me in the end.

I'm still working away on Eschalon Book I and am finding it quite compelling. I love the exploration and quirky little quests. The combat though is quite tedious - there's zero skill involved, it's just click, dice roll, click, dice roll. I confess to an outrageous amount of save scumming just to get it over with, get the XP, and move on to the fun stuff. Actually I'm save scumming every random event - lockpicking, random encounters while resting, etc. I'll be interested to see if they've improved that aspect of the game in Book II.

Anyway, overall it's a very cohesive and charming little CRPG.

badmojo wrote on 2025-11-25, 22:04:

megatron-uk wrote on 2025-11-25, 18:15:

Pillars of Eternity.

I have this in my library but am holding off trying it until the turn based patch is released.

I believe it already has been?

appiah4 wrote on 2025-11-26, 14:24:

I believe it already has been?

Just beta for now I think, I'll wait for v1.0.

Continuing with Dark Souls 2. I found a Ring of Restoration which slowly regenerates health. This seems pretty useful, considering the lower amount of healing flasks in this game, though I did manage to locate three more shards in the meantime. I also got some pretty nice armor pieces while farming those turtle enemies, and a Bastard Sword from one of the knights. The latter feels almost like the Claymore from DS1, so I'm already liking it a lot.

On the flip side, the cumulative health reduction upon death which DS2 added is kinda annoying. Those effigy things that revert it aren't super common, at least so far. Also, it's odd that enemies stop respawning at some point. Not sure what exactly triggers this, but I apparently "farmed out" a few areas already. Pretty weird, since this game increased the number of attributes that you can level, so you really want all the souls that you can get. Sometimes, I feel like I'm spreading my hard earned points all over the place, just to be able to dodge properly and wear decent armor.

Afterwards, it was time for the Pursuer boss fight, and that was a huge spike in difficulty. Didn't expect such a fast, hard hitting enemy as the second boss. I died at least 5-6 times while trying to figure out a good strategy. Ultimately, I went with what I used against Artorias in DS1: get the best possible shield, avoid the heavy strikes, block the light ones, and then attack. Worked pretty well actually, but I was still doing very little damage to him. That was until I understood that those ballistas aren't just decorations, and can actually be used. Through a combination of luck and perseverance, I got the boss in the path of one of the ballistas and just kept shooting. Yeah, he dropped in like 3 seconds. A bit anticlimactic, but that's how it went.

megatron-uk wrote on 2025-11-25, 18:15:

Pillars of Eternity. […]
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Pillars of Eternity.

I bought this on GOG when it first came out, but really didn't play much of it at the time.

Started it again a couple of weeks ago and decided to take a break from my usual Paladin-approach in crpg's. This time I've approached it as an offensive Spellcaster... started off very squishy and fragile, but on eventually recruiting a full party of adventurers and getting a few levels (about lvl 7 currently) he is now dealing huge damage. Focussing on aoe attacks and having picked up some gear that gives free spells as well as some of the skills that give additional uses per level he is now churning out waves and waves of damage between rests.

Artwork is beautiful, as it always was, and I'm finally getting a little deeper into the story.

Love it.

Up after that is PoE II.

I'm glad to hear you're enjoying this! This one took me a few tries to finally get into it, but once it did, I was hooked! Massive game... it ended up taking me 88 hours to do everything I could find in it.

I also liked the sequel, though not as much. Tyranny is another good game that plays similarly, if you haven't played that, though it's smaller and more focused on story than the PoE games.

I've been playing through Morrowind again lately, this time using OpenMW and it runs nicely on my Win 11 gaming machine.

Of course as usual I have become the in game trash lord and collected far too much junk.

newtmonkey wrote on 2025-11-27, 16:25:

megatron-uk wrote on 2025-11-25, 18:15:

Pillars of Eternity. […]
Show full quote

Pillars of Eternity.

I bought this on GOG when it first came out, but really didn't play much of it at the time.

Started it again a couple of weeks ago and decided to take a break from my usual Paladin-approach in crpg's. This time I've approached it as an offensive Spellcaster... started off very squishy and fragile, but on eventually recruiting a full party of adventurers and getting a few levels (about lvl 7 currently) he is now dealing huge damage. Focussing on aoe attacks and having picked up some gear that gives free spells as well as some of the skills that give additional uses per level he is now churning out waves and waves of damage between rests.

Artwork is beautiful, as it always was, and I'm finally getting a little deeper into the story.

Love it.

Up after that is PoE II.

I'm glad to hear you're enjoying this! This one took me a few tries to finally get into it, but once it did, I was hooked! Massive game... it ended up taking me 88 hours to do everything I could find in it.

I also liked the sequel, though not as much. Tyranny is another good game that plays similarly, if you haven't played that, though it's smaller and more focused on story than the PoE games.

Yes, really enjoying it. Last night my party stormed the lord of the Gilded Vales castle and put him to death for what he had done to his niece - that is some seriously dark stuff there, after we found the missing girl under Dyrwood. Turned out she wasn't missing after all, and had signed up with some cultists to take revenge on her uncle. Sadly I couldn't agree with letting her murder the entire bloodline (we all have limits!), so I took on the role of judge and jury myself.

I've been sweeping up every single side quest I can, so I was fairly high level (mostly a party of lvl 10 or 11 - two offensive wizards, a barbarian, paladin, priest and a ranger) and decked out with upgraded, exotic weapons by the time I started this, so his entire personal guard and priests didn't stand much of a chance.

Tyranny and Torment Tides of Numenera are on my list after PoE II Deadfire.

I played some fallout 3 - point lookout dlc. I have played that before a couple of times. I like the main story and Desmond, and i enjoyed the velvet curtain side quest -but really the rest of it is kinda meh for me. The swampfolk are just silly / dull and the other locations and side quests too sparse and superficial to really get into. It's still good, but just not that good. The Pitt add on is a better environment / scenario in my view, and broken steel a kind of necessity and somewhat fun.

When back in the standard setting though, i still love the environment and 'feel' of it. I must just like ruined cities and wasteland environments with sparse populations of NPCs and enemies and survival elements....

gerry wrote on 2025-11-28, 09:47:

I played some fallout 3 - point lookout dlc. I have played that before a couple of times. I like the main story and Desmond, and i enjoyed the velvet curtain side quest -but really the rest of it is kinda meh for me. The swampfolk are just silly / dull and the other locations and side quests too sparse and superficial to really get into. It's still good, but just not that good. The Pitt add on is a better environment / scenario in my view, and broken steel a kind of necessity and somewhat fun.

When back in the standard setting though, i still love the environment and 'feel' of it. I must just like ruined cities and wasteland environments with sparse populations of NPCs and enemies and survival elements....

I remember the first time playing it, many, many years ago and exiting the vault for the first time. The glare of the sun as it fades and your eyesight returns, to see the absolutely massive open world before you was one of those video game moments that sticks with you forever.

Kingdom Come: Deliverance II

With the holiday weekend, I've gotten a couple of extra hours of playtime in this game that I started on March 30th! Total playtime so far is ~160 hours. For the past ~20 game-play hours, I've been trying to ignore side quests because that is how I got so deep into this game. Don't get me wrong: the side quests are very entertaining and give you an opportunity to boost Henry's skills to help the main quest go more smoothly. But I'd like to finish this game in less than a year! 🤣. This morning, I just completed "The Lion's Den" quest and started the "Dancing with the Devil" main quest. I was curious how close I was to finishing the game, so I did a little googling and I'm anywhere from 75% to 80% done with the game. I saw one person estimate that about 10 gameplay hours remain. I've *never* been able to play a game in the amount of time that sites like howlongtobeat.com quote. I'm always slower. So I'm guessing another 15-20 hours of gameplay if I continue ignoring side quests. If KCD2 is anything like the first game, once the main game is beaten, I should still be able to go complete side quests and DLC.

One thing that continues to impress me about this game is how realistic the combat feels. When you level up your skills, the fights do seem to feel right for your skill level. A part of that is my own improvement in controlling combat, but I'm sure there is a bit of behind-the-scenes coding to adjust opponent skill levels to match up with Henry's player stats. In the beginning of the game, I focused more on archery because I was so terrible at melee. I had much better luck learning to aim the bow and take enemies down before they could get within melee range. I was very good at using my environment: hiding between arrow shots so the enemy didn't know where I was; attacking from above or below; head or neck shots that took them down more quickly; and using Mutt as a distraction (my dog attacks NPCs I order him to, and when they turn their back to me to face Mutt, I can then get arrows into the less well-armed back area). Another good strategy is to get an arrow into an enemy, then run away with them in chase. They eventually slow down, making it easier to get another arrow fired without them closing in. Eventually, they sometimes just bleed out, if you don't mind waiting, or are so weakened that melee then becomes much easier. But then there were several training sessions with various melee weapons (as well as skill books that you could study), and I started getting better at it. Not to mention, as you level up your skills, you gain perk points that you choose how to use. I picked perks that better represented my play-style, which helped both melee and ranged skills. Here's a few combat stats:
Enemies killed: 163
Enemies killed with bow: 67
Enemies killed with crossbow: 6
Enemies killed by headshot: 29
Arrows fired: 413
Bolts fired: 33

On average, I have fired 6 arrows/bolts per kill, and 40% of my ranged kills were by headshot. 55% of my kills are by melee, 45% by bow or crossbow. So you could say I have developed Henry into a well-rounded combatant.

More progress in Dark Souls 2. The Lost Bastille's level design wasn't really to my taste, due to all the platforming. Heck, you even fight the area boss(es) on a narrow ledge. Surprisingly, I didn't have too much trouble with that encounter, despite facing three boss enemies at once. I mostly stayed on said ledge, and engaged them one at a time. That summoned NPC helped a ton, but sadly, she didn't survive. All the souls I got here went into adaptability, as I wanted dodging to work as smoothly as possible.

Next up was Sinner's Rise, and it oddly had enemies standing next to the bonfire. This was annoying, so I farmed them until they stopped respawning. The sewer maze below was extremely challenging, with the shallow water slowing you down, the exploding mummies popping out of nowhere, and those large creatures that hit like a truck. Thankfully, the summoned NPC was a great distraction here, which helped immensely. As for the area boss, he wasn't that difficult for my melee focused character, and I somehow beat him on the first try. I then lit the special bonfire, and got a strong soul or something, according to the level up woman.

After all that trouble, I finally had enough titanite for upgrading the Bastard Sword to +5. Really digging its RT overhead attack, since enemies love running into that. Crafting materials seem harder to come by in DS2, so I'm sticking with this sword for now. I did un-petrify that mage guy who can make special weapons from boss souls, but I don't have the strength to wield those... yet. Anyway, that's two more locations down, and I'm not sure where to go next. Maybe I'll try that underground passage in the main hub area.

A few more areas cleared in Dark Souls 2. Those huge knights roaming Heide's Ruin were pretty tough, so I decided to change things up a bit. I suspected that a bigger weapon might fare better against heavy armor, so I tried out my recently acquired Large Club. And sure enough, it worked great, though its durability decreases a bit too quickly for my liking. The first area boss was also quite manageable with that weapon, and he went down without too much trouble.

However, the Old Dragonslayer in the cathedral was a different matter entirely. He looked a lot like Ornstein from DS1, and even had some of his moves. There was no summoned NPC to help me out, and I died very quickly if I got caught in one of his combos. After failing several times with my normal routine, I tried using the pillars and other obstacles for cover while dodging. Since he rarely left himself open, I needed to deal as much damage as possible with a single hit, so the Large Club worked overtime once again. Took a few more attempts, but I eventually secured a very satisfying victory.

I also saved a priestess, who then moved to the main hub, and opened a new path for me. The area behind it had some weird name, but it could have easily been called Blighttown 2.0, given how it was designed. Low visibility, narrow ledges and poison everywhere. Yeah, getting through there was a slog, and I can't really say that I enjoyed it. The boss fight wasn't particularly challenging or interesting either, just pounding a bunch of skeletons into the dust.

The next area seemed to be more of the same, so I backtracked to the Lost Bastille for a brief change of scenery. There, I used one of the lock stones and opened a path to Belfry Luna, which is a small but very challenging location. Those tiny blue enemies hit really hard, but their armor couldn't handle too much damage, so they often got knocked down by my heavy attacks. The ensuing boss fight was a nice throwback to the bell gargoyles from DS1. Only much, much more difficult, since there were multiple opponents now. Needless to say, I died many times there.

For a while, I started thinking that this area boss might be beyond my current abilities, and that maybe I needed to come back later. But I didn't give up, and ultimately found a way. I lightened my gear for improved mobility, strafed and dodged as best I could, and followed that up with a single hit whenever a gargoyle left itself open. Rinse and repeat. With my strength score now at 40, and the Large Club upgraded to +4, its two-handed RT attack deals a ton of damage. But those heavy strikes are slow, and the gargoyles are fairly nimble, so I needed to time this precisely. After a few more tries, I finally won, and it felt exhilarating! This is exactly why I've come to love the Souls games. 😄

megatron-uk wrote on 2025-11-28, 10:10:

gerry wrote on 2025-11-28, 09:47:

I played some fallout 3

I remember the first time playing it, many, many years ago and exiting the vault for the first time. The glare of the sun as it fades and your eyesight returns, to see the absolutely massive open world before you was one of those video game moments that sticks with you forever.

Ah yes, i came to it later than release year and was still wowed. maybe the original unreal has a mild but similar feel, i don't know of any other game that gets close.

Oblivion was nice, it looked wonderful, but i think fallout 3 did the whole world building from the vault so well that it aided the impression that moment gave.

Even more Dark Souls 2. While revisiting those poison infested areas, I noticed a path that I had somehow missed before, and it led me to the Undead Purgatory. The run back to its boss had many tough enemies, so I farmed them until they stopped respawning. Got a ton of souls from that, which was nice. Also, that boss was very gimmicky, though not quite as awful as the Bed of Chaos in DS1. The actual fight wasn't all that difficult, but I needed to figure out exactly what the developers wanted me to do before starting it. Not one of my favorites.

This little detour made me revisit some of the previous areas to explore them more thoroughly. And lo and behold, I stumbled upon a path to No Man's Wharf, which I completely missed the first time. I'm guessing I was supposed to come here earlier, because at my current level, I breezed through that area and the ensuing boss fight. On the plus side, I found a merchant who could actually buy things from me, but he disappeared the next time I went there. Weird. I then returned to the poison swamp area and beat Jabba the Hutt, or whatever the actual name of that thing was. One of the easiest boss fights so far.

Anyway, while I am mostly enjoying DS2, I can see now why some people don't find it as good as its predecessor. It feels like the developers went for quantity over quality here, especially with boss encounters. I mean, there's a boss around every corner now, and some of them just aren't that great. In Dark Souls 1, nearly all boss fights felt special and memorable in their own way. Here, it's kinda hit or miss.

perhaps in keeping with my liking of "ruined cities and wasteland environments with sparse populations" i played some Stalker, shadow of chernobyl - the original not enhanced. I've played it briefly before and my memory, of it being pretty difficult, is correct! and that's just the opening missions. Still, i'm guessing its a learning process, the inventory will take time to get used to - it reminds me a bit of deus ex! The environment makes it though, empty wasteland with strange anomalies, abandoned buildings and trucks, wild animals and mostly interesting NPCs.

there seem to be a million mods for this game too!