The Miscellaneous PC & vidya Games Thread

[Grey Fox]

Yeah,  it is so weird. The covid delayed game have started to come out. I think it's why we're seeing that kind of quality.

[Syt]

Yeah. It's also notable because Diablo III's launch was not exactly brilliant (connection issues, the real money auction house, shitty loot tables, the looong road to unlocking the end game .... ), and neither was Street Fighter V IIRC (very barebones in terms of characters, modes and stages).

[Syt]

Paradox announced (besides Star Trek Infinite) also Stellaris: Nexus (a turn based MP focused spin off with matches finishing under one hour):

They also announced Space Trash Scavenger, apparently a survival/crafting sandbox game?

[Syt]

Also, dev diary for the coming Dragon Lords in AOW4 (will be an additional lord option besides Champion and Wizard):

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/developer-diary/dev-diary-18-dragon-lords.1589296/

And an overview of what the Dragon Dawn content pack will have (coming June 20th):

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/dragon-dawn-content-pack-will-be-available-on-june-20th.1589297/

Age of Wonders 4: Dragon Dawn Key Features:

Dragon Rulers, a distinct new leader type, customizable from snout to tail, with unique new skills, equipment, transformations, and associated events!
Lizardfolk, a new physical appearance for your factions
Tome of Evolution, adding new units that evolve as they level, and new spells to boost all evolving units
Tome of Dragons, adding spells to summon dragons, wield the power of dragons, and become dragons!
The Ashen War, a new realm option where six mighty elder dragons are locked in

Looking forward to this, and also the balancing/QOL patch that will come alongside it: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/developer-diary/dev-diary-17-post-launch.1587996/

[Syt]

You can get an achievement if you have a human wizard leading a halfling civ.

Just finished that. I went with Barbarian haflings and focused on swarms and gave them the "destined conqueror" trait - it seems a bit bugged (you're supposed to be at war with all free cities, I think? ), but essentially turns the game into a 1 city challenge as you can't found new cities or absorb existing ones (only Outposts). With the various swarm buffs early on (spawnkin, overwhelming tactics, the buffs for T1 units ... ) the early game becomes fairly easy, and I managed to knock out 2 enemies, with another killed by the AI. Then I got bogged down fighting industrious rats, and I made the mistake of peacing out when I had them on the ropes. The other two AIs allied and started the spell for magical victory. "Clean" victory now out of reach, I threw all my excess items and gold as gifts at them to ally them so I would win through "allied victory"   

Was still a fun game.

Not sure I like how the game deals with razed cities, though. Leaving the ruins behind makes sense, and that they can be resettled. However, even in razed status, the usual restrictions apply (can't found a city/outpost right next to it) - but since I can't create new cities, the AI could come in anytime to resettle the ruins (which is not the worst, since you can reconquer the city again to get more loot), which feels kinda wrong. I control all the territory around the ruins, but can't claim control of the ruins themselves, while the AI can create a one-province city in the middle of my territory.

[FunkMonk]

Diablo IV and Street Fighter VI have come out, and both seem to be ... good?

Not really interested in either game at the moment, but it feels unusual that games in franchises come out and don't seem broken, incomplete, unfinished (though there is of course the inevitable monetization ... ).

I bought the standard version of Diablo 4 to play with my brother and honestly it's much better than I expected, and I played in one of the open betas where I was very underwhelmed by the game.

I expected a disjointed and broken mess where people couldn't log in for hours or days and instead the game is perfectly playable even on Steam Deck and log in queues are short if they happen at all. And the gameplay is much improved from the beta I played in March. The combat feels better and the decisions you have to make regarding skills and items are actually interesting during leveling.

Apparently some of the cracks in the game are slowly being revealed by more hardcore players who have already gotten through most of the content. Some game mechanics are actually completely broken, and the enemy level scaling paradoxically means that you actually feel weaker as you level up, until you get to certain breakpoints for item drops.

Blizzard have actually been very quick in implementing fixes since the betas though, so hopefully these problems are overcome soon. I expected a 6/10 game at launch and instead they've delivered something like an 8/10.

[Syt]

Oddly that's how I feel about Age of Wonders 4. I've played all previous entries in the series (not so much Planetfall), but I always was struggling with the series. I liked the setting, the factions, the world, the gameplay ... but I never managed to "git gud" and ended up more frustrated than anything else.

AoW4 clicked very quickly for me - it's much more approachable, the faction customization is fun, and the game is fairly fast paced, letting you get through a session quite quickly (compared to CK3, Stellaris, Civ .... ). It looks quite pretty, and I'm genuinely looking forward to the DLC. One of the most dangerous things I've come across is, "Let's try this idea for a faction and these map creation parameters real quick ..." and suddenly I'm 50 turns into a new map

I hope they add more schools of magic, and once there's more of them offer (optional) rules to make it you can't unlock all tomes in one playthrough (having my race become both Scion of Flame, i.e. dealing fire damage, getting fire resistance and burn immunity and frostlings - frost resistance, morale bonus on cold trrain, immunity to being frozen - feels "wrong ).

It's "a bit" unbalanced now, but the upcoming changes look to fix some of those issues.

[Josquius]

Date revealed. 24th October for Skylines 2.
I am unlikely to get it on release due to other stuff going on but I am excited for some time in the future.

[FunkMonk]

Starfeld, Sept 6th release.

[Habbaku]

There's basically no way the game will be good, right?

[Syt]

So I went and finished the last achievements of AoW4, something I normally don't do

Partly because I enjoy the game and the achievements, in general, aren't too hard but also because a balance patch scheduled for next week that might make this game harder.

(And the DLC will probably add new achievements.)

Still haven't tried out all map types. I tried a map with the "in formation" modifier where the map starts out with all desolate terrain and every turn random unclaimed provinces are converted to "normal" terrain which was rather fun, seeing the desolate map slowly take form and shape.

Small complaint - you can turn the map to ice with spells, or lush lands, or forests (actually, it's a bit op to use destructive regrowth in enemy territory to destroy their buildings and create a forest, and then use Awaken the Forest to turn the forest into a 6-stack army ), turn terrain to ash or desolation. However, while you can remove mountains with earth shatter, you can't create new mountains.

[FunkMonk]

There's basically no way the game will be good, right?

I'm inclined to agree, yeah

It is supposed to be on Game Pass at launch so I may sub for one month just to play it, then wait a year for modders to make it good.

[Syt]

Trailer for Cities: Skylines II Preorder.

I caved.

[Josquius]

Trailer for Cities: Skylines II Preorder.

[yout

I caved.

 
I gave it brief thought but saw no value in it and given its paradox probably best to ignore it a few months anyway, even if it was a free choice.

[celedhring]

The preview for that open world Star Wars game didn't look too bad. The stealth bits felt a bit Arkham asylum-ish, but that's not a terrible thing.

I hope they stick with the underworld theme and the protagonist doesn't end up joining the rebellion, or meeting jedi and such.