what kind of games do ya'll play?

29 minutes ago, SleepoBeepo said:

I still need to play Ghost of Tsushima someday. I've heard great things about it.

I reinstalled Fallout New Vegas on my PC to try out the Frontier mod and then uninstalled it after the writing was almost laughable and hard to play through with. Also once Fallout 4 got the animerace mod, I feel like I can't ever go back to default vanilla Fallout 4. Still a fun game though, especially with those settlements.

My husband took over my PS4 and got further in the game than me.  Ghost of Tsushima has some beautiful scenery and I have cried many times over the story/task completions.  So much detail in a game.  I love when games spend time on little details like footprints in the mud as you walk or petting a fox after you locate the shrine.

 

I haven't tried the Fallout mods.  I will have to check them out.

2 minutes ago, Shamrock said:

 Elder Scrolls Online (ESO) is the same, but I've also had to back away from online games due to toxic people from time to time.  I really don't mind being social, but sometimes its difficult.  DPS jobs are stressful.  I was DPS in ESO and it was just draining having to parse and farm for gear etc!   I hated having to parse. LOL.

FF XIV always looked like fun, but I'm not sure how they determine DPS and if you parse like in ESO.

Unless you’re playing high-end end game raid content, most people don’t use DPS meters. (They’re technically even against the game’s EULA, but that never stopped anyone)

Doing the story dungeons and trials (8-man boss raid) is not very stressful as DPS most of the time (in my opinion at least). And you can always watch a quick guide on how a dungeon’s boss fights work so you get the mechanics before you start the fight.

6 minutes ago, ChrisFhey said:

Unless you’re playing high-end end game raid content, most people don’t use DPS meters. (They’re technically even against the game’s EULA, but that never stopped anyone)

Doing the story dungeons and trials (8-man boss raid) is not very stressful as DPS most of the time (in my opinion at least). And you can always watch a quick guide on how a dungeon’s boss fights work so you get the mechanics before you start the fight.

That is good to know.  I will have to check it out.  Thanks!  

Is it easy to find a guild in FFXIV?

18 minutes ago, Shamrock said:

That is good to know.  I will have to check it out.  Thanks!  

Is it easy to find a guild in FFXIV?

You’re welcome. :3

I’m not sure. I mostly play as a solitary character and I only really pair up with people through the Duty finder (dungeon queue) most of the time.
But I assume it shouldn’t be too hard. You can ask around in the general chat to join a Free Company (which is what FF XIV calls guilds) when you’re in one of the city hubs.
I believe there’s also a way to apply to one through the Free Company’s profile ingame but I’m not exactly sure how that works myself.

Oh they have a dungeon queue for random playing?  Nice!  I may try it, but have to do a bit of research on how to play and get my computer updated depending on the system requirements. 

14 hours ago, Tierparkzone said:

Subnautica -

I had it on my radar for a while but never picked it up until then (wasn't sure if it would play well with a controller - and my PC is a potato, when it comes to gaming). Turns out it plays decently enough with a controller and it's lots of fun.

I got my copy of the first game off a steam sale and thought it might have been even worth the full admission after the fact... especially when you notice that there's a bit of a story element too instead of just the survival ... and also the big butt submarine build... still a bit of a shame Below Zero is a bit lackluster in comparison (starting with the PDA AI ... yes it gets more snarky as you progress, but nothing near the insult to injury motif as the first one had going on). I just keep chugging at it because base building is a lot more easier due to more lush resources ... but the locations are somehow also more bland in comparison.

 

3 hours ago, Shamrock said:

FF XIV always looked like fun, but I'm not sure how they determine DPS and if you parse like in ESO.

the DPS jobs in xiv are probably the least stressfull of the holy trinity in the game if I am honest.

However, there is a performance meter inside the game in the form of a aggro table on which you can gauge how people are doing roughly, that if things are going as they should, it should look a certain way. I dont use parsers myself, but what parses I've found of my character, the in game meter corresponds quite well to parser results (who had the best dps ammount etc.)

But its pretty mellow for the most part, as long as you are doing your base combo attacks, stay out of area of effect attack markers (a few exeptions to this, like machinists flamethrower), remember your positionals where applicable, keep your gear up to level, if you're given valid advice and listen to it, you should be fine even after around level 45 when things gets a bit more technical in terms of buttons to push.

But that said, its a game played by people, and people will be people on occasion... but as a dps you should be free from most outbursts.

but if you want to poke at it, and are also interested in the story of it, id recomend starting with the ul'dah dps jobs, because that starting city probably has the most story linked start of the three options. (and once you get to level 10 you can swap jobs freely, so no worries there if pugilist/monk or thaumaturge/Black mage isnt your cup of tea)

Edited May 20, 2021 by finnleo

53 minutes ago, finnleo said:

 

the DPS jobs in xiv are probably the least stressfull of the holy trinity in the game if I am honest.

However, there is a performance meter inside the game in the form of a aggro table on which you can gauge how people are doing roughly, that if things are going as they should, it should look a certain way. I dont use parsers myself, but what parses I've found of my character, the in game meter corresponds quite well to parser results (who had the best dps ammount etc.)

But its pretty mellow for the most part, as long as you are doing your base combo attacks, stay out of area of effect attack markers (a few exeptions to this, like machinists flamethrower), remember your positionals where applicable, keep your gear up to level, if you're given valid advice and listen to it, you should be fine even after around level 45 when things gets a bit more technical in terms of buttons to push.

But that said, its a game played by people, and people will be people on occasion... but as a dps you should be free from most outbursts.

but if you want to poke at it, and are also interested in the story of it, id recomend starting with the ul'dah dps jobs, because that starting city probably has the most story linked start of the three options. (and once you get to level 10 you can swap jobs freely, so no worries there if pugilist/monk or thaumaturge/Black mage isnt your cup of tea)

Thank you!  I'm glad one game isn't as stressful for a dps role.  I usually play High Elf-Sorc or Warden in ESO, so I would probably play the Elezen mage class... but good to know that they let you swap up to lvl 10.  Oh now I so regret not playing this game...

4 hours ago, Shamrock said:

FF XIV always looked like fun, but I'm not sure how they determine DPS and if you parse like in ESO.

I've played both, and WoW, though I've always healed. I can say though that the meta % differences in FFXIV are much smaller than in WoW (I'm not sure about current ESO), meaning you don't have to play meta to be competitive (big problem in WoW, imo, but I'm biased against playing meta.)

The only really important thing is to have a good spread for your raid group; duplicate classes will affect your groups performance poorly.

I super recommend FFXIV 

4 hours ago, ChrisFhey said:

Is it easy to find a guild in FFXIV?

Very! For social, normal raiding, most events, finding a guild is very easy in FFXIV. People here are nice and social. Finding a guild that's progging current content that has an open spot is more competitive/difficult, but that's true for nearly any mmo. You find FC's in-game.

Guilds are called Free Companies (FC) in FFXIV, if you want to Google/research.

Also, the additional social things you can do in this mmo are incredible. People have made RP cafes, dance clubs, and more in the housing districts that you visit for some fun. And many make these adorable websites and run them like proper businesses: (you don't have to be too into RP to enjoy these, I'm not an RP player but when I visit these I just place my order and have some small talk, it's so fun.)

https://snuggly-moogle-cafe.carrd.co/#menu

I love this game.

31 minutes ago, Veravey said:

I've played both, and WoW, though I've always healed. I can say though that the meta % differences in FFXIV are much smaller than in WoW (I'm not sure about current ESO), meaning you don't have to play meta to be competitive (big problem in WoW, imo, but I'm biased against playing meta.)

The only really important thing is to have a good spread for your raid group; duplicate classes will affect your groups performance poorly.

I super recommend FFXIV 

ESO is always about the meta.  I am so sick of meta and some people don't get into trials if they aren't the meta.  There are some good trials groups that don't really care as long as you know how to play your character. 

WoW always seemed cool, especially the flying mounts. 

Yeah FFXIV sounds great.  😀  Definitely sounds like a better pace than ESO.  I mean ESO you can do stuff in the story and other things without interacting with people.  I think aside from toxic people, I got burnt out from the same old grinding to the next level etc.  I felt like it was a chore and stopped having fun.

41 minutes ago, Shamrock said:

I am so sick of meta and some people don't get into trials if they aren't the meta.

Again I personally dont do end-game savage raiding in 14, so this opinion is from such perspective, and based on some stuff read on reddit (which isnt the best place on occasion, but still...)

There are going to be sticklers also in FFXIV that will look at a "meta" chart for group composition, but again this is a people being people thing -- the thing with XIV is that its still built with the concept that all jobs are viable for end game stuff. This may change a little with the next expansion, or maybe just be emphasized with the upcoming distinction of Pure healers, and Shielders -- but nothing really new under the sun even now... like if you have anything else than a white mage doing their expected holybombing in current end game dungeons, you know to be on slightly better behaviour in terms of AoE's.

And also there seems to be a general concensus that its not really what job you play, but how you play it ... I personally recall a warm fuzzy moment when I had a Copied factory (one of the latest 24-man raids) run a few months ago, where our alliance DPS composition was four machinists (me included) and one summoner... and said summoner made a equivalent of a "Your mama" joke to us gunrunners given the peculiar setup ... resulting in me and one and a half of the group proceding to out dps them, which in "meta" shouldnt happen.

Also leveling your first job in FFXIV is mainly done through the Main scenario story ... which can be a big selling point, or a not -- the base game up to heavensward has been received with mixed results ... there used to be the legendary 200 quest slog between the end of the base game and heavensward, which has now been truncated a bit. so something to keep in mind. But heavensward is where most people agree the story starts picking up.

55 minutes ago, Shamrock said:

flying mounts. 

Flying mounts? .... well.. there's this:

The collaboration is incidently coming back soon this summer, though you needed to be level 50 to participate in it.

also 14 recently got a quality of life improvement where the old areas gained flight ability for mounts where previously they couldnt (residential areas are still grounded, which is a bit of a shame in some ways).

One caveat with the free-companies though is that if you go the free trial route, which includes everything up to the end of heavensward, you cant join FC's. But if you know someone personally on a datacenter world, they can still party up with you (its weird, you cant make parties, but you can be offered to join one) to help with progression to a degree.

but despite this the free trial is appealing since there is quite a lot of story between the start and the beginning of stormblood, which will take a good chunk of time to waddle through, so something to keep in mind also since it will take a good chunk of time to get there, and time costs in this game unfortunately.

1 hour ago, Shamrock said:

Yeah FFXIV sounds great.  😀  Definitely sounds like a better pace than ESO.  I mean ESO you can do stuff in the story and other things without interacting with people.  I think aside from toxic people, I got burnt out from the same old grinding to the next level etc.  I felt like it was a chore and stopped having fun.

One thing I've always liked in FF XIV compared to WoW is that the combat pace is a bit slower and less chaotic. There's a longer global cooldown on skills which gives you just enough breathing room for you to think about what to do next and for you to be aware of directional and AoE attacks. (You'll be doing a lot of moving out of area attacks in FF XIV 😛)

And like finnleo said, you can switch jobs past a certain point (I don't remember if it was from lvl 10 exactly, or you needed to do a certain quest for it). The best part of this system is that you can max every job in the game on the same character, so if you're with a gang of friends and they're lacking a healer job in their party, you can join them as a healer if you've leveled that job etc.

I think the only downside to this system is that you won't be able to level the additional jobs using story quests, and you'll have to do a bit of grinding be it using Dungeons (which is easiest if you're a tank or healer, due to short queues) or by doing Fates (which are open world encounters that spawn at certain times and have you deal with an objective like gather X or kill X)
FFXIV does have the Duty Finder I mentioned earlier, and this also includes a duty roulette which has a dedicated leveling roulette (and some others) which will put you in a random dungeon and will give you an additional exp boost upon clearing it, so that'll help too.

I also agree that the story is not that great until you get to the first expansion (although it's still better than average in my opinion). The best story was in the most recent expansion though (Shadowbringers). So if you like story driven games, you'll probably like FF XIV as well.

Thank you finnleo and ChrisFhey! 😀

I hadn't realized there was a collab with FF15.  Very nice!

 

2 hours ago, ChrisFhey said:

 

And like finnleo said, you can switch jobs past a certain point (I don't remember if it was from lvl 10 exactly, or you needed to do a certain quest for it). The best part of this system is that you can max every job in the game on the same character, so if you're with a gang of friends and they're lacking a healer job in their party, you can join them as a healer if you've leveled that job etc.

 

That's good to know about leveling.  I am glad you can switch jobs on the same character. 

No worries. :3

They do collabs every now and then when new games release. There was also a FF XIII - Lightning Returns collab back when that released, and there have been several others, too.

There's even a major Nier Automata collab in the form of an entire side-story coupled with some Nier Automata themed 24-man raids in the game, which allow you to unlock 2B's outfit and other Nier Automata themed garments.

ditto...

and remember that even the more serious efforts have the occasional roadblock to overcome: (Warning for profanity in the end climax ...)

(Context: Alexander A3S was a real hurdle for savage raiders back when it was current content, I wasnt yet playing the game but people I knew online were a bit vocal about it...)

Also, if things get too serious after hitting level 50 ... There's always the one chaotic thing that survived the 1.0 nuke ... Hildibrand:

 

... And not linking any denmo stuff since the mr face stuff might be a bit too ... strong (pun partially intended)

43 minutes ago, finnleo said:

Hildibrand

These are my favourite quests in the entirety of FFXIV. 😄

 

11 hours ago, finnleo said:

Also, if things get too serious after hitting level 50 ... There's always the one chaotic thing that survived the 1.0 nuke ... Hildibrand

 

 

Definitely hilarious and I like when there is a change of pace and GREEN CHICKENS!  Now I'm gonna wonder if you hit the chicken a swarm of chickens come after you like in Legend of Zelda...

A bit topic spam, but patch day was patch day ... and also new emote day:

ffxiv_25052021_175247_927

On a side note the Nier Automata collaboration ending was a bit ... weird, although that shouldnt be that big of a surprise ... though again it would seem the decisions of the players in the questline decided the ending, with a stat displayed on each world.

Spoiler

And another pair of redhead twins/siblings ... taro seems to have a thing for these...

 

Montly update time I suppose ...

the MMO side got a tad boring while waiting for moar content, so I snagged Mr. Prepper off steam awhile back, and was entertained with the dark humor to degree ...

But what really has me hooked, bait, line and sinker is Deep Space Shipbreaker -- which even though is still in early access, shouldnt be as entertaining as it is -- rather extreme Future corporate dystopia included ... though I suppose once I learn to strip down a fully loaded Mackerell in under ten minutes I might have other thoughts, but for now its been a hoot.

I've been really into Genshin Impact for the past couple months...😆 I really was surprised by how much there is to do as a new player and it kept me quite busy. I like games with a lot of exploration and treasures to find like BOTW. I've since caught up with all the current content though(except Spiral Abyss, which I somehow manage to fail at even with characters like Zhongli, Venti, Xiao, and Sucrose) so now I'm waiting for the release of Inazuma like a lot of other people.

I finally finished the PS2 Ace Combat Trilogy over the course of the month (I've been busy.)

 

AC4 was incredibly good, and I felt bad by the ending.

Ace Combat 5 was also really good. The feeling of unity was absolutely beautiful.

Ace Combat Zero was incredible and I was screaming by the end with literal mid-air jousting as a boss fight.

 

All in all, I think I've become an Ace Combat fanboy. Though now I need a break, and I've gone back to play some Halo in preparation for Halo Infinite.

On 6/23/2021 at 9:52 PM, Noxxbunny said:

I've been really into Genshin Impact for the past couple months...😆 I really was surprised by how much there is to do as a new player and it kept me quite busy. I like games with a lot of exploration and treasures to find like BOTW. I've since caught up with all the current content though(except Spiral Abyss, which I somehow manage to fail at even with characters like Zhongli, Venti, Xiao, and Sucrose) so now I'm waiting for the release of Inazuma like a lot of other people.

Spyral abyss is doable up to floor 9 when you have some of the characters at level 90. After floor 9 it just becomes instant death. 

My teams for the floors that have halves is:
Xiao (90), Xinyan/Hu Tao (84/70), Zhongli (85), Diona (70, healer)
Kazuha (85), Childe (for pyro halves, 85) / Keqing (for hydro halves), Xinyan (for cryo halves, then first half has hu tao) / That hydro kid that has a crush on Chongyun who I forgot the name of. (if pyro half), Jean (healer)

It's basically having one that can do A LOT of damage, one that can break shields, one as either damage backup or shield break backup and a healer. Then it is more doable. 

I'm currently mostly waiting for the cross save between PS4 and PC xD PS4 can be frustrating at times. Especially because I play together with friends and I can't play if I am not at home. Inazuma will be epic though, I'll definitely be trying for Ayaka. 

In a bit of one thing leading to another... was playing Taiko no tatsujin, grabbed "Onegai Cinderella" from the DLC store ... started rewatching the Cinderella girls anime ... then noticing it actually did have "Onegai Cinderella" in the first ep ... ended up on youtube watching the different solo's from the game ... and then winding up dusting off Platinum stars again, and after quite a slog (since cash-shop booster items arent available outside japan) of grinding some songs I only think were so-so ... I have the whole gang together:

アイドルマスター プラチナスターズ_20210721174253

And yes, I left Haruka for last ... while I started out with Ritsuko originally -- and overall its been a vanilla flavored experience... but thats still nice every now and then.

now after the fact Its a bit weird that they didnt do the boxart Twinkle star outfit for the rest of the bodystyles apart for DDP ... oh well.

Right now I'm obsessed with Genshin impact. It would be awesome to see a doll related to this game. 

On 7/21/2021 at 12:04 AM, WorldofBJD said:

Spyral abyss is doable up to floor 9 when you have some of the characters at level 90. After floor 9 it just becomes instant death. 

My teams for the floors that have halves is:
Xiao (90), Xinyan/Hu Tao (84/70), Zhongli (85), Diona (70, healer)
Kazuha (85), Childe (for pyro halves, 85) / Keqing (for hydro halves), Xinyan (for cryo halves, then first half has hu tao) / That hydro kid that has a crush on Chongyun who I forgot the name of. (if pyro half), Jean (healer)

It's basically having one that can do A LOT of damage, one that can break shields, one as either damage backup or shield break backup and a healer. Then it is more doable. 

I'm currently mostly waiting for the cross save between PS4 and PC xD PS4 can be frustrating at times. Especially because I play together with friends and I can't play if I am not at home. Inazuma will be epic though, I'll definitely be trying for Ayaka. 

That makes sense because I barely have Xiao at level 88 and he's the character I use most lol. The hardest part of abyss is just having so many characters built... My artifacts aren't great either.

Inazuma is so fun so far though!! I'm having a great time exploring so far.

And I'd love to see Genshin dolls too... Lol. I've had my Coron cosplaying as Xiao for a while now 😂

 

Edited July 23, 2021 by Noxxbunny