What Games are you playing 2015?

[Anthony Edward Stark]

Nier - Five puzzle pieces get. The game sure is in downer mode now.

You haven't seen anything yet.

[Grefter]

B-b-b-b-baby you just ain't seen nothing yet.

[Fenrir]

Oh man, you know way too much Grefter


Bloodborne:

I saw this fellow in the chalice dungeon:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQxGKC1VpXY

10/10
I'm pretty sure this enemy is a meta joke about Souls games / Souls players in general.

[Grefter]

It is one of the reasons I don't sleep well at night.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

CK2 GoT: Robb Stark fought and tamed a fucking dragon.  It's name is Dreadwing, and one time Tyrion Lannister got real drunk and tried to ride it.  RIP Tyrion, you were a bro.

[Sierra]

Bloodborne:

I saw this fellow in the chalice dungeon:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQxGKC1VpXY

All these crazy chalice enemies make me wish they weren't such an ordeal of tedium to find. Sigh.

Dark Souls 2: Scholar of the First Sin is a thing. Started it up after work, figured I'd hit a couple hours and then go back to picking away at Bloodborne, then suddenly it's bedtime. You know how it is, right? Anyway, a lot is different. Bosses don't seem to be, I don't think enemy attacks are, but enemy positioning is drastically overhauled in some occasionally perverse ways. Some areas I've been through don't seem hugely changed, while some have completely different enemy layouts and a whole lot of exceptionally mean tricks. In a couple places I've even seen new enemies (well more like existing ones slightly altered and given different movesets, but still). At Fenrir's request I'm going to be vague enough to avoid gameplay spoilers, so I'll just note that one normally very easy early area is now wholly terrifying and I don't see how I would've got through it without MACE. I don't know what I did to trigger the change in enemy behavior there, maybe I chose poorly in boss selection? Whatever I did, something has gone horribly wrong with the enemy aggro radius, Heide knights do not forgive, they are non-giving up school guys. I've died three times so far, twice to my hated foe, gravity, and once to dragon. He is very rude, I really don't see how you're supposed to deal with that outside of sniping him.

Loot is also really differently placed. Like, I ran straight for Tseldora as soon as possible because I wanted to buy the White Priest set because the archdrake robe isn't Fashion Souls enough for Astraea (sorry Grefter, that outfit doesn't do it for me, it just looks too bulky). WP doesn't look as nice as the priestess set, but since that latter one drops from one enemy in basically the last zone of the game I figure this is just what I'll have to wear most of the while. Duck into the passage before Congregation to grab the item there and WHOA SHIT full priestess set just hanging out, just lying there, on the floor there (I was expecting an estus flask shard but this'll do, thank you very much). I already found the clothes that will last me the rest of my life and this time it didn't involve burning ascetics to farm one lone enemy. I've also already found the dull ember and a whip and I'm sure I saw someone using the Black Knight Halberd already. I have a +7 lightning mace already and that really isn't very fair at all. So in addition to the game generally being meaner, a lot of cool stuff that was honestly too bitchy to get before is now available with much less hassle. (By the way From I have to wonder why the ember even exists anymore if you're going to place it so near to the place it's needed--what, is Macduff too lazy to beat up two mummies and walk upstairs?)

I don't know how I'm going to unpetrify all these statues, though.

So anyway I actually have to be careful again and that's cool, it's not Casual Souls anymore. I immediately miss the fluid movement of Bloodborne and took a while to get used to not being able to instantly dodge->poke->dodge->poke everything like lightning, though. I had to untrain Regain instinct, too. As far as graphical upgrade goes, I don't really notice a huge difference, but then DS2 environments are always going to look so much more (for lack of a better word) videogamey compared to the gross detail of Bloodborne environments. I'm noticing though that when Scholar wants to be dark, it is really goddamn dark. I've been wanting torches in places where they really weren't necessary before. I guess this is fine because original DS2 you really didn't need them anywhere but the Gutter (and maybe Shrine of Amana to highlight the ledges).

For Laggy: that invader that kept getting you yesterday was actually an NPC, which is why he could reinvade at will. That is definitely a mean spell selection for so early in the game, pretty sure From was deliberately evoking the spirit of the Burg there.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Nier - B ending get. I'm motivated enough to keep playing and experience more, I think. Do I just load my clear file and keep going, or is there more I need to be aware of to get as much as possible out of the game?

[jsh357]

Nier - B ending get. I'm motivated enough to keep playing and experience more, I think. Do I just load my clear file and keep going, or is there more I need to be aware of to get as much as possible out of the game?

You can skip ending C and not miss much.  Just be aware that if you take ending D, it's not kidding about the warning.  If you did all the big sidequests (lighthouse, lost son, fishing) you probably got most of the delicious Weiss dialogue.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Oh wait, maybe what I got was ending A? May have misread the ending screen. Anyway, just beat the game for the first time. (EDIT: Yeah, the ending I got was definitely A.)

I didn't do any of the sidequests you referenced (and I loathed what fishing I did do, so that one at least ain't gonna change). I'm not a big sidequest fan in general, though I did do a few.

[jsh357]

I would recommend at least doing the lighthouse stuff.

You should definitely do playthrough b.  It adds a lot of detail to the game.  The game is decent about expediting the second, third, and fourth playthrough so you end up not wasting much time.

[Cotigo]

The Real Dark Souls

Yeah that area's a bitch. I have no idea how you're supposed to do it without a mace or a weapon well above +3, and is actually the dungeon that made me quit dual weilding swords and just twohanding a mace.

Did a bunch of stuff yesterday, mostly No Man's Wharf and the Huntsman's Copse. No Man's Wharf has easily caused the most deaths because I kept thinking this was DS1 and I could run in, kill an enemy before they move, and not run out of stamina after my dash and first attack. This lead to getting swarmed by Hollow Infantry and dying a lot.  Copse was cool though I let myself get killed by a basilisk once and let myself get cursed by an urn and yeah. Bullshit.

Pursuers are bullshit that is all.

Still have not found any dresses, which makes Dennis Rodman sad. He continues to run shirtless though has put on pants because tight pants are the next best thing to flowing skirts.

[Laggy]

Cid: The Heine Knights seem to aggro after you hit one or kill the Dragonrider. As for the dragon, I found it very, very easy: it starts docile and you can go balls to the wall full sprint from the stop of the staircase to it, and you'll dodge its fire breath and can just wail at its feet for ages while it's stuck in the attack animation. I literally took out 80% of its health before it tried to attack me.

The new NPC invasions are mean as fuck. The one in Cardinal Tower wrecked my shit, the one in Huntsman's Copse put up a really rough fight. Impressions I've gotten reading threads is that Scholar of the First Sin just ramped up difficulty quite a bit in general. It's been very fun regardless, it's brought back my paranoia and terror that I abandoned from DS1 after knowing the game too well.

btw mace rules, I am also rocking lightning mace+7. No other earlygame weapon has come close to its dominance, it's really quite telling. I bought an Uchigatana on my cleric and passed it to my dual wielding katana char via co-op with Zenny and am power stancing them, and it's very, very good. Requires 15 Str/24 Dex, but I beelined for that immediately and the power stance L1 2HKOs almost everything. It's like a slightly faster Mace! (eats up way more stamina though) Cid why did you not tell me about power stancing

[Sierra]

I'm pretty sure I've said "dual-wielding rocks!" a lot, but I guess I wasn't clear about the mechanics.

[Laggy]

as it turns out, dual wielding being more than just having one weapon equipped in each hand and actually being 'there is an obscure thing called power stance where if you meet 1.5x the str and dex requirements of the weapon and you have specific weapon combinations you get access to a unique moveset on your L1/L2 IF you try to twohand your lefthand weapon'

is not the most intuitive mechanic

[Shale]

SRWZ3: Started the Rengoku-Hen preorder DLC campaign. Five stages in, it's very easy (which the main game supposedly is emphatically not) but also quite polished. Rand's and Crowe's new mechs are great, and I like the new refinements Z3.2 has added so far.

[Sierra]

as it turns out, dual wielding being more than just having one weapon equipped in each hand and actually being 'there is an obscure thing called power stance where if you meet 1.5x the str and dex requirements of the weapon and you have specific weapon combinations you get access to a unique moveset on your L1/L2 IF you try to twohand your lefthand weapon'

is not the most intuitive mechanic

From Software, intuitive

But yeah, my bad, I should at least explain a thing I'm trying to get people to try.

[Cotigo]

DS2: Beat the Lost Bastille, Sinner's Rise, and Earthen Peak. Finally unlocked the merchant with Large Titanite for sale and upgraded a bunch of weapons to play around with. Dual Caestus is a lot of fun and arguably better than dual mace (the powerstance moveset for dual mace is pretty slow) but probably worse than 2handing a mace. Armored enemies dropped off a lot so I can probably play around with dual wielding swords now, but I already dropped some Titanite Chunks into the fists so that's probably going to be my main weapon of choice. It's weird how after my Caestus run in DS1 basically had to be carried through the game by Laggy that in DS2 it is 2legit.

Playing the game blind is great. It really is too bad that it's a thing you can only do once before grinding the game into powder under your boot in all subsequent runs but whatever.

Soul memory is a really stupid fucking mechanic. I don't think anyone will disagree with that statement.

It isn't really a hit against the game, not a big one anyway, but it is pretty disappointing how disconnected all of the areas seem after playing DS1. Like, after only a couple playthroughs I had a pretty good idea of how the world fit together because it made sense, and it made the game feel like it was only three or four big maps instead of 15 or 20 smaller ones. DS2 apparently didn't even try. Even the two or three areas that are directly connected are all so disparate in geographical features that it's easy to misplace them in my memory.  On top of that the directions don't even make sense. Hell, in order to get from the windmills-on-a-hill area to the castle-full-of-lava area you go UP an elevator. They didn't even try. Frankly though I wouldn't have even noticed had they not done such a good job of it in DS1.

tl;dr: Gavlan wheel? Gavlan deal.

[Captain K]

MH4U:  So after repeatedly hurling my DS across the room I decided to try ranged weapons instead.  I'd been avoiding it up until now because you have to craft an entirely different set of armor to wear and carry different gear.  Settled on the Bow, and it has made a drastic increase in my successful hunt completion %.  No, not like I'm successfully hunting 100% of the time, more like I'm winning 50% of my fights instead of 20%.

Anyway, just beat the Sanctuary boss.

[Laggy]

DS2: I have settled on character builds finally after some experimentation. Thank god for respeccing, I've done it on both chars I've made now (the level of polish increase from DS1 is unreal).

My cleric, which is the main char I'm going to focus on going through co-op with Zenny, went away from pure faith caster after I found out how utterly terrible offensive miracles are. Seriously, 3 charges on Lightning Spear, barely do the damage of a single melee hit? I get ranged utility but that's just awful. Mace was basically carrying that char the whole game and now that armored enemies aren't a dime a dozen it is finally beginning to show its drawbacks (particularly the Manikins in Earthen Peak really, really showcased how bad it is not to have a quick weapon).

I already have infused with Lightning and at +8 so it's still going to be used especially since Durability Souls 2 is a thing on 60fps, but I wanted something quicker and I was already committed to the concept of a faith caster (which basically means run Sacred Oath and Sunlight Blade, damage spells not viable), so I looked up other lightning weapons to use. Ended up settling with the Dragonslayer's Crescent Axe, as it was easily accessible and I hadn't used up my Twinkling Titanite supply on her yet. It is kind of awesome, feels like a mace in 1h and has great fast sweeping attacks in 2h (I assume it is the axe moveset). The speed is surprising on a big axe but it is definitely what I wanted. Not actually gonna infuse it with lightning that nerfs Sacred Oath/Ring of Blades synergy, but since it already has base lightning damage just leaving it uninfused is absolutely fine. Respecced to be Str/Faith while meeting Dex req on the axe, ultimately gonna be 40/40 with lots of attunement for buffs, 20 Endurance, Vigor probably to 50. I'm running the Blossom Kite Shield since it is basically DS2's Grass Crest and I loved that thing to death, plus I run in 2h most of the time anyway, though the axe is really cool in that I can do either.

My samurai on the other hand has up to this point run dual Uchis and naked armor, and has coasted on the sheer power of the powerstance'd L1. I can't emphasize it enough, that thing just does damage through the roof, huge sweep (90 degree angle from left of user to front, can hit BEHIND you), fast, spammable up to 3 times with 20 Endurance. I farmed the lone Alonne Knight in front of Iron Keep when we got there and managed to get a Blacksteel Katana before it stopped respawning. At 21 Str/40 Dex, probably not going further.

I actually think I'll stick to an Uchi/Blacksteel dual wield with the Uchi as the primary because I like the R2 thrust way more than the Blacksteel's (horribly nerfed) DS1 Iaito moveset in return for a slight damage drop vs doing two Blacksteels. On top of that, katanas apparently have 150 Counter damage, even higher than thrusting swords, so I slapped on Stone Ring+Old Leo Ring+RoB (only the basic one for now) to for maximum counter damage on the Uchi thrust and poise stagger. This gives the Uchi R2 thrust some serious utility when countering, getting a nearly 70% damage boost and giving me a great ranged poke when I'm not just spamming L1 on everything. Also picked up the Black Knight Halberd as a fallback weapon when my katanas do inevitably break, as it only required 1 Faith to use (started as Bandit). It serves its purpose very well, not quite as comfortable with it but I can see why people like it.

I intend to run Flynn on both chars once I find out where it is in SotFS.

[Sierra]

DS2: I have settled on character builds finally after some experimentation. Thank god for respeccing, I've done it on both chars I've made now (the level of polish increase from DS1 is unreal).

It's amazing that even in spite of flagrantly bad ideas like low weapon durability and soul memory, DS2 is still sufficiently more user-friendly and convenient than its siblings that I have trouble going back to them (however fun its combat and amazing its world, Bloodborne regresses a lot in regards to micro design). Zenny's comments about Drangleic itself are sadly spot-on, though. It rarely warrants regard as a place in the way DS1 did, or even aspires to. Honestly the neatest addition I've come across is just hollow soldiers mindlessly trying to murder a tree that was once a giant; it'd be neat if there were more personal touches like that, but I haven't really come across any others.

Still pretty cool playing a familiar thing made new. You can tell when messages were left by veteran players because they routinely express confusion at the altered state of affairs. "Friend...but not here?!" The room after Flexile Sentry is hilarious for reasons new players totally won't get. Also the new phantoms are great. Especially the one in Sinner's Rise. I won't say anything else just so Fenrir can laugh his ass off when he finds it himself, but make sure you thoroughly explore the basement while human.

Also Flynn's Ring is the beeeeeest. I basically can't not use it.

Fenrir if you're seriously going to go Covenant of Champions then I'm contemplating punching hard mode to death with you. Sound workable?

[Grefter]

as it turns out, dual wielding being more than just having one weapon equipped in each hand and actually being 'there is an obscure thing called power stance where if you meet 1.5x the str and dex requirements of the weapon and you have specific weapon combinations you get access to a unique moveset on your L1/L2 IF you try to twohand your lefthand weapon'

is not the most intuitive mechanic

From Software, intuitive

But yeah, my bad, I should at least explain a thing I'm trying to get people to try.

This right here is the difference between not reading anything about a From game over 2 years of preview hype/post deployment and having been obsessed and following development super closely.

Power Stance and Dual wielding was part of the mega hype.  You knew about it before you played the game.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Metroid NES:
Beat in under five hours for the first time ever. Yay for being the prototypical Metroidvania. Samus in jumpsuit isn't much of a prize for the amount of effort needed given my general skill level at platformers... >.>;; Still, gaming history or somesuch. 

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D - Currently between 8-6 and 8-7. However, fell to the wayside due to...

Code Name: S.T.E.A.M. - Well, this is -very- different. I'm only a few stages in, but the good: the base system is incredibly interesting already. The Steam mechanic potentially allows for a lot of fun tactical decisions (do I want to cover as much ground as I can now or do I save steam for possibly overshooting enemies during their turn and mitigate collateral damage, just for a base example) and movement being non-committal until you attack/otherwise act also makes collecting items a lot simpler too, as well as giving you remarkable freedom in terms of scouring your terrain within the move limits. The bad: holy hell is the interface clunky. I can understand not being able to have a full map view, but not even being able to have a partial panoramic perspective on your character's viewpoint is annoying as fuck - not to mention controlling the camera without the stylus is terrible. Centering the perspective on your PCs during enemy turns is also a questionable decision in terms of transparency, since it's hard to even get a glimpse of what the enemies are doing. ON THE OTHER HAND, spotting enemies and properly positioning in order to avoid ambushes or stopping enemies dead in their tracks is among the core mechanics, so I can understand -why- it's there. Let's see where this takes us.

[Grefter]

Dark Souls 2 - Laggy convinced me to roll a character to play with him.  I decided it was time for dual Caestus as well, so that is happening.  I am going to pinch hit over to bows as well though because I am super wussy.

[Cotigo]

Dark Souls 2 - Laggy convinced me to roll a character to play with him.  I decided it was time for dual Caestus as well, so that is happening.  I am going to pinch hit over to bows as well though because I am super wussy.

We're playing basically the same character then