More Monster Hunter World. I’m still a bad player, but it distills the game loop of MMOs down to a bare minimum - so even though it is a grind fest, it is a grind fest I can do in even smaller spurts than most MMOs and still get the itch scratched. I unsubbed from WoW for the moment, even.
I plan to bounce around between lots of games, the bolded titles will likely get the most attention:
Screeps
Hearthstone
MtG: Arena
CrossCode
Ashen
DragonQuest XI
Slay the Spire
And once I’ve setup my Oculus Rift in our new place, I’ll dive into:
Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice
Subnautica
Beat Saber
Skyworld
Gorn
Magic Arena, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, and my current guilty pleasure, MapleStory.
So far, Grim Dawn, Heat Signature, and Epic Battle Fantasy 4.
I have been trying to advance into the Ringed City DLC in Dark Souls 3. I am about ready to give it up.
Busy ish weekend coming up.
If I have the time, it’ll be Battle Brothers probably.
I figured with the cold weather I would have more gaming time lately, but it just hasn’t been the case. However, this weekend I am hoping to get some time with:
Fallout 76 with my wife, when she wants to play.
Dominions 5 turns for our team game here.
X4: Foundations if I can get enough time to dig in and start to learn it.
This weekend should be the start of break, once all the finals are graded. I may actually manage to play some of the games I say I’m going to play!
In single player, that means Prey. I’ve only put a couple of hours into this one so far, but the setting and plot have me intrigued. The jump-scare wrench combat less so - but I’m assuming that will open up with time.
I’ve been starting a new run in Grim Dawn in co-op, with the expansion this time. We beat the base game a couple of years ago and, by the end, the whole thing was feeling pretty unpleasantly grindy. This time around everything seems a little sharper - I don’t know whether it’s us knowing the game better or changes they’ve made in the interim. I’m hoping that same malaise won’t settle in, but we’ll see. Certainly, I’m enjoying my Purifier (Inquisitor/Demolitionist) and I greatly appreciate that respecs are affordable now, so experimentation is not only possible but encouraged.
And I always have PBEM game or two of Field of Glory II going these days.
Insurgency: Sandstorm is being released today, so I’ll be digging into it for full this weekend. Hell, I may even try some PvP even though I have too much fun against the brutal AI in co-op.
Qt3 starts it first Artifact tournament this weekend, so I’m going to practice, practice and practice draft. I actually did my first ghost draft yesterday and even won a match. Figure that.
And the PUBG test server is running the new awesome snow map until it’s being released next Wednesday, so I’ll be jumping into that whenever I have friends joining up (it’s squad only so solo-ing it can be miserable).
More EF2000!
I have upped my dogfighting game tremendously. Well, it was pretty much non-existent to begin with. Thanks to various readings, I went from being cannon fodder to MiG-21s (please repress those laughters) to reliably dispatching 29s. Flankers and their sorts, that is yet another matter.
Exciting times.
Flankers… you can do two things: sneak up on em by flying low and popping up for some surprise buttsecks. You have to BFM them with a major energy disadvantage tho. And you are fucked if any of their buddies join the party while the furball is already going on.
The other thing is just them like a modern day knight. Get as high and fast as you can to maximize the range of your missile. (F-pole manouevre) With the meteor you have a mighty long stick to rule the roost with. As soon as you fire, idle power, pop the boards, dive and turn away as far as you can while still holding the target in your radar gimbal limits (crank). As soon as your missile goes active, turn either turn entirely away to minimize the enemy missiles’ chances (turn cold) or put your target on your beam (9 or 3 o clock) to create a problem for his radar.
Repeat until out of fuel, out of missiles or out of targets.(chainsaw) Do not follow your missiles in unless you really like your chances at the merge.
I have put the cool flyboy terms for the things described to be used as shorthand for further discussion.
X4: Foundations. I’m 30 hours in, and can’t seem to get enough of this game.
I’ll play “set up the new PC”, apparently. Not sure how much work that will be or how long that will take, but hopefully I’ll get to play something else on it this weekend.
If all goes well, maybe I’ll get to play X4, Monster Hunter World, Pillars of Eternity 2, or Grim Dawn. We’ll see.
Distant Worlds: Universe - hard to believe this game is 8 (or 4) years old and largely off people’s radar. Can’t wait for the sequel.
Seeing folks play EF2000 and Distant Worlds really warms the cockles.
Too much information.
As a side note, the etymology of that expression is pretty cool (more so because of the “soundalike” corruption: “cochleae” → “cockles”).
Even without an energy disadvantage, this is where I am failing.
I am practicing BFMs (gun only, as this is the situation I ended up a couple of times during “real” missions and where I failed, each time — although now, I would not waste my missiles like I used to).
I can take on an inexperienced Flanker pilot (it’s exhausting), but a pro? Yikes, I usually end up crashing on the ground because there is too much to take into account and I just become disoriented and lose all my energy like the newbie I am!
Then don’t. If you have a large energy deficit, are lacking friends in sufficient numbers, turn tail and run. Flankers have fuel for days so don’t expect to run them out of fuel, but you can try to drag them towards friendly forces or air defences.
The trick when e tending is to deny them a guns shot while not taking a missile up the tailpipe. A flanker carries four IR missiles and six long range sticks. If you can spoil all those shots, you should be free to just beeline home. Flying very low helps spoiling missile shots.
Well, I was right about these parts, anyway. Prey turns out to be a bit too much for my antique system to handle, at least at any setting I’d want to play at, so I’m spending some time with Hand of Fate 2 instead. I enjoyed the original and mostly love the updates here, but they’ve made the combat even harder and I’m fighting with myself about turning on apprentice mode. I’m worried about it messing up the balance of the card layer, but I can’t make it much of anywhere with all that finicky timing and brutal punishment of errors. I’ve never been any good at Arkham combat - I guess I’ve got no rhythm.
