Jump to content

What Are You Currently Playing?


Recommended Posts

Currently downloading/playing The incredible adventures of Van Helsing I liked the demo a lot. They did not make a really solid end to that demo so with it being the Steam sale and all...
Before that I played PoE on my PS4 for a bit but that game might be a bit too plan-your-build like for me. I like a game where I can mess around in, and PoE does NOT feel like that lol :lol:

Still have the Nathan Drake games to go through as well, gonna give those a go somewhere after Mr Helsing. 

Switching back and forth between PC and PS4 here now, and I'm not really feeling comfortable in either. It's been too loooong :cry:

  • Like! 1
Link to comment
17 minutes ago, Timotheus said:

Currently downloading/playing The incredible adventures of Van Helsing I liked the demo a lot. They did not make a really solid end to that demo so with it being the Steam sale and all...

Hey, I think I'm going to play that too over my winter vacation. I picked up the "Final Cut" edition which as three games combined into one.

Link to comment
5 hours ago, Timotheus said:

Currently downloading/playing The incredible adventures of Van Helsing I liked the demo a lot. They did not make a really solid end to that demo so with it being the Steam sale and all...
Before that I played PoE on my PS4 for a bit but that game might be a bit too plan-your-build like for me. I like a game where I can mess around in, and PoE does NOT feel like that lol :lol:

Still have the Nathan Drake games to go through as well, gonna give those a go somewhere after Mr Helsing. 

Switching back and forth between PC and PS4 here now, and I'm not really feeling comfortable in either. It's been too loooong :cry:

Timooooooooooooooooooooooooo ... still playing game and here at home with us for the holidays...

merry on mate!


DarkMatters Christmas party thread with lots of drinking and eating even more drinking :lol::hugs:

 

gogo

Link to comment
14 hours ago, bhj said:

:christmastree:

@Dax Is really eve that difficult? Well yes and no The thing with eve is there is so many ways you can play it And so many things you can do So mastering everything is gong to take awhile :P  So as long as your not a millennial that want instant gratification like Yesterday eve is a awesome game for you... 

 

Thanks bhj, I might think it over. Don´t got time left currently, though.

I got "Freelancer" on my back, it´s freeware now by the way and definitely worth playing and the "X" series from Egosoft, games which are not known to offer the player a quick and easy start. I might check eve out one day! (:

Merry Christmas!

 

 

 

Link to comment

There´s a mod for Freelancer? Really?
Gunning things down with the Skyblast B and the Alien Blasta becomes a bit boring after a while. I either wasted time in the Nomad secors until I ran out of supplies or roamed the jumpholes of the Outcast homeworld. Visited the Corsairs too now and then, but trampling their Titans wasn´t really challenging.
Fighting Outcasts and Gas Miners at the same time was brutal, adding the Bounty Hunters to the list too was a bit too much in the end.

Is Discovery worth the effort? 

Link to comment

For years, people have told me to stay away from No Man's Sky. I've never heard of it, but no worries, because the title doesn't sound like something I'd be interested in. Over the holidays, a family member was also telling me it sucked. I can't remember exactly what he said, because I had a few glasses of Breitenbach, so it was something like "blah blah endless resource gathering, blah blah exploring just to grind materials blah blah". Hold the phone, mining and gathering are what deter people? Have you seen the back of my living room computer desk?

075.jpg

Every one of these have been pulled from the ground/sea by yours truly. Minus the bottle of contact solution (forgot to remove that), I braved the wilds of Rite-Aid for that. I'm going to stop for a second because this showed the picture instead of the link, I want to see if it actually posts. 

  • Appreciation 1
Link to comment

Happy day, it did! On a side note, holy crap, do I have to dust! It's wild that cameras show dust that the naked eye doesn't see. I think I might need a new filter on my furnace. Anyway, resource grinding is boring? Dude, I am KING resource hunter! Some of those in the picture I spent days hunting for. Most of these come from other countries, except that little cross section of amethyst, that comes from a sluiceway in Emerald Hollow Mine in Hiddenite, NC. So, blah blah blah, I love resource gathering, so I'm about to dive into No Man's Sky and try to figure out how to make a pool. Now, a person might say "don't give a crap about the rocks, don't give a crap about No Man's Sky, but Breitenbach sounds interesting!" That's a taste of home, an American red wine from my general neck of the woods, by Sugarcreek. 

  • Respect! 1
Link to comment

Wouldn't that make you interested in a game like minecraft or maybe even rimworld as well? Those games have quite a considerable resource-collection aspect as well. How about Astroneer? 

I am really just curious what really draws you to a game :)

Edited by Timotheus
Link to comment

You never have to worry about offending me bc you asked a question. I always encourage open dialogue; without it, forums would be nothing more than one person making a statement, then ten or fifteen people liking it, then the first person makes a comment about liking that people liked his comment, then  ten or fifteen more people would like that; that's not too much fun :)

To answer your question, resource gathering, building, survival, and swimming will always catch my eye. But stupid stuff (usually fickle) turns me off. I loved Rimworld. And the mods! Oh, man, I had working toilets and showers, children that I could teach different professions to in school; just a ton of stuff. But sometimes, I go overboard with mods, can't remember everything I've downloaded, and what was once leisure becomes a chore. That wasn't the case w Rimworld, though. In Rimworld, I downloaded all this stuff to really make my corner of the world a home. But after a while, I started to feel a pull in the game; I learned that making the planet habitable wasn't the goal of the game, it was to survive long enough to figure a way off the planet. And that stopped me dead in my tracks. I'll be the first to state that that's a very shallow reason to stop playing, but that's what happened. I built all that stuff just to eventually leave it? I didn't want to leave it; I had fishing outposts, mining outposts, classrooms to teach the next generation, barracks and military installations fine tuning my guards, rec rooms that had poker and chess tournaments, a clothing store I named "Forever Gilbert" (instead of Forever 21), a restaurant I named Ohio Fried Gilbert instead of Kentucky Fried Chicken (just now do I realize that the name sounds cannibalistic), all this stuff. Now, what would be cool in Rimworld is if, at the end of the game, you can blueprint your base, pack it all up, and then take it with you to... I can't remember the end, are you going to a new world or your home world? Either way, if you could continue your adventure on a world where you are planning to stay, I'd be all about it. Maybe if they make a sequel, you can transfer your characters from the first game to the second. 

 

I love Minecraft, I love voxel games. I also have several voxel games that look a little more realistic than Minecraft, and I love those too. Astroneer looked a little too cartoony for my taste. 

 

I can't make a more precise statement about what draws me in to a game, because it's kind of a case by case scenario :)

Link to comment

Can I post videos? I've never done so before, let's see if this works

Happy Day, it did. But look at this; an underwater base! This is exactly what I was hoping for from Empyrion and Planet Explorers! Dudes,....... I'm home... :) Thank goodness, after all the searching, years of games that turned out to be not quite what I was hoping for, I've found my signature game :)

Link to comment
  • 1 month later...

Wow, Wolcen turned into a total turd-bomb. I know that's a risk of early access, I just never experienced a developer team going bankrupt, handing the baton over to a new team, and the second team turning it to a total pile of jank. It's all good, though, lesson learned. 

 

I bought Doom 2016, and while that was fun, I just wasn't in the mood at the time. But I returned to it a few days ago, which was a total blast. It was a little shorter than I expected, but it was a total thrill ride the whole way through. The action was fast and intense, the soundtrack totally shreds, and there was a bunch of unexpected little gems, like gore dripping from ceilings. I'm going to watch Doom Eternal for a while, though. The bad part about Doom was that even though it was fun, I have absolutely no desire to do a second play-through. I'm not sure why, though, as it was so fun to play the first time.

 

I'm patiently awaiting Cyberpunk 2077. Not much to say there besides the fact that I'm super-stoked about it. I'll also be watching She Will Punish Them; it might be fun, or a total cash-grab, time will tell. 

 

So, that brings me to the open-world survival crafting building games I like. No Man's Sky looked like it'd be right up my alley; discovery, unlocking technology, base building. It started out fun, but got very tedious. It was fun building an underwater base, but the novelty soon wore off. What's the point? I could sit in front of my fish tank and achieve the same effect. Well, almost, it's kind of bare atm bc my golden dojo loach got a burr up it's bum and decided to kill all my mollys. I asked it why; "why, Jim, why do you have to slaughter all the gentle fish I put in here?", but I think Jim gave me the fishy equivalent of the middle finger.

I also tried My Island, which is like a digital vacation. I set crab traps, swam with a school of angel fish; how awesome! But controls are janky, building was janky. But it's all good, I;ll put that one on the back-burner for now.

And then, I discovered Vintage Story. I read that the game started out as a Minecraft mod, which almost made me pass it up. But then, I read about animal husbandry, napping, panning, and that the game has over 800 minerals in it, and that I can actually display them. Awesome! Eh, not quite, because it still looks very much like Minecraft. The colors aren't quite as cartoony, but it still looks very much like a voxel game. That, to me, is unpleasant, with Rising World spoiling me in the graphics department. But the biggest drawback to this game for me is the amount of food I need to consume. I shouldn't have to eat five steaks and a handful of berries for breakfast just to stay alive, and then have to hunt again by dinnertime. How can I really explore anything, build a home, or anything else, if most of my time is spent napping a tool that breaks all too soon and hunting even though I'll be hunting again by the end of the in-game day?

So, I don't think I'll be doing any more of those type games, as Rising World has everything I need. It would be cool if the game had sea life swimming around, but how often do you spend any more than a couple moments watching fish swim around in-game? We can fish, though, with four or five different types of fish, in both salt and fresh water varieties. And guess what? I don't have to eat a whole barrel of plaice and tuna just to start the day,nor do I have to drink a gallon of water. Vehicles might be cool, but we do have several types of mounts, plus, I don't  I use waterways instead of roads. To me, it's far more fun zipping on a motorboat than a car. We don't have minerals at the moment, but no game will ever be able to copy how awesome it is to actually hold a mineral in your hand, so who cares? We don't have a few QOL things, like appliances, but who cares, when you can resize planks and beams to build them yourself? Granted, the microwave or tv or blender you build won't actually function, but that's not a big deal to me. I might actually use a blender or a shower, but I wouldn't sit and watch tv or be on a computer even if I had them, so that's nothing but a thang to me. :) So, that's my bit for "currently playing", I'll be back when I have something to report on.  

Link to comment
1 hour ago, Gilberticus said:

Wow, Wolcen turned into a total turd-bomb. I know that's a risk of early access, I just never experienced a developer team going bankrupt, handing the baton over to a new team, and the second team turning it to a total pile of jank. It's all good, though, lesson learned. 

My buddy bought Wolcen, played it all weekend, then told me his character got spontaneously deleted.  Nothing I've seen about the game impresses me; it looks like a second-rate Grim Dawn.

1 hour ago, Gilberticus said:

I'm patiently awaiting Cyberpunk 2077. Not much to say there besides the fact that I'm super-stoked about it. I'll also be watching She Will Punish Them; it might be fun, or a total cash-grab, time will tell. 

Yes indeed. It's not my chosen milieu at all, but such is my faith in CDPR to deliver a satisfying story that I have no hesitation in picking it up day 1.

  • zomgod! 1
Link to comment

Yeah, Wolcen is disgusting. I knew it wouldn't be exactly the same game as I bought, being that it switched companies, but I wasn't expecting this turd. I could even handle it, in it's fecal state, if it wouldn't also be so laden with bugs. They have had years to test this thing, man. Such a waste. 

Link to comment

Well...  Great seeing here that the feedback on this game is how I was feeling when I saw the game in trailers.  That it was missing some polish, some "feel" and then after reading trechnical reviews, that the game is buggy as all hell.  I still play diablo 3...  so anything I'd consider playing as an ARPG would have to have some great impact for me to consider it.  Just seeing how monsters react when they're hit was an instant turn off...that whole weapon sliding through them without them ( in this time too!) showing some kind of detailed impact is a no-go for me. I love the massive skill tree.  I'm seeing some really interesting progress along these lines.... specially in POE..where the tree actually can become unique and dynamic pending on your the players' choices and drops...!

:)

 

gogo

Link to comment
On 12/23/2019 at 10:44 PM, Flix said:

Hey, I think I'm going to play that too over my winter vacation. I picked up the "Final Cut" edition which as three games combined into one.

Hey Flix, how was your experience? Did you finish the game? In a nutshell: I ended up with at least two bugged quests, and my experience turned out to be less fun than I anticipated having played the demo and all. I have yet to finish the game...

  • Like! 1
Link to comment
3 hours ago, Timotheus said:

Hey Flix, how was your experience? Did you finish the game? In a nutshell: I ended up with at least two bugged quests, and my experience turned out to be less fun than I anticipated having played the demo and all. I have yet to finish the game...

I played a little ways past the first village but it didn't really hook me and I got caught up in the Heretic Kingdoms series instead.  I'm sure I'll go back to it at some point.

Speaking of bugs I had installed this mod which seems to be a big patch and bugfix project for Van Helsing.  I normally wouldn't for a first playthrough but bugged quests are big pet peeve of mine.

Link to comment

I'm still going strong with Dungeon Siege 2 again after so many years. Currently playing a totally mixed set of chars with dual Combat/Nature Mages, Fist of Stone and Blood Assassin. I've climbed my previous party to its 70s but it felt too much like a dry run after so many years not playing the game. So I started off with a completely new challenge of mixed chars. Still finishing Mercenary in the expansion but it requires my devoted attention due to spreading the skill points too far away and having to balance the skills to raise at every area. But it's demanding fun.

I'm cautiously awaiting the return of the CM Patch to play Sacred 2 again, given all the recent developments in bug squashing.

  • Like! 1
Link to comment

I've been currently playing Wolcen..

yes, it's  bugged and I knew that,  saw the gamestar review of it, hesitated a few days after release and bought it anyway.. why?

it seemed like a good alternative to Diablo 3 and/or PoE and/or Grim Dawn, because in a way it looks and feels like a mix/blend of all these,

also adding in a few things I haven't seen so far.. eg. endgame where you upgrade your town/buildings to receive permanent boni, or to unlock ways to alter your items..

 

I kinda just still love the isometric, loot centered, hack & slash/slay ARPG genre,  always did,  since Sacred...

 

picked up Wolcen because I'm out of alternatives.. so far I tried:

 

Diablo 3: (omg, just checked,  total of 2182 hrs playtime over 8 years if that's correct.. current set of non-deleted char totals to 560, and last season 19 ~44hrs in total)

finally became way too boring and stale to keep me busy for longer than like 1 week after each season.. and upcoming season 20 might be the first I'll give a pass entirely..

if I every so often play it, then mostly, I just rush for season rewards which won't take long, and then I'd try to beat my personal GR level from the coresponding previous season - which also won't take long

(which is good, aint got much free time per week anymore)..

 

POE ? ( I'd say about 'only' 260 hrs total since v1.0 over 6 years)

PoE is free, and a good game and all that, but way too complex - I don't mean the skill tree, but rather its grindy exhausting end-game and tons of different crafting sub systems it has by now.. way too much imho..

so, it's too time consuming and it's difficulty curve is too steep.. I usually just play a different build thru the main story in each new league, even having fun every now and then with new league mechanics, but after the campaign, I'd stop right there and hardly ever I'd even touch the atlas thing.. ;)

besides, even with all these new league mechanics that appear and vanish periodically, or new skills etc.. it kinda stays the same.. they're really good at 'selling' the same things in different 'disguise' tho..

'selling' because they actually don't, poe is free.. and in 'disguise' because it actually isn't.. anway.. :

also contra: the most annoying thing to me starts right there in the main menue / char selecting screen:  you STILL can't  sort them.. plus, each league start almost every name I'd like seems to be already taken even after seconds/minutes into new season..

no offline mode, and for multiplayer  on the other hand - by the way things like level penalties, lag, gfx overkill from skills, but most of all experience & loot distribution/scaling works in  party -  that doesn't feels like fun/ not rewarding.

 

Grim Dawn? (~ 'poor' 11 hrs over 4 years )

has really good ratings, many people say they like it, and so do I.. kinda..

this is weired, because even tho imho base game is good, and I even tho I 'collect' every expansion, I  still haven't played em yet^^ I haven't touched it for longer than 11hours .. total.. just one char, somewhere half thru the first or second main act, or whatever they're called in GD..

hard to explain or pinpoint why..

maybe it's just the way combat feels (donno, I'd describe it as a little.. clunky, slow.. ) or the story telling.. or, its looks, its engine.. it looks 'really outdated',

and I mean from a 'technical' point of view, not the fact that I believe it's deliberately trying to create a gritty, rusty, medieval, bleak dismal look (which it is quite successful at)..  maybe they overdid it, at times it wouldn't feel appealing but way too cheerless, be it by art design or technical limitations of the gfx engine..

also, it has no real online-only mode..

plus, I played TQ way back then, and GD only looks different, it doesn't feel different... I own TQ anniversary edition as well, I really don't know why I keep buying and not playing GD stuff^^

always bought the GD and TQ parts when they were really cheap so I don't regret it.. not much.  feel pretty stupid and embarassed right now tho, lol

 

not going into detail but also tried Torchlight (10hrs) TL2 (12hrs) and TL3 previously known as TL Frontiers (6hrs since it moved to steam) , Guardians of Ember(11 hrs)

and Victor Vran and Adventures of Van Helsing .. for ~15Minutes each ;)

 

 

so, what's special about Wolcen?

imho, you can see what they probably had in mind creating it:

be more complex than D3 and less complex than PoE while also looking better than both of them..

making it - in theory - the game of choice if you love hack & slash/slay ARPG's with loads of loot...

..but are already bored by D3 or exhausted by PoE or didn't like GD like me, or just don't like one or more or all  of them for your very own reasons

in theory, because: Wolcen is still bugged currently, and also not very well balanced. (you most likely will notice this on high levels/end game especially)

 

I still don't regret that I bought it. Wolcen wasn't a bad buy.

what does this mean?

 

I enoyed playing it for about 45 hrs Single Player offline & online, and think

It was already worth its money..

 

there's less build diversity right now than you might think, both because bad balance and also obvious bugs.

If they continue to deliver more balance patches, once there's more enjoyable active skills / tactics for passive tree, then I'll play more.

 

Wolcen is ~35€ right now which is average I'd say,

there's way more expensive titles I enjoyed less, or played less.. or both..

 

and, there have been a few patches post-release already,

they promised to work on fixing stuff for the next 4 months and then adding new stuff..:

 

more details regarding my personal experience:

was able to play 1 char after day1 hotfix in offline through the main story (act 1,2,3) -

had no gamebreaking/questbreaking bugs, or almost none:

first one at start of act 2 (blocked path because I missed the NPC which had no quest marker ;) after I googled,searched & found her, it was no longer a problem..)

second one was kinda worse, end boss of final act, was unable to beat him for like 20 times in a row until I found out he was bugged if you used certain skills/damage types or attacked him during the wrong moment.. managed to kill him after I switched away from aether/stasis dmg and also turned down difficulty from normal to story mode for final boss..

always kept all my items  :)(others werent so lucky tho it seems)

lost my progress after act 1 when act 2 started (got booted to beginning of act 1 again)

could repair my progress manually by editing the save file..

by the time I started my online-only char, they either fixed the progress/item reset bug already, or I just got lucky, because I experienced neither of those 2..

 

with my online char, I tried out the endgame modes, it's fun for a while but gets repetetive fast .. it's basically similar to D3 but you can customize em.. => mandates = rifts and expeditions = grifts...

you have your own town / buildings that will unlock passive boosts to gold/magic find/personal chest space/skills,  or 'recipes' to alter/reroll/upgrade your gear stats..

these can get quite expensive and running expeditions just to unlock em over and overy feels like a chore sometimes.. all this needs balancing too..

 

personal Wolcen sum up:

+ offline-only mode

+ online-only mode

+ one of the best looks graphics-wise compared to other current ARPGs

+ pace during main story, and for fighting monsters in general

+ imho better hit feedback than GD

+/- in theory more diversity as in D3 but less complex as PoE

+/- story comparable to D3, imho in Wolcen there's 'more of it' than in PoE but less lore than in GD

- nasty bugs, higher possibilty to encounter game/fun breaking ones

- balancing issues across the entire game, but mostly noticeable in late game / end game

 

final verdict:

already like Wolcen more than Grim Dawn,

 

currently best alternative to D3 and PoE,

or better say addition to D3 or PoE,  especially if you preferred D3 over PoE.

 

but most certainly no full  replacement.

that's because of the remaining bugs, and the balance issues.. at times, the combat / attacking foes also doesn't always feel quite as right as in D3 for example..

 

if your favourite is or was already PoE then neither you'll need D3,GD .. nor Wolcen .
 

 

would I recommend it?

yes, maybe.. but only if you already tried PoE first, since the latter is free, has more content, and has way less bugs..

I also wouldn't recommend Wolcen if Grim Dawn doesn't ring a bell..  the latter is way more polished as well..

 

 

I know, lots of people are sceptical, because it has been in development for so long and still bugged, also others are disappointed, because its not the game anymore they were expecting when backing it way way way back on kickstarter..  one of the biggest changes eg. no more  open world as originally planned.. but imho thats no biggy..

 

maybe, it's best to wait at least a few more weeks and see if they can fix build diversity  / end game balancing for example,

these two are a bigger problem imho than the remaining other bugs..

 

Wolcen is still enjoyable even in it's current state tho

 

(you know, just like Sacred was, which had hundreds of thousands of bugs as well at first),

it's just less balanced and has more bugs than D3 PoE or GD

 

 

 

 

Edited by Rotluchs
Link to comment
On 3/7/2020 at 9:58 PM, Rotluchs said:

I've been currently playing Wolcen..

yes, it's  bugged and I knew that,  saw the gamestar review of it, hesitated a few days after release and bought it anyway.. why?

it seemed like a good alternative to Diablo 3 and/or PoE and/or Grim Dawn, because in a way it looks and feels like a mix/blend of all these,

also adding in a few things I haven't seen so far.. eg. endgame where you upgrade your town/buildings to receive permanent boni, or to unlock ways to alter your items..

 

I kinda just still love the isometric, loot centered, hack & slash/slay ARPG genre,  always did,  since Sacred...

 

picked up Wolcen because I'm out of alternatives.. so far I tried:

 

Diablo 3: (omg, just checked,  total of 2182 hrs playtime over 8 years if that's correct.. current set of non-deleted char totals to 560, and last season 19 ~44hrs in total)

finally became way too boring and stale to keep me busy for longer than like 1 week after each season.. and upcoming season 20 might be the first I'll give a pass entirely..

if I every so often play it, then mostly, I just rush for season rewards which won't take long, and then I'd try to beat my personal GR level from the coresponding previous season - which also won't take long

(which is good, aint got much free time per week anymore)..

 

POE ? ( I'd say about 'only' 260 hrs total since v1.0 over 6 years)

PoE is free, and a good game and all that, but way too complex - I don't mean the skill tree, but rather its grindy exhausting end-game and tons of different crafting sub systems it has by now.. way too much imho..

so, it's too time consuming and it's difficulty curve is too steep.. I usually just play a different build thru the main story in each new league, even having fun every now and then with new league mechanics, but after the campaign, I'd stop right there and hardly ever I'd even touch the atlas thing.. ;)

besides, even with all these new league mechanics that appear and vanish periodically, or new skills etc.. it kinda stays the same.. they're really good at 'selling' the same things in different 'disguise' tho..

'selling' because they actually don't, poe is free.. and in 'disguise' because it actually isn't.. anway.. :

also contra: the most annoying thing to me starts right there in the main menue / char selecting screen:  you STILL can't  sort them.. plus, each league start almost every name I'd like seems to be already taken even after seconds/minutes into new season..

no offline mode, and for multiplayer  on the other hand - by the way things like level penalties, lag, gfx overkill from skills, but most of all experience & loot distribution/scaling works in  party -  that doesn't feels like fun/ not rewarding.

 

Grim Dawn? (~ 'poor' 11 hrs over 4 years )

has really good ratings, many people say they like it, and so do I.. kinda..

this is weired, because even tho imho base game is good, and I even tho I 'collect' every expansion, I  still haven't played em yet^^ I haven't touched it for longer than 11hours .. total.. just one char, somewhere half thru the first or second main act, or whatever they're called in GD..

hard to explain or pinpoint why..

maybe it's just the way combat feels (donno, I'd describe it as a little.. clunky, slow.. ) or the story telling.. or, its looks, its engine.. it looks 'really outdated',

and I mean from a 'technical' point of view, not the fact that I believe it's deliberately trying to create a gritty, rusty, medieval, bleak dismal look (which it is quite successful at)..  maybe they overdid it, at times it wouldn't feel appealing but way too cheerless, be it by art design or technical limitations of the gfx engine..

also, it has no real online-only mode..

plus, I played TQ way back then, and GD only looks different, it doesn't feel different... I own TQ anniversary edition as well, I really don't know why I keep buying and not playing GD stuff^^

always bought the GD and TQ parts when they were really cheap so I don't regret it.. not much.  feel pretty stupid and embarassed right now tho, lol

 

not going into detail but also tried Torchlight (10hrs) TL2 (12hrs) and TL3 previously known as TL Frontiers (6hrs since it moved to steam) , Guardians of Ember(11 hrs)

and Victor Vran and Adventures of Van Helsing .. for ~15Minutes each ;)

 

 

so, what's special about Wolcen?

imho, you can see what they probably had in mind creating it:

be more complex than D3 and less complex than PoE while also looking better than both of them..

making it - in theory - the game of choice if you love hack & slash/slay ARPG's with loads of loot...

..but are already bored by D3 or exhausted by PoE or didn't like GD like me, or just don't like one or more or all  of them for your very own reasons

in theory, because: Wolcen is still bugged currently, and also not very well balanced. (you most likely will notice this on high levels/end game especially)

 

I still don't regret that I bought it. Wolcen wasn't a bad buy.

what does this mean?

 

I enoyed playing it for about 45 hrs Single Player offline & online, and think

It was already worth its money..

 

there's less build diversity right now than you might think, both because bad balance and also obvious bugs.

If they continue to deliver more balance patches, once there's more enjoyable active skills / tactics for passive tree, then I'll play more.

 

Wolcen is ~35€ right now which is average I'd say,

there's way more expensive titles I enjoyed less, or played less.. or both..

 

and, there have been a few patches post-release already,

they promised to work on fixing stuff for the next 4 months and then adding new stuff..:

 

more details regarding my personal experience:

was able to play 1 char after day1 hotfix in offline through the main story (act 1,2,3) -

had no gamebreaking/questbreaking bugs, or almost none:

first one at start of act 2 (blocked path because I missed the NPC which had no quest marker ;) after I googled,searched & found her, it was no longer a problem..)

second one was kinda worse, end boss of final act, was unable to beat him for like 20 times in a row until I found out he was bugged if you used certain skills/damage types or attacked him during the wrong moment.. managed to kill him after I switched away from aether/stasis dmg and also turned down difficulty from normal to story mode for final boss..

always kept all my items  :)(others werent so lucky tho it seems)

lost my progress after act 1 when act 2 started (got booted to beginning of act 1 again)

could repair my progress manually by editing the save file..

by the time I started my online-only char, they either fixed the progress/item reset bug already, or I just got lucky, because I experienced neither of those 2..

 

with my online char, I tried out the endgame modes, it's fun for a while but gets repetetive fast .. it's basically similar to D3 but you can customize em.. => mandates = rifts and expeditions = grifts...

you have your own town / buildings that will unlock passive boosts to gold/magic find/personal chest space/skills,  or 'recipes' to alter/reroll/upgrade your gear stats..

these can get quite expensive and running expeditions just to unlock em over and overy feels like a chore sometimes.. all this needs balancing too..

 

personal Wolcen sum up:

+ offline-only mode

+ online-only mode

+ one of the best looks graphics-wise compared to other current ARPGs

+ pace during main story, and for fighting monsters in general

+ imho better hit feedback than GD

+/- in theory more diversity as in D3 but less complex as PoE

+/- story comparable to D3, imho in Wolcen there's 'more of it' than in PoE but less lore than in GD

- nasty bugs, higher possibilty to encounter game/fun breaking ones

- balancing issues across the entire game, but mostly noticeable in late game / end game

 

final verdict:

already like Wolcen more than Grim Dawn,

 

currently best alternative to D3 and PoE,

or better say addition to D3 or PoE,  especially if you preferred D3 over PoE.

 

but most certainly no full  replacement.

that's because of the remaining bugs, and the balance issues.. at times, the combat / attacking foes also doesn't always feel quite as right as in D3 for example..

 

if your favourite is or was already PoE then neither you'll need D3,GD .. nor Wolcen .
 

 

would I recommend it?

yes, maybe.. but only if you already tried PoE first, since the latter is free, has more content, and has way less bugs..

I also wouldn't recommend Wolcen if Grim Dawn doesn't ring a bell..  the latter is way more polished as well..

 

 

I know, lots of people are sceptical, because it has been in development for so long and still bugged, also others are disappointed, because its not the game anymore they were expecting when backing it way way way back on kickstarter..  one of the biggest changes eg. no more  open world as originally planned.. but imho thats no biggy..

 

maybe, it's best to wait at least a few more weeks and see if they can fix build diversity  / end game balancing for example,

these two are a bigger problem imho than the remaining other bugs..

 

Wolcen is still enjoyable even in it's current state tho

 

(you know, just like Sacred was, which had hundreds of thousands of bugs as well at first),

it's just less balanced and has more bugs than D3 PoE or GD

 

 

 

 

Rotluchs, good see you back ... my man!! *high five*

You know... for what its worth and after reading that lengthy, detailed, geniuine-Rotluchs  review ... for me, even after seeing the reviews all claiming buggy, thisy, thaty... its still got some decent play-value...if I'd had a video card that was working on my main computer, I'd probably even have gotten it cept for that... 

didnt Diablo 3's new season open up today?

Booyah!!

If yer playing...  find me! 

:viking:

 

gogo

Link to comment

duh, I wrote this late at night hehe..  even harder to put it in a nutshell when you're tired and distracted and stuff.. maybe it turned out this way because I haven't even made up my mind entirely..

 

 I would recommend to wait. don't buy it right now,

let's see first  if and how they continue to improve the game during the upcoming months and after..

 

also I'd say better wait, because I just found another promising one, it's beta early acess though..

I was in a rush so bought it anyway, haven't had time to play it yet though.. :

 

Did anyone else ever heard of it? It's called Last Epoch .. and it's got.. time travel, yay ;) 

 

So, by the time Last Epoch will be released (plans for later this year),

I'd compare the 2 see and which one proves to be better then..

 

personally, I'll stick with the one that has the 'casual-friendlier endgame' so to speak..

I need something motivating to keep on going, but not consuming thousands of hours..

Edited by Rotluchs
Link to comment
18 minutes ago, Rotluchs said:

Did anyone else ever heard of it? It's called Last Epoch .. and it's got.. time travel, yay ;) 

Yes! I love time travel.  Looks very cool.  I am not generally an early-access kind of guy though (why should I pay money to work as a beta tester?).

It's on my wishlist for sure though.

I don't know how much our tastes align since I adore Grim Dawn, but you might like to check out Shadows: Awakening part of the Heretic Kingdoms series which I haven't been able to stop talking about for the past month.  It's not much like Grim Dawn if that helps.  :lol:

Link to comment

I bought Wolcen a few days ago and sank almost the whole weekend into it, minus some breaks for sleep and such nonsense.

Granted, I'm only 40-something levels in, and seemingly reaching the end of Act III, not yet knowing what the endgame will entail... but it's been a blast so far. I just took the biggest swords they drop, clad in bruiser and heavy armor, because it sounds like what a proper warrior would prefer... now I'm jumping and dashing around, dropping the giant magic hammer, thrashing them with huge magic chains and shout a lot, to make them scared and make me stronkh! :viking:
If the skill wheel fulfills what its huge selection implicitly promises, while endgame gear allows you to push things like Sacred did, I think there's potential for countless builds.

 

Well I'm stoked to play more Wolcen, it's a lot of fun so far.

Oooh besides; it runs at twice the frame rate as Sacred on my machine, almost 30, while looking absolutely gorgeous...
Hellooooo future! :D

  • Like! 1
Link to comment

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...
Please Sign In or Sign Up