Games with Gold....

Next months new batch of Games with Gold are again a bunch of 'Meh' for me. 

Moving out: Is an interesting looking party game, one I'll try but I doubt go any further than that(famous last words?).

Kingdom II Crowns: I've not been into any of the other Kingdom games so I think this one is very much just another click and collect(maybe I'm being too dismissive of a franchise/iteration....).

Rocket Knight: Another interesting looking game but I'm not a real platform fan so any Pro or Con points I could waffle about would be negatively biased. Seeing gameplay footage I can already tell it's just not a game for me.... I'd get frustrated easy. Platformers are a very polarising thing for me.... Click, collect..... 

Lego Batman 2: I'm not into the Lego games so no surprise it's another click'n'collect only.

So yea...... Meh! A very first world problem to get randomness for 'free' and be..... Meh! 

Darkest Dungeon II....

While I'm 'into' the first game and have been since it came out fully(watched it's progress over 2015 and purchased at the start of 2016); I've no real hype or excitement for the second game in the here and now. 

The second game has a hard act to follow(imho). It's different; It needed to be. It's got a lot of good interesting elements. I don't dislike it; It's just not screaming 'play me' like the first game did and still does.

Another early access Epic store exclusive... Business is business but for me that means I'll be waiting a while. A personal perspective thing. Like my view of the second game(so far). By the time it is out 'fully' there'll be plenty of game knowledge, analysis and commentary on the intermawebs.

Is the art and sound amazing... Yes. 

Is it a different take from the first game... Yes.

Does it work... Yea..... I guess.... But the more I type the more I really don't care about the game.

Give it more time and I'll see.... It's a game that's still in development and maybe things will change but for now if I can't get through the first 30 minutes of an hour and a half stream with a streamer I really like playing it.... Tthat speaks volumes(for now).

It's not like there aren't other games (I need?!) to play. It's also not like I've never come late to a gaming party and still gotten enjoyment out of it. A great game is going to be a great game no matter how long it's been since it's release. Granted there can be spoiler issues in that regard; But again a great game is going to be great game (in it's playing) regardless. 

Personal perspectives, unpopular opinions..?.. Meh! Good thing I 'm not an 'influencer' or hype shill....

ETS 2....

A new event(promo giveaway) has brought me back to the game. Regardless of the rewards(in or out of game) it's the doing that's fun for me. A bit of a juxtaposition given I can play the game at any time I like but don't. I'm into many games for the long haul(more here and here)... Too many games I like and not enough time to play them all. 

This latest event 'only' required 5 trips.

An enjoyable and short return to the game. Thankfully no YouTube side screen distraction causing a crash happened. 

This time round I was mainly listening to Truckers FM.(* some DJ's/music better than others...); Over the last few days and it worked out for me.

Battlefield 1(Xbox)....

While I may have been all in on the games PC side.... And the last few months has seen me go all in on it's Xbox iteration.... The Xbox is 'easier' to get games with. Maybe that's a broader playerbase thing; And if so I'm more ponderous about the Xbox Achievements. A lot of gamers must 'just' have the base game.

 

On Xbox it's also less hassle with recorded clips.

On PC players that spawn and take a horse can be a pain for infantry. Being cavalry never appealed to me(Ditto for planes). Killing them on the other hand is very much a fun thing. Maybe because it's an underdog feel for me. Even as a sacrificial thing. Fun to me as I know it's frustration to them. PvP eh!

A Casual Carebear Gamer

A lot of players are 'just' in it for the kills. Match won or lost they only look as the kill/death ratio or appearing on the end screen the most valued player. Assault is the shooter class but a medic with healing or a support with ammo can just as easily do noting but dispense healing /ammo and still be classed as MVP. Shooters accept that by association...

The game is more balanced/nuanced in class and function than a lot of players/pundits will admit.

As a sniper spotting I've seen a match change from a meat grinder to an offensive; Two flares turning the tide for a side is a good feeling...

Darkest Dungeon....

Progress is progress in Darkest Duengon be it small or not. Luck is key as much as choice; More often than not both in the choosing and the results. I've been continually plugging away at the 'New Game+' save for the last.... age.... forever.... while(here, here, here and here). Mainly small dungeons with expendable off the coach recruits to fill/pass a week that see's the more valuable heroes on the roster run, rest and recuperate. Maybe repeat small runs two or three times and then make larger progress... 

Using a lot of stagecoach fodder to pass weeks is a bit of a grind to get through parts but needs must...

Some sacrificial lambs of level 3, 4 and 5 have also been needed. Chosen form those that I'm less attached to or that are 'too far gone' to be 'improved'.

Progress may be progress but it has been slow overall due to limited game-time and breaks after significant (emotional events) in game setbacks. Like a crew in one corridor running into The Collector,  The Thing form the Stars and then the Fanatic; It was no wonder when they all died. Sometimes the game can be 'harsh'. That was indeed 'a corridor' of pain.

While I've completed all that is considered NG+(or whatever it's called these days) from the save I still have that gamer 'need' to complete it all. 2 Bosses and 2 location trinket grinds left(court and farm). Fun is in the challenge of doing.

The latest big success has been to 'take down' the Crimson Court Viscount. I'd been taking my time with his Count dungeon. It's a large map and I like to scout and discover all area's. I'd more than enough invitations to hop in and out allowing for a lot of triage. In the end I favored a cursed crew to clear the dungeon and then move on the boss. The good thing about the court dungeons is that you start where you left off. It's a good mechanic considering the size of the maps.... However..... My last run left that start at the door to the Boss..... A quick start that left a mistake undiscovered.... No trinkets. Yes, yes, yes, my crew were going into a boss fight with no trinkets equipped. After a minute of o.m.g. nashing of teeth crying on my wife's shoulder as she laughed at me, what else could I do but continue... 

A Casual Carebear Gamer

A bit too easy in the end(lucky!?!)....Not that it was ever going to be a perfect fight but in the end it all 'worked out.

Rebel Galaxy Outlaw....

The follow up gameplay from my last post was less fun than I wanted. In that last post I said that my ship upgrade, my first ship upgrade from Platypus to Sonora didn't 'feel' like an upgrade. It proved more true the more I played. Yes I was able to take down harder enemies but harder enemies come with harder and more numerous packs. Even with my own 'buddy' on my wing it wasn't fun to get 3 or 4 hit destroyed by a group.

I persisted in game with trading, courier contracts and mining; Added in some 'lesser' combat missions but that felt like going backwards in game-play. Till I stopped playing the game. The excitement and 'want' to be in the universe faded more quickly than I'd have liked. Faster than I thought possible. Part frustration and part disappointment. The ship upgrade that was a mistake hit hard. 

I'm all about balanced, middle of the road, jack of all trades. "A jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one"; And (I feel)this game needs you to fly one ship and do all the things. My choice of ship upgrade was to cater to that but in practice has come up lacking.....And so no wonder my game-play as well. 

So the game has sat again as an icon on my desktop for a while. 

I still agree with what I said in my last post. Yet it has turned sour with the choice of a ship.... Harsh yet true..... I was surprised that one choice should change so much in the game(for me). 

The thing overall is that I couldn't play the game they way I wanted after the choice I made and that felt 'off'..... Hard to describe but that's the jist of it.

I wondered where to go from there. I may not have played the game but the game stayed with me.

Specific ship hopping to do specific missions? For me that feels like too much faffing about lacking game-play..... Rebel Galaxy Outlaw is not an Eve Online station ship spinner kind of game.

It is a game; And I'm a gamer that needs that 'one' do it all ship. I'm being very resistant to ship change..... I'm not sure I can fully explain that either. But needs must even if it's not compelling game-play.  As much a personal game-play block as bumps in the road of gamepaly mechanics....  

A further 'upgrade'?

To a Sandhawk.....? 

Comparing the Conora and Sandhawk stats on the face of it, it's less overall....

It 'feels' wrong as an upgrade...  

But I did it.

Using it in practice it's got speed, speed for sure and survives better in practice against larger groups..... Not a tanky ship but a kitey one. I need to adjust more to 'get used to it'.... It's not like there's that many ships in game.

The player ownable station Bountiful Vista is the way forward for further 'better' ship purchases as well as game-play motivation in general. Doing missions there for station upgrades will bring more purpose and with luck 'fun'. 

I have hesitation due to what I think will be a lack of fun and a grind to work through....

I'll only find out in the doing. Worth a try to see at the least.... 

Star Trek Online....

Fitting out my Ferengi alt in his Marauder has been fun; But I jinxed it by saying I was happy with him as he was.... I splurged a little more and did some more character tweaking over the weekend.

A Casual Carebear Gamer

Sometimes it's fun to fly casual with what you got. Even more so if it includes a lot of upgrades. It's not perfect, no min/maxing here but I appreciate it...... It's more capable and the enjoyment is still there. 

I guess the fun was too good to pass up. It's nice to 'just' step away from 'mains' and faff about on another character.

----------------

As for the next alt...... More focus on a bigger project(that second Jem'Hadar alt).

Not sure how to fit this properly..... Learning curve ahoy.

Star Trek Online....

The more I play STO the more I tend to lean towards having 'fun' with non T6 ships(usually T5-U) fitted with whatever 'seems' good and is readily available either in my inventory or cheap on the exchange. With a large enough roster of ships on my main it's easy to rank them and pass gear/items from one ship to another(hand me downs/inheritance consoles etc). It's subjective of the moment and can lead to ships being geared in ways you never thought would happen due to circumstance, from focused intent to laziness(best in inventory).

A ship my main has mid roster is a Ferengi Marauder has developed like that. It's a brick, it survives and still does DPS's. My main flies it well and it's fun to use...With bog standard abilities. Nothing fancy.

Having a Ferengi alt it seemed only fair to be thematic with him. While I've not gone so far as to only have Ferengi crew; I do stick to only Ferengi ships. 

He's used a Nandi Warship for The bulk of his leveling(and then some). Being 65 this week it was on my mind to reship him into a Ferengi Maurauder with the idea of matching as close to the same fit as my main. Most of the consoles are from reclaimable ships/rewards or reputations. Swarmer and Boronite laced consoles cheap enough from the exchange... Doable.

Which has worked out for the most part. Some console reworking was done(generic sci console) and the main beam weapons were changed to be Ferengi Plasma dual beams(an effort to be more thematic). Personal preferences of the moment second guessed later but I ran with it. The ship's a Swiss army knife that does it all and keeps going, changes and all. Works for me.

He's still a lesser alt. Bottom of 12 or so; He's lacking in a lot of abilities/mastery etc. With the bit of effort to get him and the ship this far I'm considering it 'done'. Underdog of a sort. It's fun, it's got survival and DPS. Not that much DPS but enough to get it through even advanced TFO's. 

The doing of this, that's the real fun part; Rather than from here to further development. 

I'll take him out for a spin for endevours or TFO's ... Maybe he'll be an alt with one of my wifes alts for some far flung mission.... Or event grind..... Dil farmer for sure; Nice to have options.

Star Trek Online....

Given it's been about a month since I last posted about Star Trek Online; And given it's a game I'm in daily, it'll be no wonder that I've too much to put in a post. I'm sure to forget something as much as I'll repeat myself. But at least I'm motivated to blog...... 

Like last time; Progress and general gameplay goes on. Xbox and PC but still more on PC.

Xbox first.

Another pack on the Microsoft store gives some free items. While there can be free items there from time to time, they're never promoted(as far as I can see). At least they persist on the store till claimed. 

Free is free after all but I can't help but feel somewhat hard done by when the PC version get's a lot more 'PC only' promotion freebies(T6 ships etc). That said I'm feeling hard done by on PC when I see the Dil to Zen rates on Xbox.... So, give and take on both sides....

I've leveled up all my 'specific' recruit alts(3xDelta's and a KDF) to level 20's via the event version of the Maru TFO. Quick and easy adding in a patrol or two on top of duty officer assignments to mix it up.

My TOS temporal agent main is in quiet 'good' shape(still) for a character I rarely play; And even my Gamma alt is really capable with even less time put in.  Both need sporadic remnants of transponder work to be 'complete'. Mainly mission arcs. Time and effort that's not an essential gamepaly requirement for me(in the doing or for the rewards). The rewards for them are handy but given its a version of the game I'm 'just' happy to faff about with; It's really not 'important' for there to still be 'fun'.

The main event/reward campaign for Xbox is nearly complete. I'm sure many would say the lobi reward should be the best choice. Yet I'm sure I'll probably end up getting the 2 T6 Zen store tokens. That fresh crop of alts on the way up could do with a Rom and KDF T6 ship. Another day or two and I'll be able to claim the prize box and mull the options for however long that takes.....

Speaking of the Maru event the last doable daily today(for me) gives way to the new seasonal event on both platforms.

The old Halloween event in the lower decks of Drozana was never spooky (at least to me) but I like that the new event/map pays homage to it. It's incredibly enjoyable, maybe that's just me wanting new and fun content. It is fun contnet. Witches, Devidians, skelly enemies and cool black cats... Oh my! Stay in the light. The game mechanics/teamwork are good elements. Yea really enjoyable.

The deployment of the patch/update went askew for me when after the 30 minute downtime and a tweet saying servers were back up that I couldn't log back in. Not to the arc client and not to just the game via the .exe.

That became frustrating last night when I wasn't able to get any information via official sources. The community is good but dámn it's reassuring when there are official updates.

 

The official Star Trek Online twitter feed is not really updated beyond initial information(for servers); Never mind update on the situation and never mind respond to player 'feedback'. Not that it never happens but it's not a thing that does either.

Officially there's this message to start the patch/update. It gives two links for further information. Twitter and facebook.

Yea two sources linked that I never look at because.....

The twitter account hasn't been updated with Trek news .... Looking last night it wasn't even updated this month....

The facebook page hasn't been updated since 2019(re any game)..... So yea....

It all boils down to community hearsay and waiting. So I did and after about an hour things seemed to be 'working as normal' again. 

Segway to PC gameplay.

I've been doing a lot on alts teaming up with my wife's characters. Completing content that needed to be done in complimentary ways with each others characters. Such as her KDF main Klingon recruit and a KDF alt for me that needs that content as well..... Maximizing. Not min/maxing but it works out Fed and KDF.

Across all MMO's there are moments where you run content/dungeons and inevitably there aren't enough 'guildies' to join in .... UFP is a very large community. I had an interesting run as 'that random' in such a run....... I felt I 'did good' but that's in the eye of the beholder.... 

The mirror ship event reward is an interesting ship to fly. As are it's weapon. My bias is for underdog ships doing well so no wonder it's gotten a best in inventory fit for fun and frolic's..

I'm really liking the 'gifted' deplorable ground turrets. If only they were account available rather than a once per character 'thing'. Players, we're never happy.

After the discovery that base character abilities can be upgraded a while back and with some research I finally went and got some of the Superior traits on my main. They do make a difference but I don't feel like my alts would benefit. Alts are alts, a main is for everything.

As with other MMO's, when something is claimable by all players all players will claim it. In STO's recent case the end of the event granted players a mirror ship. It's fun to see nearly everyone in the same ship for a day or two.

Gameplay, it hasn't changed all that much. The more things change the more they stay the same is true but so is "smae'ol same'ol". Normal is normal.

Now for the real waffle....

The more time I spend in the game the more 'things' accumulate in both item rewards and knowledge.

I've seen some 'blow-in' Youtubers to the game píss on STO. Players need to give a game a chance rather than 'just' look at 5 types of currency and shout pay to win. Bit of honest critical analysis please..... So much judgment for the sake of it. 

STO from what I've seen has been an exception to the micro-transaction rule. You get so much for free or given away for free that it's easy to play without spending a cent. Gotta be old skool longterm with STO. Take your time with it. 

Both my main and main alt on XBox are better than a majority of 'leet' zen bought shiped players. Still seeing a lot of leetness attitude growing in STO. I guess that always comes with increasing player numbers. This is a whole other story and one I've waffled about before. It's also easy to pick and waffle about as it's obvious to see in TFO's and hear in TFO's on Xbox voice. You hop into a dungeon, see player with the big shiny ship; Dungeon starts and big shiny ship is not so big in DPS and ...... player has to respawn...... Yet me in my T-5U keeps on pluggin away.....

Same on Xbox but with non stop verbal diarrhea from leet player, who may have ability but an ego the size of a large......

That's on a player and if they want to spend cash on game items. I've spent cash on a lifetime sub and two(3?) charity packs for some items on PC. I got and still get a lot out of the game either way. Anyway.... You don't need crazy DPS to 'do' the game. On Xbox I consider my characters to be on par with what I've got on PC and I've not spent a cent there.....