Oh yeah. They added contextual interaction promots. The closest thing I had played before reforger was DayZ though. But Reforger is very intuitive. Most everything can be done by looking at stuff and pressing F (entering cars, bandaging wounds, taking on and off attachments on weapons, etc.).
It’s a bit more complex than Squad in the things you can do, but the approach is much more simple (like, in Squad you press f1-8 to switch seats, in ArmA you can freelook and look at the seat).
Great rec. Teamwork required, easy to learn but hard to master (especially the vehicles, which also require teamwork).
Honestly squad is pretty strange for me. I’m not very fond of talking to people (SzPD at least, might be on the spectrum), but Squad does not work without teamwork and communication. Guess the difference is that I don’t really get casual communication but effective comms on Squad rely on briefness and exactness. Triple Ds, that kind of stuff.
If you do end up jumping into Squad, expect some hiccups. The game is not terribly well optimized, and the community almost always picks the same factions and divisions. The devs have shown off a UE5 upgrade that’ll be dropping in the near future, so that might be good.
In a similar vein, ArmA: Reforger is great. Completely replaced my Squad addiction. While Squad is more focused (which is good), ArmA is way more free and varied in objectives. Plus, I feel like it might be more easily moddable. WCS and RH feel almost like they were vanilla, while the most polished Squad mods feel like mods. Not a knock against the mod teams, maybe unreal is harder to mod.
Both of these recs are honestly great, Jojo Mayer in particular would be great as a theme if I slow it down some. Thanks!
Thanks! Skeleton Quarter and Jü sound like what I’m after. Hopefully it won’t be too dissonant for my table.
Speaking of music, has anyone found anything that resembles a mix of jazz, techno, and punk? Hell of a mix, but I kinda wanted something cool for a campaign I’ll run in a custom setting, in New Orleans. At this point, even something with an energy similar to Samurai or Atari Teenage Riot but jazzy would be cool as a “soundtrack”.
Definitely. I love the freedom ArmA gives. It allows to really engage with any objective as you see fit. The structure of a typical AAS or RAAS match in squad doesn’t really allow for that to happen.
The day before yesterday a buddy and I managed to round up 4 people to come with us to retake Cabin on a WCS server. W After that we went to Chotain. While the team took farm, we went on to take Laruns, then quarry while the team took Camurac, and then Penant’s . We went from losing Military Hospital to the enemy team struggling to even field helicopters to the western coast.
Haven’t ever gotten close to that in Squad. Though I will say that rounding up enough volunteers to do that is kind of hard.
I never played ArmA before Reforger, but coming from Squad it feels great. From my understanding of common gripes long time ArmA players have with Reforger, it’s a bit less milsim, so take that into account if you want to jump in.
Vanilla:
WCS (probably the most popular mod pack along with RHS) also has new stuff coming with this patch:
Not all of it though. I remember Blue from Overly Sarcastic Productions going on a tangent about how he went over to florence (or venice) and looking for a place that didn’t exist. Ubi had made it up completely.
Lethal Company, Battle Talent, Ready or Not, and Arma Reforger. Bit of Stalker GAMMA and Crusader Kings as well.
I’m halfway through my first kcd2 playthrough and I’m waiting for the barber update. The game is fantastic, and I really want to keep playing, but I kinda liked costumizing henry in the first game. Looking at the rest of the game, I imagine this one’ll be much more polished.
Yeah! I was looking for something horror or horror adjacent and I was not expecting religious horror to pop up. It’s easy to read too, though it does get a bit, uh, what’s the word, crude at times. Not in the writing, but what’s being portrayed.
Christopher Buehlman has some, though idk if they’re grimdark or just horror. I’ve read Those Across The River and Between Two Fires, both standalone stories with no connection between them. Between Two Fires is the better of the two, with just some of the latter half feeling a bit too long (even if the story is still interesting).
Not OP, but the community used to be so much better before. Game is fun, begun playing it on launch, but quit about three years ago because the people that play it are pretty toxic nowadays. Also, can’t trade stuff now. Some people really enjoyed that aspect of the game (not me, but still). A shame there isn’t anything else like it.
The day they do that is the day I move on to another e-reader. Like hell I’ll pay for books I already have in physical.
Can’t speak for PoE1, but the second one (deadfire) is a treat. Though I would not recommend playing it through turn based mode, it feels very much like retrofitting the existing RTwP system into a turn based system, which is what happened.
It takes some time to get used go it (or at least it did for me since I don’t really enjoy RTwP) but still.
So, you’ve yet to do the Paladins of Tyr, both hyena encounters, harpies, owlbear, skellies in the dungeon, spider, goblins on the outpost just outside the temple, goblins outside the temple, Auntie ethel, and the woads. Not to mention all the goblins in the Blighted Village. Those net some XP as well. That’s for the coast. All of that should get you 5th level, maybe even a quarter of the way into level 6.
As others have mentioned, the Risen Road and the Underdark are both still Act I. Act II is the shadowlands, and everything therein.
Depending on your builds, especially if you have a wizard in your party, I would check the traders who are still alive. Their inventory restocks every long rest, and they get new items every couple level ups. I just reached level 5 and I’ve found some of the lower level armors at a +2 variant. You might also find some spells and useful potions.
If you’re on Honor, I’d suggest doing Underdark first and Risen Road second.
Remnant is a coop soulslike shooter, if that’s up your alley. Fun bosses, some puzzles with unique rewards if you get the clues (some are really hard and you’ll definitely end up looking up guides for most of them), and build variety is okay. Haven’t played Remnant 1, but Remnant 2 is fun.
Outward is an indie open world RPG with survival mechanics. With mods, you can play with more than 2 people. It’s janky, but it has an old school approach to game design that feels refreshing. For instance, the ingame map is just a map, not a gps. You orient yourself with the on-screen compass and landmarks off in the distance. The levelling system is completely non-standard compared to modern rpgs, as it is classless, has skill trees (with passives and actives), and uses money, not XP, to level. So every red cent counts. The story is honestly not impressive. Not because of the presentation, but because there really isn’t much there. If you end up playing this, is because the exploration and builds are fun. Having to deal with environmental threats while you’re low on resources (e.g: can’t see but you ran out of lantern oil, freezing but don’t have a campfire, starving or dehydrated but have no food) adds a lot to the game, because combat is not easy until you get a good build going.
Valheim could work if you’re up for it. Though not much of an RPG, it can be played like one with the right mods and world settings. You can tone down the survival aspects and increase the combat aspects. Nearly 0 story though. My only gripe in this regard with the game is that build variety only comes online in the latter half of the available content. Before Mistlands, everyone is either melee or range. Once you get Eitr, you can combine melee or range with magic. With mods though, you can get classes and unique enemies to hunt down.
Same as before, Project Zomboid can be played like an RPG with the right mods, but you won’t find much of a story besides the ones you shape yourself in-game. There’s a lot to building a character, and you will get attached to them since infection is certain death, and then you have to roll up a new character. B42 just released on the unstable branch, but is only single player atm. B41 can be played multiplayer, and it has thousands of mods for you to tailor the experience. I’ve had a lot of fun playing on private servers with my friends. I treat it as a survival game, and they treat it as an RPG.
Return to Moria might work? It’s not much of an RPG, but it has a loose story to egg you on. No builds, however.
Wasteland 3, though its similar to BG3 I think. Haven’t played it online, and I think it’s limited to 2 people. Build variety is up there though, and the story is great.
Not really much to offer, now that I realize. If BG3 wasn’t your cup of tea you might not have a lot to choose from.
Yeah, I’m sick of it as well. Having to guess whether my rig will play something at a framerate that won’t make me sick because a dev studio chose pretty graphics (that aren’t really much better than AAA 10 years ago) over good optimization.
Most of the games I play are relatively undemanding for this reason. That and because indie games don’t have as much monetization.
Oh yeah, super excited. Think I’m gonna try a barb 3 (tiger wildheart) / Drunk monk 9, going Con and Str. Not sure what species though. Maybe Gold Dwarf for the HP.
I’ll also try Shadow Sorcerer / Hexblade, probably going Zariel Tief for that one. Or Shadow Sorc / Swash 3, I dunno yet.
Second. Performance should probably be better (I was struggling before I upgraded), but it is great fun. Very, very dark in subject matter.