get a tram/train from valentine or whatever that first one-street town is called and go to the big city, saint denis. go to a few random towns and look around. there's honestly so much to do and it's all quite engrossing. the main story is very competently done, if suffering a bit from the 'on rails' nature of all main stories, which tend to hurry you along sometimes at an unwelcome pace.
You may have to do a few more missions to unlock certain things. You have to learn how to fish and find the trapper and unlock other weapons and the off-hand holster before it's actually opened up. The completionist in me did like exploring all the fogged areas of the map and going down the challenge trees.
Last edited by DesertFox- (2021-01-20 13:30:23)
that's a good point, i recall chapter 2 taking about 4-5 hours of gameplay to get going. still quite a lot of hand-holding and tutorial-type stuff that's introducing new mechanics and concepts.
Last edited by uziq (2021-01-20 13:49:17)
- SuperJail Warden
- Gone Forever
- +640|3939
Why do so many games add a fishing mechanic? I don't want to learn to fish in real life. Why must I sit through a fishing tutorial just to be a desert bandit?
there's a small incentive in the legendary perks/trinkets but yeah, totally skippable.
I mean, it's a food source is probably why, and in here is a crafting resource for the good predator bait. Notwithstanding that fishing in basically any game is way less of a hassle than reel (ayyy) life.
Last edited by DesertFox- (2021-01-20 15:27:49)
the fishing in the game feels quite developed. different baits, a mini-game with 2/3 mechanics, all the usual stuff with different locations, time of day, etc. i mean, yeah, it's really well done.
forgot about using fish for the advanced baits.
i did appreciate actually how RDR2 set-up all these in-game systems that make your character feel very grounded in the world. there's some level of like day-to-day upkeep so that you're not just breezing through a story in 16 hours or whatever. it's quite immersive. i will say, though, without any spoilers, that a later chapter/interval in the game totally destroyed that gritty-realistic feel for me. the whole patient, hunting/fishing, horse-rearing, errand-running, debt-collecting, yada yada, pace of the game suddenly goes right out the window. it really lost me a bit there.
forgot about using fish for the advanced baits.
i did appreciate actually how RDR2 set-up all these in-game systems that make your character feel very grounded in the world. there's some level of like day-to-day upkeep so that you're not just breezing through a story in 16 hours or whatever. it's quite immersive. i will say, though, without any spoilers, that a later chapter/interval in the game totally destroyed that gritty-realistic feel for me. the whole patient, hunting/fishing, horse-rearing, errand-running, debt-collecting, yada yada, pace of the game suddenly goes right out the window. it really lost me a bit there.
Last edited by uziq (2021-01-20 16:51:51)
But why in the FUCK can't I cell the stupid bitch-ass cigarettes to shopkeepers like so many other items? They restore deadeye core at the expense of stamina, so I'm generally disinclined to use them, but I just am carrying around 60 of 2 types of cigs and 5 robusto cigars, the latter of which at least can be sold.
If I've gotta have fishing in a game, it's definitely going to fit in a game like RDR2 or really anything where you're living off the land. Fishing is the bread and butter of Project Zomboid. Farming comes in second, and only so you can have some variety with your fish. Glaring exception in (unmodded) 7 Days to Die, but that game isn't getting finished anytime soon.
@df It doesn't make sense to me that the cigarettes can't at least be bartered?
@df It doesn't make sense to me that the cigarettes can't at least be bartered?
i never use cigarettes or cigars. i don't smoke in real life, i'm not about to start habitually striking up in a video-game.DesertFox- wrote:
But why in the FUCK can't I cell the stupid bitch-ass cigarettes to shopkeepers like so many other items? They restore deadeye core at the expense of stamina, so I'm generally disinclined to use them, but I just am carrying around 60 of 2 types of cigs and 5 robusto cigars, the latter of which at least can be sold.
alcohol restores those cores much better.
I'd barely be able to do anything in the game if I took that approach, but you are correct that booze is even more plentiful and effective.
Newbie, at least some of it seems to be due to a mechanic where you randomly get cigarette cards out of like 72 total when one picks up the premium variant as a collectible aspect you get something for completing. They seem to want to encourage buying/picking those up, and I suspect didn't want you to be able to just flip them back to a store to recoup the costs.
Newbie, at least some of it seems to be due to a mechanic where you randomly get cigarette cards out of like 72 total when one picks up the premium variant as a collectible aspect you get something for completing. They seem to want to encourage buying/picking those up, and I suspect didn't want you to be able to just flip them back to a store to recoup the costs.
as with all rockstar games like it, at least in my experience, the in-game economy and scarcity of items soon becomes totally irrelevant.
by about chapter 3 i was richer than i ever needed to be.
i had the satchel of the west or whatever that lets you pick up almost everything with no concerns for inventory space.
at almost all times i had enough health/stamina/dead-eye potions or buffs to deal with just about any situation. i think i have like 100 cocaine gum (stamina) and 100 chewing tobacco (dead-eye) or whatever that i can pop in every single fire-fight or difficult moment. ditto the health potions and miracle tonics, etc. it's literally impossible to die.
i didn't go out of my way to collect or buy them, either. only looting corpses of people from missions, etc. searching random buildings. it quickly adds up.
the only penalty i can see for the above, to dissuade you from hammering the copious supply, is that in some missions there is a requirement to 'not use a health potion' to get a gold star rating. meh. who gives a fuck?
these parts of games are frequently fucked up and stupid, especially in role-playing or survival-type games. you quickly become a monster with near infinite weapons, ammo, health potions, etc, at your disposal.
without wanting to introduce any spoilers, the abovementioned chapter that i hated and which broke all immersion for me, is one in which you are severely weakened. it should be THE BEST moment in the game to stress scarcity, survival, the need to hunt and fish, to conserve ammo, etc. and what does the game do? you start-out at a camp that literally gets you a huge supply of ammo, canned food, and health potions. they're just ... there for you to grab before each mission. because that totally makes sense. HUGE fail. i was almost mad at the game at that point.
by about chapter 3 i was richer than i ever needed to be.
i had the satchel of the west or whatever that lets you pick up almost everything with no concerns for inventory space.
at almost all times i had enough health/stamina/dead-eye potions or buffs to deal with just about any situation. i think i have like 100 cocaine gum (stamina) and 100 chewing tobacco (dead-eye) or whatever that i can pop in every single fire-fight or difficult moment. ditto the health potions and miracle tonics, etc. it's literally impossible to die.
i didn't go out of my way to collect or buy them, either. only looting corpses of people from missions, etc. searching random buildings. it quickly adds up.
the only penalty i can see for the above, to dissuade you from hammering the copious supply, is that in some missions there is a requirement to 'not use a health potion' to get a gold star rating. meh. who gives a fuck?
these parts of games are frequently fucked up and stupid, especially in role-playing or survival-type games. you quickly become a monster with near infinite weapons, ammo, health potions, etc, at your disposal.
without wanting to introduce any spoilers, the abovementioned chapter that i hated and which broke all immersion for me, is one in which you are severely weakened. it should be THE BEST moment in the game to stress scarcity, survival, the need to hunt and fish, to conserve ammo, etc. and what does the game do? you start-out at a camp that literally gets you a huge supply of ammo, canned food, and health potions. they're just ... there for you to grab before each mission. because that totally makes sense. HUGE fail. i was almost mad at the game at that point.
Last edited by uziq (2021-01-21 04:34:34)
I'm lucky that I don't care about that aspect of completion, because it even counts eating food like crackers as "health restoring" because it slightly affects your health core.
You did just make me realize that one is able to get iguana skins from an accessible location by chapter 3 to finish crafting those satchels. I thought I had to wait until the later game locations to get that, so that's a goal for me today.
You did just make me realize that one is able to get iguana skins from an accessible location by chapter 3 to finish crafting those satchels. I thought I had to wait until the later game locations to get that, so that's a goal for me today.
you can get the satchels in chapter 2 if you just pursue hunting for a good 5-10 hours.
I have most of them. I didn't know there's the island one can get to with iguanas, since I thought they were only in the tropical/desert area. That's the last one between me and the final big boi satchel, as well as some of the trapper gear, I bet.
yeah you can get iguanas within 5 mins of the first base camp in ch 2. they're on the islands in the lake.
This is sounding a lot like Far Cry / ACreed.
- SuperJail Warden
- Gone Forever
- +640|3939
Almost every open world game requires you to collect copious amounts of random crap in order to pad game time. I have never found a game world interesting enough to do so.
It is funny that someone like Uzique is interested in iguana harvesting in the wild west.
It is funny that someone like Uzique is interested in iguana harvesting in the wild west.
lmao, steady there. i spent all of about 5 minutes 'iguana harvesting'. you have to kill and skin a perfect specimen of each animal. total time taken approx. 10 hours. but yeah, it surprised me too. oddly compulsive, in a sort of 'gotta catch 'em all' kind of vein. it's something you can do when first exploring the game world and soaking it all in.
2020 was an exceptional (and exceptionally mediocre) year in many ways.
RDR2 is probably the only currentish-gen title that i've bought and played on my new desktop. it does look and sound really, really rather good. it's the first 'hey neat' experience i've had thus far on my ultra-widescreen monitor and beefy GPU. the time i've spent in the game still does not make the $1500 pc build (plus monitor cost) a value-winning proposition, however.
considering cyberpunk is gonna be WTF'd for the foreseeable future, i do not think my pc build was a good choice.
2020 was an exceptional (and exceptionally mediocre) year in many ways.
RDR2 is probably the only currentish-gen title that i've bought and played on my new desktop. it does look and sound really, really rather good. it's the first 'hey neat' experience i've had thus far on my ultra-widescreen monitor and beefy GPU. the time i've spent in the game still does not make the $1500 pc build (plus monitor cost) a value-winning proposition, however.
considering cyberpunk is gonna be WTF'd for the foreseeable future, i do not think my pc build was a good choice.
Last edited by uziq (2021-01-21 07:51:25)
- SuperJail Warden
- Gone Forever
- +640|3939
I am honestly unimpressed with RDR2. Maybe it is because I don't have the time and patience to engage with it in detail. I know I put a good amount of time in the new Crusader Kings but I already knew how the system worked since it is mostly just building upon the previous game system. Crusader Kings 3 isn't going to ask me to learn to fish in their new complex fishing system.
I would like to try the RDR2 multiplayer someday. Maybe you, RTHKI, and me can get together and play Brokeback Mountain together. After all, all cowboys are gay. Well known fact.
I would like to try the RDR2 multiplayer someday. Maybe you, RTHKI, and me can get together and play Brokeback Mountain together. After all, all cowboys are gay. Well known fact.
stick with it, the game has a very slow start. i actually think it probably took me about 3 weeks of very uncommitted playing for an hour here or there to get out of that seemingly content-thin starting stuff. it gets a lot better.
In my limited experience, the multiplayer seems waaaaaaaay more grindy, like I hear GTA: Online is. I'm sure there's some multi-person missions where you can take on larger numbers of enemies than alone that are fun, but you also start out from jack shit and have to build yourself up. I don't even have a brush to clean my horse and have no knowledge of how to get it in MP.
I'm not sure where you're at, Mac, but it's not asking you to reinvent the wheel. You've played 3rd person games before. There's an intro to fishing like most of the other activities, but you're not forced to participate in them after.
I'm not sure where you're at, Mac, but it's not asking you to reinvent the wheel. You've played 3rd person games before. There's an intro to fishing like most of the other activities, but you're not forced to participate in them after.
I did acquire the 4 total iguana skins one needs to craft all the things from them, as I'm sure everyone was waiting for. I did get the endgame satchel and it does feel pretty broken, but at least I can be a packrat to my hearts content.
It's been two years, there's a ton of guide and wiki content for finding stuff like "horse brushes" in RDR2.
- SuperJail Warden
- Gone Forever
- +640|3939
Hearts of Iron IV is literally the worst strategy game I have ever played. I will openly admit that I am bad at it because if you air your grievances about the game in some space they will say "get good" as if fundamental parts of the game aren't broken or don't make sense. Even more annoying is when they cite completely wrong pop history to defend the game acting erratically or not working.
So let's begin:
I started off my first Iron Man campaign as Nazi Germany so I could win World War 2 and fulfill my life long dream of preventing myself from being born. I didn't take any screenshots of anything up until the point when the game went off the rails. I was actually having a lot of fun with it until that point.
So as Germany I was playing historically and peacefully absorbed Austria and Czechoslovakia and was preparing to invade Poland. So I setup my units around Poland but then got a message that Italy invaded Greece and Great Britain and France had joined in defending Greece. So far so good. World War 2 starts over Greece instead of Poland.
Here is where things started going crazy: France invades Germany and for some reason the game isn't letting me move my units in Poland to fight the French. This is a bug with a $20 DLC feature but basically the French conquer Germany while the German Army stays in Prussia.
Whatever, first time playing the game and I have a lot to learn? Something that also happened that was strange was the Netherland declared war on Germany at the same time and then Poland declares war on me too. After that the game explodes into countries joining the conflict and the name of the conflict changing rapidly. The Soviet Union invades Poland and joins the war on the side of the Axis but other countries are still randomly joining the war that keeps changing its name.
This is in October
In November the war has evolved into the Italian-American War because Great Britain called the U.S. into the war and Italy is the war leader for the Axis. There was no Pearl Harbor event. Great Britain just asked the U.S. to join and we did because history
At this point I am just watching the game play itself because Germany was totally occupied by France. Japan joins the war on the side of the Soviet-Axis alliance for some reason somehow Italy captures Paris which then reforms my country back into existence from literal nothingness.
Hitler is still alive and so are all of his generals and advisors because Hitler famously went into exile. I start to raise armies again and got lucky doing so because even though I was totally conquered and disappeared from the map, the game let me keep vast stockpiles of weapons I produced before the war.
I'm still not good at this game and the American-Dutch-and French armies push my reformed 5 divisions led by Rommel into Berlin.
The game still gives me access to vast stockpiles of weapons (they are in the cloud I guess) and I hold a sliver of territory someplace that allows me to actually raise armies in Berlin. So after awhile I have 15 new divisions in Berlin
I am still surrounded but I am undefeated because the enemy AI will not send in all of their divisions at once to kill me. Instead they are sending them in 1 at a time to fight my 5 then 10 then 15 sized army. This goes on forever until finally they manage to take the city and I disappear from the map again. But even though I literally do not have a single piece of land, the game allows you to keep researching tech which means I eventually begin to develop nuclear weapons while also not existing.
Eventually Italy is defeated and all of the Euro-Axis powers turn into democracies while the Allies and former Axis continue World War 2 agaisnt Japan and the Soviet Union. What this means practically is that I am given back almost all of my pre-World War 2 territory. France somehow actually loses land in the peace deal.
I am stronger and France is weaker despite the fact they conquered me twice. I am their 'puppet' but I get out of that by literally clicking one button because I had points saved up from when I let the game play itself.
The game then gives me an event to absorb Austria again.
At this point the game also gives me the to form the European Union?
Sure, why not. Who will stop me? I am still at war with the Soviet Union and since I am allies with Poland in this war, I can't invade them at this moment. I need to end World War 2 first. I noticed the British-Italian-French-Polish-American armies are stuck fighting Russia on the Polish border. I send some units over to see what is happens and there actually isn't much happening. Both sides are just shuffling units around the frontline while attrition destroys their armies. I check the game ledger and apparently the U.S. took 7 million casualties because they are letting their men freeze to death while shuffling around the Polish border.
So I am forced to raise armies again to start the invasion of the Soviet Union. It goes well actually since I have basically NATO on my side. I pushed back the Soviet armies to Moscow, Leningrad, and Stalingrad singlehandedly because my AI allies are still just shuffling their armies around the front not doing anything. I eventually capture all three major cities (the Nazis in real life captured none). The Soviet Union is still refusing to quit and I have nuclear weapons now. So I nuke Russia.
It looks really cool on the game map but doesn't actually do anything. It didn't kill any units or destroy the city infrastructure. So I nuke the city next to it and again nothing happens.
At this point I stopped really paying attention and the Russians got Moscow back because the AI management of my units is doing the same shuffling around the front and freeze thing my allies are doing. So I nuked Moscow next.
The Russian AI is still refusing to quit since it holds 30% of ''victory points" on the map. So I dropped 4 more Atomic bombs on each victory point city on the map and nothing happens still. I manually marched my freezing AI army to various victory points and nothing is happening still. I then see an Atomic bomb go off on a city I nuked once already. The AI got annoyed and started Atomic bombing places too. It was at this point that the Soviet Union surrendered. It took 8 Atomic bombs which is 6 too many.
So it is 1948 and we are still at war with Japan which is starting to get pushed back as a NATO-Russia alliance is invading Japanese occupied India. Okay, whatever. Good luck with that.
I do not recommend this game. I think get one of those fancy shiny achievements which is all I wanted in the first place.
So let's begin:
I started off my first Iron Man campaign as Nazi Germany so I could win World War 2 and fulfill my life long dream of preventing myself from being born. I didn't take any screenshots of anything up until the point when the game went off the rails. I was actually having a lot of fun with it until that point.
So as Germany I was playing historically and peacefully absorbed Austria and Czechoslovakia and was preparing to invade Poland. So I setup my units around Poland but then got a message that Italy invaded Greece and Great Britain and France had joined in defending Greece. So far so good. World War 2 starts over Greece instead of Poland.
Here is where things started going crazy: France invades Germany and for some reason the game isn't letting me move my units in Poland to fight the French. This is a bug with a $20 DLC feature but basically the French conquer Germany while the German Army stays in Prussia.
Whatever, first time playing the game and I have a lot to learn? Something that also happened that was strange was the Netherland declared war on Germany at the same time and then Poland declares war on me too. After that the game explodes into countries joining the conflict and the name of the conflict changing rapidly. The Soviet Union invades Poland and joins the war on the side of the Axis but other countries are still randomly joining the war that keeps changing its name.
This is in October
In November the war has evolved into the Italian-American War because Great Britain called the U.S. into the war and Italy is the war leader for the Axis. There was no Pearl Harbor event. Great Britain just asked the U.S. to join and we did because history
At this point I am just watching the game play itself because Germany was totally occupied by France. Japan joins the war on the side of the Soviet-Axis alliance for some reason somehow Italy captures Paris which then reforms my country back into existence from literal nothingness.
Hitler is still alive and so are all of his generals and advisors because Hitler famously went into exile. I start to raise armies again and got lucky doing so because even though I was totally conquered and disappeared from the map, the game let me keep vast stockpiles of weapons I produced before the war.
I'm still not good at this game and the American-Dutch-and French armies push my reformed 5 divisions led by Rommel into Berlin.
The game still gives me access to vast stockpiles of weapons (they are in the cloud I guess) and I hold a sliver of territory someplace that allows me to actually raise armies in Berlin. So after awhile I have 15 new divisions in Berlin
I am still surrounded but I am undefeated because the enemy AI will not send in all of their divisions at once to kill me. Instead they are sending them in 1 at a time to fight my 5 then 10 then 15 sized army. This goes on forever until finally they manage to take the city and I disappear from the map again. But even though I literally do not have a single piece of land, the game allows you to keep researching tech which means I eventually begin to develop nuclear weapons while also not existing.
Eventually Italy is defeated and all of the Euro-Axis powers turn into democracies while the Allies and former Axis continue World War 2 agaisnt Japan and the Soviet Union. What this means practically is that I am given back almost all of my pre-World War 2 territory. France somehow actually loses land in the peace deal.
I am stronger and France is weaker despite the fact they conquered me twice. I am their 'puppet' but I get out of that by literally clicking one button because I had points saved up from when I let the game play itself.
The game then gives me an event to absorb Austria again.
At this point the game also gives me the to form the European Union?
Sure, why not. Who will stop me? I am still at war with the Soviet Union and since I am allies with Poland in this war, I can't invade them at this moment. I need to end World War 2 first. I noticed the British-Italian-French-Polish-American armies are stuck fighting Russia on the Polish border. I send some units over to see what is happens and there actually isn't much happening. Both sides are just shuffling units around the frontline while attrition destroys their armies. I check the game ledger and apparently the U.S. took 7 million casualties because they are letting their men freeze to death while shuffling around the Polish border.
So I am forced to raise armies again to start the invasion of the Soviet Union. It goes well actually since I have basically NATO on my side. I pushed back the Soviet armies to Moscow, Leningrad, and Stalingrad singlehandedly because my AI allies are still just shuffling their armies around the front not doing anything. I eventually capture all three major cities (the Nazis in real life captured none). The Soviet Union is still refusing to quit and I have nuclear weapons now. So I nuke Russia.
It looks really cool on the game map but doesn't actually do anything. It didn't kill any units or destroy the city infrastructure. So I nuke the city next to it and again nothing happens.
At this point I stopped really paying attention and the Russians got Moscow back because the AI management of my units is doing the same shuffling around the front and freeze thing my allies are doing. So I nuked Moscow next.
The Russian AI is still refusing to quit since it holds 30% of ''victory points" on the map. So I dropped 4 more Atomic bombs on each victory point city on the map and nothing happens still. I manually marched my freezing AI army to various victory points and nothing is happening still. I then see an Atomic bomb go off on a city I nuked once already. The AI got annoyed and started Atomic bombing places too. It was at this point that the Soviet Union surrendered. It took 8 Atomic bombs which is 6 too many.
So it is 1948 and we are still at war with Japan which is starting to get pushed back as a NATO-Russia alliance is invading Japanese occupied India. Okay, whatever. Good luck with that.
I do not recommend this game. I think get one of those fancy shiny achievements which is all I wanted in the first place.