Game: What game are you currently playing??

[Ryllharu]

I don't agree entirely. I was aggressively unlocking gifts basically whenever I had the haze to do so. The early ones mastered fast as hell because I was under leveled. Customizing the set of gifts for an area or boss became routine, and you can do it on the fly, which is huge. If you've mastered them, you don't need to shift blood codes so long as you have the stats for it, and the late game codes give you access to the majority of them. It still breaks down to Fighter/Caster/Scout for the ones that you can't, but those high-stat requirement gifts are highly specialized, or the right Passive gets you there (Mind Up -> Bridge to Glory, looking at you).

By the time I'm getting to a boss, there's nothing to unlock.

Upgrades I was also doing throughout, but they're not that big of a deal because you'll either get all the materials you need late game when you're swimming in haze and you can buy them in unlimited quantities, or you're really only focusing on a favored weapon or two. Blood Veils you just move up to the next one you found until NG+.

If you're after mastery, you want to be under leveled at all times. Leveling is really reserved to "Am I getting hit too hard by mobs?"

People can and do beat the bosses with pipe at level 1.

[Buffalobiian]

The reason I didn't aggressively unlock gifts while navigating a map was mainly because I avoided resting at Mistles, which in turn was due to my using low ichor blood codes and can't being fucked to farm mobs to raise my ichor soft-cap again after resting.

Having dead mobs stay dead also made my life easier for the sake of exploration and re-exploration to collect any missing items.

As for mastery, yeah I'm feeling the pain now. I wish I didn't add any leftover haze into leveling. I should have just let it go to waste since it'd hurt me less in the long run.

[shinta|hikari]

I didn't spend any time customizing like you guys did. I just leveled up, got some random gifts or whatever, leveled the weapon I fancied at the moment (which changed every area of the game), and dodged the shit out of everything.

The only boss that gave me trouble was this 2vs1 fight because my CPU ally kept dying and I just quit when that happened. My problem was, due to lack of any sort of preparation and being extremely underleveled (like I always am in any game since I just rush through everything), I did shit damage. So I can't tank or rush the bosses to death. In the end, I had to learn to dodge all their attacks while my ally did the damage, not because I can't strike the bosses, but because even as I repeatedly did so, I did almost no damage. I also killed the big red guy first because he dodged less.

My spec probably made no sense, and my weapon wasn't even upgraded completely, but that's how I roll.

[Buffalobiian]

So.
There's this game called Ghost of Tsushima.
I'm playing it.
And so should you.

Think earlier types of Assassin's Creed but Japan, and being somewhat closer to Sekiro in combat.

[shinta|hikari]

Finished it and all relevant sidequests with max upgrades. One of the best games I've played. Do yourself a favor and play with English subtitles and Japanese VA. The English VA does not do Jin justice.

I tried 3 different play styles:
1. Stagger style - Easy as fuck. You just stagger and slash everything to death by changing stances to match targeted enemy.
2. Counter style - The most fun style. You wait for enemies to attack you and counter. Stances mean nothing if you focus on this.
3. Ghost style - The most OP style. One fire bomb will kill an entire mob if specced right. Boring but hilarious.

"Stealth" in this game doesn't really exist (and I love it for that since I hate forced stealth). The detection rate and range are very low, and enemy areas and groups are sectioned off, so you don't have to be careful at all. Just don't openly attack enemies and you're good.

Visually one of the best things you will ever play on the PS4.

I thoroughly enjoyed just riding around Tsushima and killing mongols for no reason.

Best part is quality of life. It is basically RDR2 without all the annoying aspects. Loot can be picked up with no animation and huge range. Quick travel is unlocked from the get go. Mission rewards are transparent so you can choose what side quests to take. Best of all, the horse teleports to your location when called, so you can jump down a cliff and then call it, and ride off into the sunset. And you can't kill yourself by riding into a tree.

The only thing I could ask for is that the way you play should affect the story and ending. Being an honor-less ghost should result in a different ending than if you played as a (mostly) honor-bound samurai. That would've made this game legendary.

[Buffalobiian]

The only thing I could ask for is that the way you play should affect the story and ending. Being an honor-less ghost should result in a different ending than if you played as a (mostly) honor-bound samurai. That would've made this game legendary.

I agree with this. For the early part of the game I played with zero stealth and challenged everyone to a duel. Turns out the game pretty much forces you to at least compromise your morals once, and some characters reprimand you for your actions regardless.. so now I just do whatever seems fun and applicable at the time. All your actions do is trigger cutscenes reminding you of your past lessons in morality.

I'm still in Act 2 so I have a fair way to go.

Style-wise, I'm essentially avoiding Ghost style for now since I enjoy straight up fights. The new Lethal mode is interesting. It's essentially "hardcore" mode where everyone has increased damage. Depending on what you're fighting, it could make life easier or harder. Also since the damage is increased, running strike is now a 1 hit kill like it should be. Arrow damage is much higher but that's okay.

Mob fights are easier. After you parry an enemy, slash them twice and they're dead. That turns group fights into a series of 1v1v1v1v1. That's much easier than doing chip damage against 5 guys and parrying them all for 2 minutes.

I actually rarely fight mobs now anyway, because after I perform a stand-off against them, they're either dead or running away in fear.

I found some duels easier if they're essentially normal mobs with higher health bars, but some duels (Kojiro I'm looking at you) harder if they're tough. Mistakes are punished much more severely. With that guy, I ended up just spamming Heavenly Strike and Dance of Wrath against him until his head was much lower, then tried to go the rest of the way without stuffing up.

Overall I like Lethal Mode, it changes the game. It's supposed to improve enemy detection to make stealth harder, but since I rarely use stealth it doesn't matter.

[shinta|hikari]

Did you already get the Charm that makes parry, perfect parry, and perfect dodge easier? That makes the counter build viable and extremely fun.

I murdered Kojiro with ease because of that charm. That and my ridiculously high damage when we fought.

[KrayZ33]

Currently playing Genshin Impact.

Pretty cool anime game.
Even though it is a gacha-game, it's fun.

The exploration was a lot of fun and so was the story. The characters are really lovable.

[shinta|hikari]

Playing it too. I love Xiang Ling. Goba! Ike!

The dialog choices are surprisingly funny. Mihoyo always had good mobages, but this one is a cut above the others.

Who is in your main team? Do you play in Americas? What is your AR? I'm at 34 with Fischl, Keqing, Mona, and Xiang Ling. I swap in Barbara for one of them when healing is required. I am very happy to be lucky enough to get two 5 stars that are female. I wouldn't use them if they were male.

Apparently there is an official manga.

[Ryllharu]

Exploration is where it's at. The game is phenomenally beautiful in a lot of places. Paimon is by far the best small floating mascot/partner character in an action adventure game. Her lines are almost always funny.

I rotate through all the characters I have in my exploring parties, except for Razor (perpetual expeditions). Usually rolling with Traveler, Barbara, and whoever fits the situation. I don't really like Kaeya as a character, but he can legitimately walk on water, so there's that.

But for elite battles? Immortal God Battle Tank Noelle, Fischl, Xiangling, and Immortal Goddess Barbara.

[shinta|hikari]

Why do you have 2 healers? Isn't that gonna hurt your DPS and prevent clearing some battle conditions?

[Ryllharu]

Because Noelle is an immortal god battle tank. Her Geo beam sword attack stacks with DEF...she does absurd damage. Fishcl and Xiangling element combos more than make up for any difference. Barbara is an incomparable healer, and combos with both.

[KrayZ33]

My team so far is, Ice-Claymore-dude, Fischl C5 (will get C6 with the event when 1.1 hits), Xiangling and Barbara.
I will get a 5* character today due to pity rolls, maybe Klee - I so fucking hope it's gonna be Klee, there isn't a single character in any game whatsoever that is as cute as her.

Honestly, I want her to be my child.

Have you guys seen the trailers and previews about her? Some good quality shit.



"You are here for playtime with Klee? Yay! Okay, you will be in charge of the stormwatch - which means you will warn Klee as soon as you see Jean comming!" - adorable.

I play on EU, AR39

[shinta|hikari]

Let us all agree that Xiang Ling is FIRE.

That said, Keqing is ridic on damage. Broke the game for me.

[Buffalobiian]

My team so far is, Ice-Claymore-dude, Fischl C5 (will get C6 with the event when 1.1 hits), Xiangling and Barbara.
I will get a 5* character today due to pity rolls, maybe Klee - I so fucking hope it's gonna be Klee, there isn't a single character in any game whatsoever that is as cute as her.

Honestly, I want her to be my child.

Have you guys seen the trailers and previews about her? Some good quality shit.



"You are here for playtime with Klee? Yay! Okay, you will be in charge of the stormwatch - which means you will warn Klee as soon as you see Jean comming!" - adorable.

I play on EU, AR39

Okay, post trailer I might play this game now.

[shinta|hikari]

Hello.

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[Ryllharu]

My pulls are consistently garbage. I'm pretty sure the only 5*'s I've ever gotten were both pity pulls...and one was a weapon. T_T

I have a lot of 4* weapons...

[shinta|hikari]

In contrast, I don't have a gold weapon. Most of my weapons are crafted.

A friend of mine just got Klee and then Qiqi using single draws just yesterday too, but those were his first 2 5 stars.

[Ryllharu]

I think I might be okay not getting Klee this time around. I didn't really like her that much in the trial. Sucrose on the other hand...would prefer a few duplicates of her because she's like the bargain version of Jean's damage and crowd control sides.

You can do absurd amounts of swirl damage with her, mostly because her frequency is drastically higher than Venti's or the Anemo Traveler.

[shinta|hikari]

I have 3 dupes of Sucrose and 2 of Noelle too.