Thread for Gamers IX: God Howard Starfield Edition

[The New California Republic]

Six of my own mechs died to make this. I don't know whether to feel pride or shame.

It's weird how it sometimes makes me feel morally conflicted when I need to sacrifice certain characters etc in order to advance. I usually look for other options, but often games force you into doing it.

[Licana]

Six of my own mechs died to make this. I don't know whether to feel pride or shame.

It's weird how it sometimes makes me feel morally conflicted when I need to sacrifice certain characters etc in order to advance. I usually look for other options, but often games force you into doing it.

idk man, the fictional deaths of fictional characters doesn't really get to me. When roleplaying a certain kind of character I sometimes try to do things like that, but that's about it.

That being said, the game didn't force me to kill six of my own mechs/pilots to advance. I did it of my own volition because I wanted to make the gigascout.

[The New California Republic]

It's weird how it sometimes makes me feel morally conflicted when I need to sacrifice certain characters etc in order to advance. I usually look for other options, but often games force you into doing it.

idk man, the fictional deaths of fictional characters doesn't really get to me. When roleplaying a certain kind of character I sometimes try to do things like that, but that's about it.

That being said, the game didn't force me to kill six of my own mechs/pilots to advance. I did it of my own volition because I wanted to make the gigascout.

I have a habit of empathising a lot with characters in games.

[The first Galactic Republic]

Idk. I generally like keeping characters I’m attached to around, but there’s an odd, morbid fun to be had in taking advantage of opportunities for character death if the freedom to do it is there. Especially in repeat playthroughs.

A Mass Effect trilogy playthrough where you try to get as many people killed as possible can be just as fun as a golden playthrough.

Then there’s Fire Emblem...

[Bralia]

In what was the certainly most important event to happen yet in DE, I was forced to savescum around THREE failed ~70% checks and TWO 80% checks in the pursuit of *ONE*. And after all of that, I got through a 28% check to *TWO* no problem. God damn you, game.

a non-violent outcome, that I didn't even know was impossible until I had to look it up.

dodge a bullet that I really had no right to avoid,

[Bralia]

. . . what the fuck is happening? And how has it kept me playing throughout this entire night? This absolute insanity. Huskar . . . Ifreann . . . anyone else . . . help . . . my brain . . .

[Ifreann]

In what was the certainly most important event to happen yet in DE, I was forced to savescum around THREE failed ~70% checks and TWO 80% checks in the pursuit of *ONE*. And after all of that, I got through a 28% check to *TWO* no problem. God damn you, game.

a non-violent outcome, that I didn't even know was impossible until I had to look it up.

dodge a bullet that I really had no right to avoid,

A non-violent outcome is possible? Cool. I listened to my horrible necktie and firebombed them.

[The New California Republic]

. . . what the fuck is happening? And how has it kept me playing throughout this entire night? This absolute insanity. Huskar . . . Ifreann . . . anyone else . . . help . . . my brain . . .

It's why I'm avoiding DE until I have significant time to dedicate to it, as I think it will turn out to be a game that I will play obsessively.

[Purpelia]

What is this DE?

[The New California Republic]

What is this DE?

Disco Elysium.

[Bralia]

In what was the certainly most important event to happen yet in DE, I was forced to savescum around THREE failed ~70% checks and TWO 80% checks in the pursuit of *ONE*. And after all of that, I got through a 28% check to *TWO* no problem. God damn you, game.

a non-violent outcome, that I didn't even know was impossible until I had to look it up.

dodge a bullet that I really had no right to avoid,

A non-violent outcome is possible? Cool. I listened to my horrible necktie and firebombed them.

No, NOT possible. I really tried to explore the options, but no luck and the internet confirmed it.

Also, what the frig, Iffy.

. . . what the fuck is happening? And how has it kept me playing throughout this entire night? This absolute insanity. Huskar . . . Ifreann . . . anyone else . . . help . . . my brain . . .

It's why I'm avoiding DE until I have significant time to dedicate to it, as I think it will turn out to be a game that I will play obsessively.

INLAND EMPIRE: The tendrils of Elysium will embrace you and you will become one with it, snared for what feels like an eternity.

[Immoren]

In what was the certainly most important event to happen yet in DE, I was forced to savescum around THREE failed ~70% checks and TWO 80% checks in the pursuit of *ONE*. And after all of that, I got through a 28% check to *TWO* no problem. God damn you, game.

a non-violent outcome, that I didn't even know was impossible until I had to look it up.

dodge a bullet that I really had no right to avoid,

A non-violent outcome is possible? Cool. I listened to my horrible necktie and firebombed them.

I think you misread that.
Or I misread

[Ifreann]

Lead Designer of DE talking about some of the features and a little about what they want to explore with the sequel.

A non-violent outcome is possible? Cool. I listened to my horrible necktie and firebombed them.

No, NOT possible. I really tried to explore the options, but no luck and the internet confirmed it.

Whoops, misread.

Also, what the frig, Iffy.

Always listen to your horrible necktie.

[Cisairse]

I went to go add DE to my Steam wishlist only to find that it is already on there.

[Purpelia]

What is this DE?

Disco Elysium.

I've been hearing about that game a lot. Like is it any good? Can you give me any info or like a link to a non spoiler review or something? I'd look it up my self but I am guaranteed to run into spoilers.

[The New California Republic]

Disco Elysium.

I've been hearing about that game a lot. Like is it any good? Can you give me any info or like a link to a non spoiler review or something? I'd look it up my self but I am guaranteed to run into spoilers.

I haven't played it yet, but it's almost the only thing that folks here can talk about.

https://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/disco-elysium

[The Huskar Social Union]

Disco Elysium.

I've been hearing about that game a lot. Like is it any good? Can you give me any info or like a link to a non spoiler review or something? I'd look it up my self but I am guaranteed to run into spoilers.

So the game has basically no combat like a lot of rpg's do, its focused entirely around your ability to interrogate people and pass skill checks through conversation and exploring and interacting with your environment in order to progress and open up new paths throughout the story.

The plot is your are playing as an alcoholic detective who is trying to investigate a murder at the hotel you are staying in, and your various skills are your "thoughts" and voices in your head which will give you advice in conversation and can open up more ways to progress as you invest in them, things like unique options in some conversations etc. Also your character has lost his memory after emerging out of a three day drinking bender so not only are you trying to investigate a murder you are also trying to find out who the fuck you are and where all your shit is.

Tonally its a very serious game dealing with a lot of dark shit, but has its humorous moments throughout the game and a decent chunk of side stories you can explore and do. The map isnt too large, but its a decent enough size. Has some fun and interesting characters too.

I personally really enjoyed it, it was my favourite game of last year and was a bit of a breath of fresh air for me.

edit: Oh and you can wear different types of clothing and use various items which will effect your internal thoughts and change your skills etc

Also the music is fucking dope

[Purpelia]

I've been hearing about that game a lot. Like is it any good? Can you give me any info or like a link to a non spoiler review or something? I'd look it up my self but I am guaranteed to run into spoilers.

So the game has basically no combat like a lot of rpg's do, its focused entirely around your ability to interrogate people and pass skill checks through conversation and exploring and interacting with your environment in order to progress and open up new paths throughout the story.

The plot is your are playing as an alcoholic detective who is trying to investigate a murder at the hotel you are staying in, and your various skills are your "thoughts" and voices in your head which will give you advice in conversation and can open up more ways to progress as you invest in them, things like unique options in some conversations etc. Also your character has lost his memory after emerging out of a three day drinking bender so not only are you trying to investigate a murder you are also trying to find out who the fuck you are and where all your shit is.

Tonally its a very serious game dealing with a lot of dark shit, but has its humorous moments throughout the game and a decent chunk of side stories you can explore and do. The map isnt too large, but its a decent enough size. Has some fun and interesting characters too.

I personally really enjoyed it, it was my favourite game of last year and was a bit of a breath of fresh air for me.

edit: Oh and you can wear different types of clothing and use various items which will effect your internal thoughts and change your skills etc

Also the music is fucking dope

Thanks for the info. That sounds really cool. Just a single question. When you say skill checks like how random are we talking about? Is it one of those games with dice rolls so that you can fail an easy check even with super high skill simply because you had a bad roll?

[Ifreann]

I've been hearing about that game a lot. Like is it any good? Can you give me any info or like a link to a non spoiler review or something? I'd look it up my self but I am guaranteed to run into spoilers.

So the game has basically no combat like a lot of rpg's do, its focused entirely around your ability to interrogate people and pass skill checks through conversation and exploring and interacting with your environment in order to progress and open up new paths throughout the story.

The plot is your are playing as an alcoholic detective who is trying to investigate a murder at the hotel you are staying in, and your various skills are your "thoughts" and voices in your head which will give you advice in conversation and can open up more ways to progress as you invest in them, things like unique options in some conversations etc. Also your character has lost his memory after emerging out of a three day drinking bender so not only are you trying to investigate a murder you are also trying to find out who the fuck you are and where all your shit is.

Tonally its a very serious game dealing with a lot of dark shit, but has its humorous moments throughout the game and a decent chunk of side stories you can explore and do. The map isnt too large, but its a decent enough size. Has some fun and interesting characters too.

I personally really enjoyed it, it was my favourite game of last year and was a bit of a breath of fresh air for me.

edit: Oh and you can wear different types of clothing and use various items which will effect your internal thoughts and change your skills etc

Also the music is fucking dope

And the writing's great. The game's very political, when the devs were accepting an award they thanked Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, but it's not evangelising of any particular ideology. There's several characters that wear their ideologies on their sleeves, but they all feel like real people with real political beliefs, not ridiculous caricatures. Well, the massive racist(both massive and a racist) comes close, but he's ridiculous in the way that real "race science"-believing racists actually are.

[Immoren]

So the game has basically no combat like a lot of rpg's do, its focused entirely around your ability to interrogate people and pass skill checks through conversation and exploring and interacting with your environment in order to progress and open up new paths throughout the story.

The plot is your are playing as an alcoholic detective who is trying to investigate a murder at the hotel you are staying in, and your various skills are your "thoughts" and voices in your head which will give you advice in conversation and can open up more ways to progress as you invest in them, things like unique options in some conversations etc. Also your character has lost his memory after emerging out of a three day drinking bender so not only are you trying to investigate a murder you are also trying to find out who the fuck you are and where all your shit is.

Tonally its a very serious game dealing with a lot of dark shit, but has its humorous moments throughout the game and a decent chunk of side stories you can explore and do. The map isnt too large, but its a decent enough size. Has some fun and interesting characters too.

I personally really enjoyed it, it was my favourite game of last year and was a bit of a breath of fresh air for me.

edit: Oh and you can wear different types of clothing and use various items which will effect your internal thoughts and change your skills etc

Also the music is fucking dope

Thanks for the info. That sounds really cool. Just a single question. When you say skill checks like how random are we talking about? Is it one of those games with dice rolls so that you can fail an easy check even with super high skill simply because you had a bad roll?

Skill checks are 2D6+attribute score+skill score+bonuses from different sources, against difficulty score that can be anywhere between 1-20.
So if your static bonuses are high enough you can't fail easy enough check, unless you roll snake eyes.

[Ifreann]

So the game has basically no combat like a lot of rpg's do, its focused entirely around your ability to interrogate people and pass skill checks through conversation and exploring and interacting with your environment in order to progress and open up new paths throughout the story.

The plot is your are playing as an alcoholic detective who is trying to investigate a murder at the hotel you are staying in, and your various skills are your "thoughts" and voices in your head which will give you advice in conversation and can open up more ways to progress as you invest in them, things like unique options in some conversations etc. Also your character has lost his memory after emerging out of a three day drinking bender so not only are you trying to investigate a murder you are also trying to find out who the fuck you are and where all your shit is.

Tonally its a very serious game dealing with a lot of dark shit, but has its humorous moments throughout the game and a decent chunk of side stories you can explore and do. The map isnt too large, but its a decent enough size. Has some fun and interesting characters too.

I personally really enjoyed it, it was my favourite game of last year and was a bit of a breath of fresh air for me.

edit: Oh and you can wear different types of clothing and use various items which will effect your internal thoughts and change your skills etc

Also the music is fucking dope

Thanks for the info. That sounds really cool. Just a single question. When you say skill checks like how random are we talking about? Is it one of those games with dice rolls so that you can fail an easy check even with super high skill simply because you had a bad roll?

Some friends and I have been playing a lot of Civ IV lately, and it can get really frustrating to lose battles when the game says you have a 99% chance of winning. I never got frustrated with Disco Elysium like that. Also, there's two types of skill checks, white and red. If you fail a white check it gets locked, and you can unlock it and try again by increasing the relevant skill and sometimes by other means. Like, you might talk to someone who gives you advice or encouragement, or you pick up something that helps with whatever it is you're trying to do. And the game keeps a list of available white checks, both locked and unlocked. Red checks are strictly one chance only, and are well flagged as being that.

[Purpelia]

In that case I'll see if I can give it a go. Sounds just fun enough to be fun.

[Fuyujima]

Six of my own mechs died to make this. I don't know whether to feel pride or shame.

It's weird how it sometimes makes me feel morally conflicted when I need to sacrifice certain characters etc in order to advance. I usually look for other options, but often games force you into doing it.

Fallout: New Vegas is a good example of a game where I used to be an absolute villain who would kill anything and now my character always has extremely good karma because I hate killing characters (except for NCR troops ー　er, present company excluded).

It's weird how it sometimes makes me feel morally conflicted when I need to sacrifice certain characters etc in order to advance. I usually look for other options, but often games force you into doing it.

idk man, the fictional deaths of fictional characters doesn't really get to me. When roleplaying a certain kind of character I sometimes try to do things like that, but that's about it.

That being said, the game didn't force me to kill six of my own mechs/pilots to advance. I did it of my own volition because I wanted to make the gigascout.

People have different reactions and all mediums of fiction are aimed at making you feel emotionally invested in characters.

[Bralia]

. . . if I had just pushed on for one more half hour this morning, I would have completed the game. Damn, I wish I'd done that. It feels extra abrupt to end it in one quick session like I just did. Everything wrapped up neatly in one final conversation. Kinda wish they'd dragged it out a little more and really explore the consequences of my actions. I was hoping to know what would happen next for the politics of the land, I was quite invested in the political machinations of the city. Maybe they chose not to do that because of the sequel I've heard rumours about?

[Ameriganastan]

It's weird how it sometimes makes me feel morally conflicted when I need to sacrifice certain characters etc in order to advance. I usually look for other options, but often games force you into doing it.

See, that's never an issue for me. Cause I'm a morally devoid bastard who doesn't blink about doing the evil thing.