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[Sirus]

I started up Endless Sky late last week, and suddenly I have like 40 hours on it. I started off with an itty bitty shuttle and nearly half a million in debt. Now I'm piloting a luxury liner converted into a troop transport, with more than a dozen warships and freighters escorting, and more than 40 million cash in the bank.

Aside from a couple of rough spots, it is safe to say that I am thoroughly enjoying the game so far.

[Egan_BW]

just started Dark Souls Remastered, which I’m trying to go into as blindly as I can, in this day and age
but it’s a blast, so far, and the raw terror of losing your souls and humanities is overwhelming
interesting to see the greater emphasis on blocking and parrying compared to Elden Ring, too

Spoiler: mechanical spoilers, perhaps (click to show/hide)

Blocking is very very strong in DS1, particularly with any shield that blocks 100% physical. The fact that you could more or less rely on that lead Fromsoft to nerf shields in later games to make the player focus more on dodging.
Fast rolling can be strong in DS1 as well, but you have to watch your equipment load more closely than in DS3 or ER. If your equipment weight more than 50% of your max, you'll be very slow, and to get a really good roll you need to go under 25%. Compare to DS3 where you can go up to 70% without slowing down a lot.

I never got super good at parrying in DS1, and there's a ton of enemies it doesn't work on. I usually prefer to just block and hit 'em while they're recovering.

[Laterigrade]

just started Dark Souls Remastered, which I’m trying to go into as blindly as I can, in this day and age
but it’s a blast, so far, and the raw terror of losing your souls and humanities is overwhelming
interesting to see the greater emphasis on blocking and parrying compared to Elden Ring, too

just got up to O&S, they’re kicking my ass hard — very fun, though

[lemon10]

just started Dark Souls Remastered, which I’m trying to go into as blindly as I can, in this day and age
but it’s a blast, so far, and the raw terror of losing your souls and humanities is overwhelming
interesting to see the greater emphasis on blocking and parrying compared to Elden Ring, too

Yeah, the game is a masterpiece, especially for the time where many of the mechanics and tropes it used didn't exist to the extent that it flat out created its own genre. They made some decisions they backed away from in later games (most notably the no fast travel and stuff like the skeleton key starting item), that really gave the game a lot of flavor and made it a unique experience.

interesting to see the greater emphasis on blocking and parrying compared to Elden Ring, too

All of bandai's soul-likes have slightly different combat systems that make them feel more unique: DS1 has extremely powerful blocking and stamina runs out quickly; DS2 has dodge iframes change with stats and drinking health potions takes you like 3 seconds :/. Bloodborne has a huge emphasis on fast paced combat and removes blocking entierly. DS3 is the most similar to elden ring, but it still ends up playing a bit different.

[MCreeper]

Not that blocking is weak in DS2 either. Even most bosses in it struggle to break through a tower shield and a heap of stamina. Somehow, I have not even bothered to test it in DS3 in all my over a 100 hours. 

[nenjin]

DS3 introduced weapon arts and mana-based casting. While it took the community a few years to understand the usefulness of weapon arts, both it and magic matured into their final form in Elden Ring. Now good ol fashioned R1 duels are fairly rare in ER. Ashes of War and spam casting crazy big spells dominate in PvP. In PvE you could vaporize stuff in DS3 with magic and weapon arts to some degree too, but in Elden Ring you can sail through half the game never swinging your weapon.

Of all the things though, I'd say it was the concession to convenience and the addition of fast travel to the Souls series that really changed it from a really unique experience to something somewhat more commonplace. Some do say that there's no value to slogging through the same enemies over and over again and it's just a waste of the player's time; I'd argue though that 1) it created a really intimate connection to the game and added that degree of tension and paranoia that the other games lost. You really got to know areas and enemies like the back of your hand, and took in more environmental details just by sheer exposure to them over and over again. And 2) it totally affected level design. Which is what most people remember most about DS1, is how truly interconnected everything felt. You lost that with later games in the series. There are still good level designs, but nothing where it all felt tied together like DS1. Less of a sense that someone truly labored to achieve that effect. DS1 felt like the world got built first and the game came after. Later entries in the series had the opposite vibe.

[lemon10]

Over the games they have made blocking a little less good every time and have required a little more investment. That isn't to say it isn't still good, even in Elden Ring you certainly want to get a good one and invest in upgrading it, its just that they aren't quite as game defining.
Most notably in DS2 getting a 100% block shield (which is pretty much a requirement for being properly tanky) is significantly harder.
In DS1 basically from the start of the game you can get a 100% block shield that you only need 8 strength for. In DS2 you need 12 strength, the shield weighs twice as much, and it takes several areas for you to get it, it isn't a huge difference, but it's a meaningful one.

[Egan_BW]

It is kinda silly that DS1 gives you basically the best shield right away. You might end up switching to a heavier one for the stability but the heater shield is really good for its light weight and having the medium shield parry timing. Though my fave will always be the eagle shield, particularly because it feels more realistic than the huge thick metal kite shields and tower shields.

I do appreciate how many builds are viable in ER, as compared to DS3 where it really feels like you're supposed to play it like bloodborne but in plate armor and the other equipment and stats are only there because it's supposed to be a Dark Souls sequel.

[Frumple]

that thing should do path of achra aaahh (unless it's not touching EA stuff, I guess, in which case wait a few months they're expecting 1.0 sometime next year)

Though some colony builders are definitely roguelikes, for what it's worth. Against the Storm is built around it

[Laterigrade]

DS1 has extremely powerful blocking and stamina runs out quickly

yes, I noticed the stamina thing early on — and I quite like it, actually; managing stamina adds this extra bit of complexity and enjoyability to combat, for me; makes it just this little bit more a puzzle to solve

They made some decisions they backed away from in later games (most notably the no fast travel and stuff like the skeleton key starting item), that really gave the game a lot of flavor and made it a unique experience.

likewise I enjoy the initial lack of fast travel (and the limited access later on); it feels much less gamey than Elden Ring, where you can teleport from anywhere to virtually anywhere that you’ve been, almost any time — DS1’s requirement that you be at a Bonfire to teleport, and then can only teleport to certain places, feels a lot more authentic, as well as making new shortcuts actually meaningful, both early in the game and continuing on into it

[Micro102]

I'm playing Songs of Syx. It's like Stronghold on crack.

[Telgin]

After watching a review of Deus Ex: Human Revolution on YouTube, the narrator said "and now someone is reinstalling the original."  So I did.

Time to play as usual, with a nonlethal approach on realistic difficulty.  Unfortunately, I'm very out of practice so I had to resort to a lot of save spamming even on Liberty Island.  I was able to knock most enemies out with the baton by crouch walking up behind them, but groups of two kept killing me with random headshots.  Had to break out the tranq darts I was saving for a few of them.

[darkhog]

Aside of DF, Super Dungeon Maker. It's basically Zelda Maker, but legally distinct so that Nintendo won't send ninjas after the devs.

[nenjin]

Started another run of Bannerlord.

They've made an obnoxious change to the combat AI.

I've always played on the max AI difficulty. It was challenging but the AI could be a little derpy and fall prey to spamming attacks and not blocking enough.

Well in the most recent update, now Challenging AI is a master of combat.

They'll block 80 to 90% of your attacks.

With shields it's even worse. They will block close to 95% of your attacks. And your shield always seems to break long before their's does.

It makes me mad but I had to back the Combat AI down to veteran, which is closer to what the old challenging used to be.

It's really only an issue for the Arena. No longer can you roll in as an unskilled, under equipped pleb and clean out the heroes of the realm. Because the AI's block acuity and their stats, they will block and then counter you with swing speed that vastly outstrips your's, meaning they will block all your attacks then counter attack you for 80 to 115% of your health in one hit.

I feel like there could have been a middle ground. Or they could have added another level of combat AI above challenging and just called it "Unfair." Because that's what it feels like.

[Jopax]

I've been dipping my toes back into Path of Exile with the recent league. While the league itself has some issues it's got a ton of atmosphere and cool lore as well as some cool mechanics it introduces like secondary ascendancies that have some neat stuff in them. Plus there's a ton of stuff that's been added since the last time I played which was a bit over a year ago IIRC, maybe more. Forbidden sanctum is hella cool as well, like a proper rougelite inside the game, even more so than lab was.

And then there's the big meta change they've introduced this time around in the form of transfigured skills, which is basically taking around a massive number of existing skills and introducing wildly different takes on them. Like a variation on the summon zombie which no longer uses corpses to summon minion zombies but rather conjures zombies above the target at which point they plummet down and deal damage to it like a phys damage meteor of sorts. But since it still counts as a minion it benefits from minion relevant passives and gems. Not all of them are viable or good but they introduce so much variety that it makes trying out stuff pretty fun.

Additionally the beta for PoE 2 should start sometime in the spring so there's that to look forward to (especially with the recent stuff they revealed about it)