Larian has taken an unusual approach to its new Honour Mode difficulty in BG3 Patch 5. It buffs bosses by giving them new abilities and fixes a lot of exploits. The problem is that it's coupled with Ironman, although if you die the game reverts to Tactician difficulty. You can't play with the enhanced bosses and fixes without Ironman, which is quite irritating.

I think the root of the problem is that these 'exploits' are so commonplace that players have been taking advantage of them without necessarily meaning to. They've practically become features rather than bugs. Fixing them has a very significant impact on the game's difficulty and wrecks a lot of builds. I guess Larian was worried about the backlash they'd get if they broadly imposed the fixes, so have decided to lock them behind this new hardest difficulty. I'm hoping that they'll give the option to enable Honour mode difficulty options without Ironman. Or that some modder will fix it.

I finished BG3 on Sunday with 145.9 hours put into it. Then yesterday they release a patch that has MORE CONTENT! Am I ever going to be able to stop with this one?

Rockstar announced a new trailer 9am EST on 12/5

The tweet didn't specify, but everyone assumes it's for GTA6

hard pass, not getting fooled again

I decided within about 15 minutes of starting that I'd be replaying this at least once.

I haven't played BG3 yet, but I did play Divinity: Original Sin 2 on tactician mode (not all the way through, but made it like 2/3 ways of the game) and I'd say that it would be borderline impossible without the exploits, the health/armor and damage of enemies was scaled through the roof there.

I've heard that BG3 is significantly easier, though, so it might be fun to actually play "fair"

It isn't long before BG3 becomes too easy on Tactician, mainly because enemies can't withstand the amount of damage your party can pump out. A mod to double enemy health (plus some AI mods) do help make the combat more fun.

Apparently if you die on Honour Mode, the game maintains the difficulty while allowing multiple saves. You just can't get the special achievement. However you can't switch an existing save to Honour or Custom, you have to start a new game. Fortunately the community has already made mods that apply the Honour mode changes to the base difficulties, and that allow multiple saves on Honour mode.

yeah with mods and stuff game may have infinite playability

dunno what combat stuff people consider exploits, the only specific one i've done i'd call that is putting down some explosive barrels but only did that in goblin camp once

i do sorta win all fights without being very creative

The big ones:

Haste doubles your actions, which can allow you to attack four times (with extra attack) or cast two spells in a turn. That's wrong and has been fixed.

Pact of blade Warlock gets an extra attack with their pact weapon at level 5 which stacks with extra attack from other classes. This meant a Warlock multiclass could attack three times in a turn, six using haste. Obviously a popular build choice, now fixed so the extra attacks don't stack.

The largest fix is to do with damage riders acting as damage sources. You've probably benefited from this without being aware of it. Details here: https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Damage_mechani...20the%20damage.

This has a big effect on damage. I stumbled into an example of this one. Used Eldritch Blast + Hex + Phalur Aluve Shriek effect to accidentally obliterate a powerful enemy. The EB triggered Hex which triggered Shriek thunder damage which somehow triggered Agonising Blast damage which triggered Hex which triggered Shriek. Absurd damage. Stared at my combat log for a while after using it trying to understand what the hell happened.

The overall point is that you didn't have to be particularly creative to inflict mega damage due to mistakes Larian made implementing various things. They were so commonplace.

It's legit

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdBZY2fkU-0

After hearing Against the Storm described as a "city builder for people who don't like city builders" I decided to try it and yeah, I can confirm that this applies, I normally find this genre very boring, but AtS seems like a lot of fun. There are 2 things that really differentiate it from other city builders:
- due to roguelite structure, rather than endlessly growing one city, you go on short missions and start over, meaning that the overall scale is much smaller
- rather than freeform ****ing-around, you are regularly given very specific orders that you need to fulfill, streamlining the gameplay into a series of problems to solve

additionally, the lore is pretty cool and the graphics seem almost straight from Warcraft 3, which was a game that I played A LOT when it came out

A month or two ago I went through my steam wishlist and removed all the city-builders I had on it as I realized I had gotten really bored with that genre - this makes me think perhaps I should try this one though, so thanks

Also - it's "free" on Gamepass for those who have that.

I'm stuck at home for the holidays due to twisted ankle, so I've already put like 13hrs into the game and I'm having tons of fun, the core gameplay loop is super solid

My only issue is that the metaprogression seems super slow, getting a 2% production speed upgrade after a 1,5hrs succesful run is a bit disheartening - it seems like the game wants you to put in tens, if not hundreds, of hours into it

Great bundle if you don't own these games already: https://www.humblebundle.com/games/a...one-quick-2024

Board game bundle is better imo

Some extras:

Love Letter: RN7W7-NCXKG-R5R0D
Small World: MCPCX-D2ZJP-R2LC8
Carcassonne: NL4DY-Q0RZE-7VCB2
Carcassonne DLC - Inns & Cathedrals: KK4EK-K958M-JXZFJ

I ignore digital board games even though I love regular board games and my collection has been growing lately now that my kids are growing too (8yo and 5yo) - am I missing out?

I like app board games on the ipad but don't play on steam

The big advantages are the ability to play against the computer so you don't need an actual group (although most of them can be played multiplayer as well).

And depending on the type of boardgames you play the setup/tear down time, games like Gloomhaven can be a ****ing beast to bring out with tons of setup time plus having to read a 50+ page instruction book to learn how to play.

Then separate from the actual boardgame "games" like those in the humble bundle is Tabletop Simulator. Looking at the Steam Workshop there are basically mods to play any boardgame.

Snagged Love Letter, thanks Daer!

South Scrimshaw is a cool visual novel. It's free and about an hour long.

The story is a documentary of the Brillo whale, a species on another planet.

Anyone look into Palworld? It's a brand new Pokemon/Minecraft/Survival game in early access. It came out Thursday and already has a ton of positive reviews...

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1623730/Palworld/

Sold 2 million copies in 24 hours...

Its basically Ark/Conan Exiles with a Pokemon artstyle.

Balatro just got a release date of February 20th. It is a rogue like that has some pokerish types of rules for racking up the score. Doesn't sound like much when you read it, but the game is incredibly addictive. They released a demo a few days ago.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2379780/Balatro/