[Discussion] New month, new games. What are you playing on your deck?

Finally got over my laziness and set Retro Arch up so both my PC and SD can play and sync easily
So I've been playing a bunch of old PS1 and GBA games for the last few weeks, Pokemon Emerald most recently
Having achievements in old games is addicting

I thought I'd have enough of Baldur's Gate 3 by now, but I think I'm about to start my third playthrough. Even though performance sucks ass in the third act.
- Did the last update help much? It was largely performance focused but I haven't heard much about how significant the improvements are.
  
  No, not really. I think it's all the NPCs running around in the city. I bet that's CPU bound, which is not that great on the Deck.

Baldurs gate 3, crosscode, and might give invisible inc or RimWorld a try. And some occasional Halo infinite, somehow it runs better on steam deck than my windows PC

I'm still having a blast with Baldur's Gate but I've been hearing good things about Armored Core and want to try it
- It sounds like it runs pretty well on the deck! I'm excited to try it too once I'm done with bg3

Halls of Torment
- If you like HoT some other games to try:
  Vampire Survivors - I actually like this more that HoT and I played HoT first
  Brotato - Simpler version of this type of game, fixed map size but fun variant
  20 Minutes till Dawn - I just started this (got it in a Steam bundle with Brotato) and it’s ok, I don’t like the aiming very much but it’s a decent game.
  
  Thanks. I actually enjoy all those games and can't wait for Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor.
  Another game that's a bit less polished but still enjoyable is Don't Shit On My #!$@& Roof.

rn i'm enjoying octopath traveler!
- What are your thoughts? I started it this week. 7 hours into so far but I find the combat system boring.
  
  i actually kinda like it. I'm really enjoying it, but i'm playing it really slowly, leveling up my characters and exploring every zone as much as i can.

Been playing Risk of Rain 2 quite a bit on both my PC and my Deck. Other than that, I'm going through Cyberpunk 2077 for the first time.
- How’s your framerate for CP2077? If you’ve got it stable, would you mind sharing your settings?
  
  I played CP2077 as the second game on my deck and put way too many hours into it. I used the stock deck performance recommendations that were provided from Steam with a refresh lock at 30fps and I haven’t noticed any issues. Ran smooth throughout all of my play.
  
  Hi! I do have it fairly stable, but with a 30fps cap. I rarely see significant framedrops. Here are a bunch of screenshots with all of my settings, TDP included. Hope this helps!

Just got it two weeks ago. Darkest Dungeon and Disco Elysium mostly. I tried a few oddball titles that I was curious to see how well they played. It's hit or miss but that's expected. Strategy/map heavy games aren't likely to play well on any console controller.
- Since you're somewhat new, here's some general advice for having a good experience with unusual games:
  For games that don't run well, be sure to check protonDB to see if there's any known fixes for issues.
  As far as controls go, when a game doesn't play well with a controller, you'll want to check community control layouts. There are usually some really good layouts that make playing much more viable, even if it can't compete fully with mouse and keyboard.
  
  I forgot about the community layouts!! Shame on me, i even own the og Steam controller that pretty much needed it for every title.
  TBH I was just sort of testing out. I don't have a whole lot of need to play CK3 or Rimworld on a handheld but I'll check out my controller options for other titles.
  Any tips on streaming games instead of installing locally?

Was playing a bunch of Pokemon Fire Red, but then unfortunately had to RMA my deck. Waiting on a replacement. Luckily i still have my SD card, and i cloned the SSD before sending it back.
- Ouch, what happened to your deck? Also was it a new or refurbished deck?
  
  New deck, albeit on the older side. The physical buttons just stopped working one day. By that I mean the d pad and A B X Y buttons would just randomly be unresponsive.

I've been playing through Sea of Stars. I've been enjoying it so far. It's music and aesthetic are fantastic.

Graveyard Keeper, Diablo 2 Resurrected, and I plan on getting Cyberpunk 2077 for the fourth time to play on the go - hopefully on a platform that crashes less.

Dave the diver, boltgun, and SNES roms

Factorio got me. It continues a pattern of games that can really take advantage of the deck's controls.
- Coming from the computer with near 2000 hours of gameplay in Factorio I just couldn’t make the jump to the deck. I miss the precision of a mouse and the keyboard shortcuts (the deck buttons weren’t enough and I didn’t want to memorize a ton of shift/modifier-* type shortcuts)
  
  Yeah that makes sense, I started out on the deck so I'm used to the shortcuts. I also played a ton of elite dangerous which does something similar to fit 50 controls into 10 buttons.

I bought Forza Horizon 5 on sale, and then immediately fell into buying Sea of Stars. So splitting time between the two.
Edit: Oh! And Bomb Rush Cyberfunk! Forgot about that.

Sea of stars, valhiem, and deep rock galactic.
Rock and stone!

Vampire Survivor, Last Epoch, Path of Exile, Victor Vran, Adventures of Van Helsing, Wolcen, Warhammer Chaosbane, etc.
I've gotten into Diablo style ARPGs and trying them all. So for Last Epoch is the funnest for me, primarily setting wise but PoE is fantastic, just soooooo many systems to figure out.
- Don't sleep on Grim Dawn either. Deep, with a ton of class combos.

Just finished my first playthrough of baldurs gate 3, so another playthrough of bg3 after i decided on some mods to keep me on my toes during combat encounters. Or i delve into the old infinity engine games (baldurs gate, icewind dale etc.) That i never really played because kid me did not understand them.

I started sprinkling some peglin in between BG3 sessions.

Still working on The Long Dark story mode, and finishing up Kentucky Route Zero

Playing some old nostalgia classics currently. I previously made my way through the entire Sly Cooper series earlier this year so I decided I’d try to emulate Crash Bandicoot on the deck.
I’ve had about as many bugs as I would with normal emulation and resuming from wake can sometimes make things go a bit strange. Other than that I’ve had a great time 100% completing 1,2, and 3. Working on Wrath of Cortex but I’ll likely finish it tomorrow. That game turned out to be quite the challenge.
Can’t tell you how nice it was to play those games on a plane though. Would’ve made my younger self so happy to be enjoying a game like that though.

Started playing Fallout New Vegas for the first time on the Steam Deck.
Can't mod it unfortunately, because it's the GOG version. And it's pretty ugly. But the tutorial area git me interested a bit. Let's see how far I venture into the wasteland...

Just started Trine 5 and I'm very excited to play this En Garde game that came out a few weeks ago.

Dark Souls, HL2, shit I can't do on my Retroid
Just don't change the volume unless you're at the overlay or you'll have to exit and go back in. Loses gamepad.

Picked up a couple boomer shooters today, cultic and forgive me father. Hopefully going to play these on my deck tonight.
- Forgive me Father crashed on stage 3-2 for me, and I had to revert to proton 6.3-8
  From looking at ProtonDB results, it sounds like this is probably fixed on current versions of proton, but if it isn't fixed you should try that.
  
  Thanks for the heads up, I typically use protonGE and proton experimental, I did see some of those reports.

Starfield.
Getting bored. Might switch back to Elden Ring soon.

Vampire survivor currently got me hooked. Just downloaded Cyberpunk to the deck and hopefully start a new play through soon.