What Are You Playing Right Now, Part 2: Daggerfall

[Erloas]

I haven't played, but I have watched it played on stream a couple times. It is worth noting that passing a skill check isn't always a good thing. Another thing is that unlike many games, there really is no combat at all in the game. There are confrontations, but it is all done in dialog.
It is an interesting game for sure, not one I'm interested in playing myself, but it does some interesting things that are worth seeing.

[Cespenar]

Eldan pretty much described the systems of the game as it is, yeah. I'd personally recommend Disco Elysium to anyone that liked Planescape: Torment, really. Best writing I've ever encountered in a game, on the tier (or higher even, arguably) than PS:T itself.

Of course, it's mostly reading, rather than the cinematic storytelling we are (now) used to in Mass Effect or Witcher 3, so it requires a bit more from the player as they do.

[DigoDragon]

I'm finding myself going back to MoO4. Again. It really isn't a bad 4x game, just a bit on the easy side (missiles are king until late game). The animation and voice acting is fun with a few notable names behind them. My only real detraction is that there lacks an interface where you can click on an active ship and pull up its stats/load out and who the leader in it is (if one is assigned). But since I still find the game enjoyable I guess it wasn't a deal breaker for me.

Maybe I should rack up some of the steam achievements for the races since I currently have... 2?

[Man_Over_Game]

I haven't played, but I have watched it played on stream a couple times. It is worth noting that passing a skill check isn't always a good thing.

Tides of Numenera did something similar. There was a really weird one where examining a pile of rocks could reveal a stash of gold, but failing to find the stash would reveal that a nearby rock was actually a box containing a device that looks like a finger.

Pictures on the box show that eating the finger would make you more dexterous, and replacing a finger with it would cause some great catastrophe (knowing Numenera, the finger would probably take over, or convert you into a machine, or something like that). Consuming it permanently gives you Dexterity.

As for balance... honestly, I can't say yet? I've only put three or four hours into it. There's not "magic" as such, yet, only hints that there might be. Or maybe your main character is just able to believe in it. (I bought a book on Finnish-inspired ritual magic for making magical vodka that heals your liver if you drink it in a Sauna.) There's a few skills you can take that seem like magic sometimes (Shivers, which is the ability to have the city talk to you is one of them. I took it as my signature skill, I do things like look at walls and have them tell me stories, or taste the rain to reveal map sections I haven't been yet. But it might also just be prior knowledge and intuition put it in poetic language), but I think they aren't strictly better.

The closest equivalent, I think, is mental and physical stats. There's four, that basically map to charisma, intelligence, wisdom/dexterity and strength/constitution in D&D. In Torment, the mental stats were hilariously more important than the physical. In Disco Elysium, I've been in several events already where I desperately wished I hadn't totally tanked my physical stats. Like repeatedly failing my endurance check to examine the body of the murder victim and instead just vomiting every time, evne with the gloves, face mask and smelling salts. Or getting humiliated in every physical confrontation. I tried to punch a thug and he just grabbed my hand, watch me struggle for a bit and then made racist comments while his friends laughed.

It should also be mentioned again that every skill is also a mental aspect of your character. Having high reaction time means you can make quips in conversation. Half-light is a weird skill that's a mix of perception, intuition and reflexes, that's also used for intimidation. Putting points into it makes you high-strung and jumpy and that comes across in conversations, too. Composure and perception are physical, too.

It's difficult to judge, because if you don't have a skill - and some of mine are still at one point, while others are up at eight or nine - the options to use them don't show up in conversation, I think. While the skills you have really high sometimes just assert themselves in conversation. My cop is all about the charisma and perception skills and they come up a lot. But I couldn't tell you how much the really physical skills would come up, because I don't have them. Same with the purely intellectual stuff like encyclopedia or conceptualization.

That sounds pretty damn awesome to me.

[LibraryOgre]

I think Andromeda's biggest problem was a failure of expectations, being that ME was one of the biggest RPG series in the last decade, so just "good" wasn't "good enough" for a lot of people. There were also a lot of people still complaining about the end of ME3 so they were going to complain about whatever was next regardless.

I will say, going back to ME1 style inventory of weapons was not my favorite thing.

[Narkis]

I agree with the people above, Disco Elysium is great. I would put it a notch below Torment myself, but the fact they are even on the same ballpark is high praise for its writing. The skills are more like characters in your party, with Kim acting as a straight man in all the craziness. The game itself was funny at times, but it also had serious people and tragic situations that absolutely worked. Made me think the writers were writing from experience for some, if not all.

My cop had max intelligence, with Encyclopedia and Visual Calculus as the highest skills. Calculus was the Holmes skill, both analyzing the crime scene for evidence and later using said evidence in the investigation. Encyclopedia started giving me useful facts, but by the end of the game it kept butting in with factoids completely irrelevant to anything. Even the other skills berated its uselessness at one point. I ran into the same trouble as Eldan with the physical skills, but the game had alternate routes available for anything important. And I loved how messing up in the early conversations came back to bite me later.

[Man_Over_Game]

I agree with the people above, Disco Elysium is great. I would put it a notch below Torment myself, but the fact they are even on the same ballpark is high praise for its writing. The skills are more like characters in your party, with Kim acting as a straight man in all the craziness. The game itself was funny at times, but it also had serious people and tragic situations that absolutely worked. Made me think the writers were writing from experience for some, if not all.

My cop had max intelligence, with Encyclopedia and Visual Calculus as the highest skills. Calculus was the Holmes skill, both analyzing the crime scene for evidence and later using said evidence in the investigation. Encyclopedia started giving me useful facts, but by the end of the game it kept butting in with factoids completely irrelevant to anything. Even the other skills berated its uselessness at one point. I ran into the same trouble as Eldan with the physical skills, but the game had alternate routes available for anything important. And I loved how messing up in the early conversations came back to bite me later.

It sounds like it has a lot of replayability. Would you say it does? That'd be a decent edge to compare it over the Torment games, which predominantly did not (Play an Intelligence + Wisdom character, and you can do pretty much everything in your first run).

[Narkis]

It sounds like it has a lot of replayability. Would you say it does? That'd be a decent edge to compare it over the Torment games, which predominantly did not (Play an Intelligence + Wisdom character, and you can do pretty much everything in your first run).

I can see more than one being possible. High intellect, high social, high physical, with variations depending on your exact skills and choices. Many quests and NPCs can differ depending on your choices, not just your skill. I suspect the ending doesn't change much, but the journey should offer many branching paths. I don't think you can see everything on a single run, though you can probably see most things.

[Eldan]

I'm still not that far in, but I'm already planning on replaying it. My current character is planned as a sort of spaced-out weirdo with a lot of intiution. Shivers, Empathy, Inland Empire, maybe I'll put some points in half-light or visual calculus later. But I absolutely also want to play Sherlock Holmes (Encyclopedia, Visual Calculus, Composure, Perception, maybe Electrochemistry) and some kind of dumb brute (Authority, Physical Instrument, Pain Threshold, Half-light). And I'm really intrigued by the description of Conceptualization, too.

TO quote the game and show you what character creation looks like:

Conceptualization has a special role it wants you to play in this world – not the role of cop, but of Art Cop. It enables you to make fresh associations, to delve into world-concepts form Jan Kaarp’s postmodernist karperie, to Revachol’s arabesque architectural style dideridada, and even the concept of HARDCORE – and then, importantly, to add your own contribution to these works.

At high levels, Conceptualization makes you go big – perhaps too big. It is ostentatious, demanding grand displays. Why live life when you can throw yourself into a live volcano? At low levels, however, you will be unable to see the world in a creative light. You’ll be unable to contribute to conversations in an art gallery. Only boring people will invite you to their dust parties.

[TaRix]

I'm finding myself going back to MoO4. Again. It really isn't a bad 4x game, just a bit on the easy side (missiles are king until late game). The animation and voice acting is fun with a few notable names behind them. My only real detraction is that there lacks an interface where you can click on an active ship and pull up its stats/load out and who the leader in it is (if one is assigned). But since I still find the game enjoyable I guess it wasn't a deal breaker for me.

Maybe I should rack up some of the steam achievements for the races since I currently have... 2?

Apparently it's easy to cheese, but I never figured out the ingredients. Playing on extra-easy, still can't win because Antarans wipe or cripple my entire fleet every couple of years.

[warty goblin]

Apparently it's easy to cheese, but I never figured out the ingredients. Playing on extra-easy, still can't win because Antarans wipe or cripple my entire fleet every couple of years.

Well first you take some milk, pour it into a cow stomach, strap that to your saddle, then...

Wait, wrong kind of cheese.

I don't remember MoO4 being super-hard, unless you actually went for defeating the Antarians, though this definitely varied by race substantially. The ability to get colonies up and running fast was majorly helpful.

[DigoDragon]

Apparently it's easy to cheese, but I never figured out the ingredients. Playing on extra-easy, still can't win because Antarans wipe or cripple my entire fleet every couple of years.

The Antarans seem to attack whoever has the strongest military score. Keep yours as 2nd or 3rd place and they seem to leave you alone. If I do get attacked, I order the colony targeted to build worker transports and evac as many units as I have time for (usually there's only time for 2-3 pop units to be pulled off planet, but that's 2-3 not getting killed). Once the attack ends I can pup the pop back down and rebuild whatever the Antarans broke.

Capturing Orion is important as the tech you get from it makes it easy to build a fleet that can reliably destroy Antaran attacks.

[AlanBruce]

Playing Bloodborne makes me appreciate once again that Sekiro is right to do away with attributes. Increasing your damage, health and posture by fighting bosses and mini-bosses really adds up to the same thing. Since regardless of who you play in Dark Souls or Bloodborne, you're going to need health and stamina anyway, and then it's a matter of which attribute goes into your damage. Plus every Dark Souls game had at least one trap attribute you were better off not increasing. On top of how fiddly and unclear it all was.

Sekiro did it right, yes. But we must thank its predecessors for that. Also, it won GOTY 2019.

As for Bloodborne, it is one of my favorite games and I can recommend you that if you are planning on simply using your Hunter for PvE, take vitality to 50, no more that that. The same could be said for strength and skill, which regulates how much damage you deal on a visceral attack.

Unless you are going for a glass cannon build for PvP, you shouldn’t be leveling every stat. I wouldn’t even level up Endurance- you won’t see much of a difference.

[Rodin]

I've come to conclusion that the most important stat to control is Health. The player shouldn't have access to directly increase it. This is particularly true in the Soulsborne games. In Bloodborne, increasing Vitality early trivializes much of the early content. In both Dark Souls 2 and 3, Vitality is so powerful that it's better to increase your HP and wear light armor instead of wearing heavy gear. In Diablo games, the squishy caster classes aren't that squishy, because they're pouring points into Vitality.

Just leave it out. Stats in these games should be used to differentiate builds. Strength for picking up heavy weapons, Endurance for wearing heavy armor, Dexterity for wielding light weapons (and crit focus builds), and Intelligence for Magic use. Keep both HP and Mana under tight control in order to maintain the game's balance.

Sekiro's system works for that game, but it has noticeable problems if you try and export it. Sekiro doesn't have a diverse weapon set. There aren't builds outside of picking a couple of skills to focus on. There's no magic system.

All of this causes the game to have very limited replayability. It's a fantastic game (and worthy of GOTY), but playing through a second time will not give you a different experience. A stat and equipment system allows you to add that.

...

Oh right, the topic. What I am playing right now is Bad North, a fun little base defense game about island-hopping Vikings.

[Lord Raziere]

I've come to conclusion that the most important stat to control is Health. The player shouldn't have access to directly increase it. This is particularly true in the Soulsborne games. In Bloodborne, increasing Vitality early trivializes much of the early content. In both Dark Souls 2 and 3, Vitality is so powerful that it's better to increase your HP and wear light armor instead of wearing heavy gear. In Diablo games, the squishy caster classes aren't that squishy, because they're pouring points into Vitality.

Just leave it out. Stats in these games should be used to differentiate builds. Strength for picking up heavy weapons, Endurance for wearing heavy armor, Dexterity for wielding light weapons (and crit focus builds), and Intelligence for Magic use. Keep both HP and Mana under tight control in order to maintain the game's balance.

Sekiro's system works for that game, but it has noticeable problems if you try and export it. Sekiro doesn't have a diverse weapon set. There aren't builds outside of picking a couple of skills to focus on. There's no magic system.

All of this causes the game to have very limited replayability. It's a fantastic game (and worthy of GOTY), but playing through a second time will not give you a different experience. A stat and equipment system allows you to add that.

Your just figuring that out? I figured that out since I was a child. the easiest way to win most rpgs is to jack up health and get loads of healing items.

though I wouldn't say Soulborne games are the best examples of that phenomenon? Personally I find raising your ability to dodge better in such games by jacking up stamina is much more beneficial than health, as no matter how high you raise health you'll die in 3-4 hits anyways, but if you can dodge/parry well you stay in the game far longer, and more stamina means more dodge uses. health is kind of a newbie trap in soulsbornes, because if your bad enough to get hit in the first place, having more hits is only going to make a marginal difference compared to non-soulborne games.

though the game I'm playing right now is Bug Fables, which is basically a game that takes the paper mario style of the first two games in both mechanics and art and uses it to tell this story about a trio of bug heroes being explorers and protectors. it definitely plays like paper mario, but like many indie games it doesn't pull its punches like mainstream games and one of its changes is that instead of health being +5, when you level you when you choose it its only +1 health to each character while your badges and flower power each get three points, so it results in the protagonists being relatively fragile compared to the things they face and needing to learn how to block much of the damage their enemies dish out with action commands- the highest health out of the three characters right is now is only like, 14 when Mario usually gets into the twenty and thirties by the time of chapter 3, 4. but in Bug Fables, my fp is much higher than any of their hp, and I end up using flower power a lot more than I did in paper mario. at the same time, the damage numbers in Bug Fables don't really increase as much as it did in Paper Mario and the progression seems less linear, less vertical and more about giving you the tools to defeat your foes with the right strategy and proper use of your FP abilities.
like, the bosses in Bug Fables are broken in ways that no one in Paper Mario really matches except for Grubba, and often its a matter of figuring out how to shut down their strategy while being good enough at action commands to survive and negate damage,and the animations and battles are all quick and polished so you got to be quick on the uptake to do them well.

Overall, I end up playing a lot smarter, taking a lot more risks and trying more things than I did in Paper Mario, so Bug Fables is great because it while it is a paper mario system clone, it makes these little innovations to refine it, that if you played paper mario it just makes everything better with these little details all the while making its own story and characters. I really like it.

[warty goblin]

Been messing around in Mechwarrior 5: Mercenaries last night and this morning.

I really like it. It's basically Mount and Battlemech: Actually Had Money For Graphics, and it kicks a lot of ass. After a couple tutorial missions, you basically get to run around the very large galaxy going on missions. There's also some sort of main plot, but I challenge anybody on earth to actually care about it. Which is just as it should be, because a main plot would just get in the way of melting enemy robots legs' off, as the good lord intended. It's definitely not a sim in any hardcore sense, but it has enough simish touches that it feels like it is built around controlling a large robot instead of just being a standard action game where you happen to be a large robot. It does the torso vs. arm tracking thing, along with torsos that can rotate through a reasonable length of arc, along with lots of positional damage and heat management.

And there's a lot of stuff to blow up, and it blows up good. Buildings collapse, trees catch fire, bits of blown up helicopters rain from the sky, molten slag runs off of enemy vehicles when you hit them with lasers, it's fantastic. I mean if you look at all closely it's pretty obviously all scripted destruction instead of a physics system, but I don't really care at the end of the day because the thing runs well, looks good in a sort of big picture way, and lets you blow up pretty much everything in sight.

[Cespenar]

I'm still not that far in, but I'm already planning on replaying it. My current character is planned as a sort of spaced-out weirdo with a lot of intiution. Shivers, Empathy, Inland Empire, maybe I'll put some points in half-light or visual calculus later. But I absolutely also want to play Sherlock Holmes (Encyclopedia, Visual Calculus, Composure, Perception, maybe Electrochemistry) and some kind of dumb brute (Authority, Physical Instrument, Pain Threshold, Half-light). And I'm really intrigued by the description of Conceptualization, too.

TO quote the game and show you what character creation looks like:

Conceptualization is pretty awesome. I might even say the designers expected you to get it high just because how off the walls and fun they went with its related dialogues, but there is the possibility that they did so for many other skills as well.

[Erloas]

Been messing around in Mechwarrior 5: Mercenaries last night and this morning.

Been interested in MW5, but buying new games just isn't much of an option at this point. Does it control/play similar to MWO? It's the same company, so I think it uses updated versions of most of the same assets.

[Rodin]

though I wouldn't say Soulborne games are the best examples of that phenomenon? Personally I find raising your ability to dodge better in such games by jacking up stamina is much more beneficial than health, as no matter how high you raise health you'll die in 3-4 hits anyways, but if you can dodge/parry well you stay in the game far longer, and more stamina means more dodge uses. health is kind of a newbie trap in soulsbornes, because if your bad enough to get hit in the first place, having more hits is only going to make a marginal difference compared to non-soulborne games.

That sounds similar to the "lol don't get hit noob" response I've seen from other players over the years. In my experience it's rare that an extra roll will help you dodge an attack when you mis-timed the roll in the first place - the important thing is to be able to survive the combo and heal immediately. If you don't put the requisite points into Vitality you die in a single hit (or combo) and it doesn't matter anyway. And in Bloodborne, high Vitality let's you abuse the Rally system for fun and profit. If you're good enough at the game to not get hit, then Vitality is obviously worthless. Most players, however, are not capable of such feats.

The problem is enhanced in later Souls games due to how heavily the games pushed mobility while making armor useless. It's one of the reasons I consider Dark Souls 1 to be the best of its genre - a fat roll build can actually be superior to a naked build. Four Kings is a great example of this. In Dark Souls 3, even wearing the heaviest armor doesn't give you the same resilience as pouring those points into Vitality instead.

Of course, the ultimate goal is to have both high Vitality AND high Stamina, as well as a high score in your chosen damage stat. Pushing Vitality is definitely preferable though, as it has a greater effect against the earlier bosses since they have lower damage. End-game bosses do tend to be lethal enough that it doesn't matter much...except in Dark Souls 1, where armor actually matters.

[Dienekes]

That sounds similar to the "lol don't get hit noob" response I've seen from other players over the years. In my experience it's rare that an extra roll will help you dodge an attack when you mis-timed the roll in the first place - the important thing is to be able to survive the combo and heal immediately. If you don't put the requisite points into Vitality you die in a single hit (or combo) and it doesn't matter anyway. And in Bloodborne, high Vitality let's you abuse the Rally system for fun and profit. If you're good enough at the game to not get hit, then Vitality is obviously worthless. Most players, however, are not capable of such feats.

The problem is enhanced in later Souls games due to how heavily the games pushed mobility while making armor useless. It's one of the reasons I consider Dark Souls 1 to be the best of its genre - a fat roll build can actually be superior to a naked build. Four Kings is a great example of this. In Dark Souls 3, even wearing the heaviest armor doesn't give you the same resilience as pouring those points into Vitality instead.

Of course, the ultimate goal is to have both high Vitality AND high Stamina, as well as a high score in your chosen damage stat. Pushing Vitality is definitely preferable though, as it has a greater effect against the earlier bosses since they have lower damage. End-game bosses do tend to be lethal enough that it doesn't matter much...except in Dark Souls 1, where armor actually matters.

Dark Souls 1 has the “problem” that armor builds kind of nullify what is supposed to be the frantic terrified edge of your seat gameplay that the series creator wanted the game to focus on. And replaced it with essentially a math equation. There’s a reason Bloodborne makes a joke about shield users in the game, and Sekiro just disregarded the option completely. While DS2 and 3 just keep armor because it’s a franchise hold over while doing the best it can to lead the player to focus on dodging.

Honestly, I’m not really certain how to fix this. Perhaps if they choose to develop Sekiro’s gameplay style more (which I hope they do, since of each of the games that one felt the most like using a sword), Heavy armors and Shields may give more Poise or increased perfect Parry windows. Or something, so you still have to make active inputs and can’t just facecheck everything.

Anyway, we’ll see when they release more news about Elden Ring, hopefully.

[warty goblin]

Been interested in MW5, but buying new games just isn't much of an option at this point. Does it control/play similar to MWO? It's the same company, so I think it uses updated versions of most of the same assets.

No idea, never played MWO. Mercenaries is in Unreal though, instead of the Cryengine, so it's definitely not just the MP hacked into SP.

It is pretty much the turn-based Battletech, except with real time action battles instead of turn based ones. Which seems fine to me, since that's an excellent framework for a videogame

[GloatingSwine]

It even has basically the same beginning to the story.

(Though, frankly, I'd say it actually looks worse judging from videos I've seen of it and the voice acting is terribad.).

[Eldan]

Conceptualization is pretty awesome. I might even say the designers expected you to get it high just because how off the walls and fun they went with its related dialogues, but there is the possibility that they did so for many other skills as well.

Well, Shivering and Inland Empire are definitely off the wall, too, but mostly, they are noir and weird, not fun. Perception is just very useful.

[tonberrian]

Decided to go back to my backlog after Pokemon Sword, and since I picked up its sequel during Black Friday, I went back to SMT IV. This game is NOT kind to new players. A random encounter can easily wipe your party if you go into it wrong (and you will, eventually, be ambushed by something that can do that).

[AlanBruce]

Dark Souls 1 has the “problem” that armor builds kind of nullify what is supposed to be the frantic terrified edge of your seat gameplay that the series creator wanted the game to focus on. And replaced it with essentially a math equation. There’s a reason Bloodborne makes a joke about shield users in the game, and Sekiro just disregarded the option completely. While DS2 and 3 just keep armor because it’s a franchise hold over while doing the best it can to lead the player to focus on dodging.

Honestly, I’m not really certain how to fix this. Perhaps if they choose to develop Sekiro’s gameplay style more (which I hope they do, since of each of the games that one felt the most like using a sword), Heavy armors and Shields may give more Poise or increased perfect Parry windows. Or something, so you still have to make active inputs and can’t just facecheck everything.

Anyway, we’ll see when they release more news about Elden Ring, hopefully.

I believe Bloodborne as a whole makes a commentary on its predecessors regarding armor use and rolling. Not only is the shield somewhat of a joke- note I stated somewhat, I have seen other players use it rather well versus guns- but there is an enemy in the Chalice Dungeons that rolls around like a Dark Souls player.

As for Stamina and Vitality... it’s a matter of preference, I suppose. And knowledge of the game. I am running a BL 50 bloodtinge character and was able to solo Lady Maria with both Vitality and Endurance 8. It wasn’t an immediate success, of course- those who have fought her now what I’m talking about. But it can be done.

[Wookieetank]

Decided to go back to my backlog after Pokemon Sword, and since I picked up its sequel during Black Friday, I went back to SMT IV. This game is NOT kind to new players. A random encounter can easily wipe your party if you go into it wrong (and you will, eventually, be ambushed by something that can do that).

Just a heads up, once you reach a quest where you're looking for a specific Demon to fight that's near a boat house on a decorative pond, its actually on Top of the boat house, and its a bit finicky to trigger the climb up command. Ended up putting the game down for a bit because of not being able to find it.

One other issue is that trying for the neutral ending is tricky. There's a rather small window of Neutral, and the final morality choice of the game skews you pretty far law or chaos, so you can't just stay dead central neutral. It's also the most challenging to play through, but so very rewarding story wise.

I highly recommend following up with SMT IV: Apocalypse at some point. Both are stellar games.

[Resileaf]

Started playing Thief 2, and the controls are still as archaic as the first one. For some reason, the game is convinced that I have an AZERTY keyboard, so I had to rebind every single control for things to make sense.

[factotum]

Started playing Thief 2, and the controls are still as archaic as the first one. For some reason, the game is convinced that I have an AZERTY keyboard, so I had to rebind every single control for things to make sense.

You have to do that in Thief 2 even if you have a QWERTY keyboard. For some obscure reason the A and D keys default to turn left and right, instead of strafe as is more usual, and X is backstep rather than S!

[warty goblin]

You have to do that in Thief 2 even if you have a QWERTY keyboard. For some obscure reason the A and D keys default to turn left and right, instead of strafe as is more usual, and X is backstep rather than S!

This is this a thing with first person games of particular vintage. IIRC itcomes from an age before standard mouselook, so the camera controls had to be on the keyboard as well. Though I would have thought mouselook was standard by Thief.

[Resileaf]

This is this a thing with first person games of particular vintage. IIRC itcomes from an age before standard mouselook, so the camera controls had to be on the keyboard as well. Though I would have thought mouselook was standard by Thief.

As far as I know, it is. Maybe they just made sure that they had non-mouse support in case someone played who didn't want to play with a mouse.