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  1. - Top - End - #391
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    Default Re: What Are You Playing, Part 3: The Assassination of my Wallet by the Cowardly Sale

    Quote Originally Posted by factotum View Post
    But probably a better fed one.
    That's true. Though people do need an excuse to eat less, sometimes.

  2. - Top - End - #392
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    Default Re: What Are You Playing, Part 3: The Assassination of my Wallet by the Cowardly Sale

    Quote Originally Posted by tyckspoon View Post
    Pretty much, yeah. There are a few fights where I think the intended/best strategy would be to switch your controlled character frequently in order to make the enemy spend most of their time running across the battlefield when you make them change targeting, especially in the 2-person party sequences where you often have Cloud + a ranged character that will be standing off some ways away. And the character you're controlling earns ATB bar a lot faster (possibly because you as the player are probably just spamming their attack button while the AI tends to take breaks between attacks, but the active player may just actually get more ATB), so if you want one of your non-controlled party members to handle healing duties or support spells or something you will sometimes have to switch to them to make sure they're actually getting enough bar to do so.
    Eh, I kinda liked how FFXV did it. Each character had their own playstyle, their own fights that they excel at.

    Gladio was excellent against big, predictable bosses to block and counter against. He used two energy bars where one regenerated constantly to block things, and the other depleted constantly that grew from blocking damage and increased how much damage he dealt (I think that's how it worked).
    Ignus massacred swarms of enemies, especially if they had an elemental weakness (since he was a master at all of them). He charged up energy by dealing elemental damage to enemies and then released it into one big explosion.
    Prompto could kite enemies around terrain and tear them to shreds if they were too slow to do anything about it. He had a reload system using his 4 guns that each had their own reload timer to require regular swapping between your weapons.
    And Noctis...was good if the enemy was weak to swords.

    They all had a very valuable niche and very tight controls that felt like you were able to play almost completely different games. Although I've found that, between Ignus and Prompto, there really isn't much that can't be solved by spamming favorable elemental damage or kiting behind corners to shoot a rocket launcher at dinosaurs. I only ever used Gladio if I was caught out by giant demons at night who'd otherwise kill my other characters in seconds.

    Not sure why they made Noctis so friggin' weak compared to his friends, but whatever. All of his "epic" weapons have huge penalties that rarely make them worthwhile, and he take so much damage and deals so little in return. Simply just trying to dodge everything quickly drains your energy into uselessness.

    From what I've seen of the FFVII rework, the combat honestly looks like a worse/clunkier version of FFXV, which just seems really odd to me.
    Last edited by Man_Over_Game; 2020-07-01 at 01:50 PM.
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  3. - Top - End - #393
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    Quote Originally Posted by Man_Over_Game View Post
    Eh, I kinda liked how FFXV did it. Each character had their own playstyle, their own fights that they excel at.

    Gladio was excellent against big, predictable bosses to block and counter against. He used two energy bars where one regenerated constantly to block things, and the other depleted constantly that grew from blocking damage and increased how much damage he dealt (I think that's how it worked).
    Ignus massacred swarms of enemies, especially if they had an elemental weakness (since he was a master at all of them). He charged up energy by dealing elemental damage to enemies and then released it into one big explosion.
    Prompto could kite enemies around terrain and tear them to shreds if they were too slow to do anything about it. He had a reload system using his 4 guns that each had their own reload timer to require regular swapping between your weapons.
    And Noctis...was good if the enemy was weak to swords.

    They all had a very valuable niche and very tight controls that felt like you were able to play almost completely different games. Although I've found that, between Ignus and Prompto, there really isn't much that can't be solved by spamming favorable elemental damage or kiting behind corners to shoot a rocket launcher at dinosaurs. I only ever used Gladio if I was caught out by giant demons at night who'd otherwise kill my other characters in seconds.

    Not sure why they made Noctis so friggin' weak compared to his friends, but whatever. All of his "epic" weapons have huge penalties that rarely make them worthwhile, and he take so much damage and deals so little in return. Simply just trying to dodge everything quickly drains your energy into uselessness.

    From what I've seen of the FFVII rework, the combat honestly looks like a worse/clunkier version of FFXV, which just seems really odd to me.

    The original game only had Noctis as playable. The other characters were ported in well after release, most likely from the multiplayer stuff. The balance was built entirely around Noctis which is why the others have such an advantage.

    Noctis isn't bad by any stretch though. His mobility makes him functionally immortal, and you can string warp strikes for massive single target damage. He can also stay airborne forever.

  4. - Top - End - #394
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    Default Re: What Are You Playing, Part 3: The Assassination of my Wallet by the Cowardly Sale

    Quote Originally Posted by Man_Over_Game View Post
    Keep in mind, I have exactly zero experience with this game, but it almost sounds like you're supposed to swap to Barret when you're getting swarmed so that his ranged attacks and tanking abilities pull enemies to him and waste a bunch of time to buy your main character some breathing room.
    There's two problems with that. The first being, as I mentioned, he's kind of absent for a decent chunk of the game - think I'm about to reunite with him, but he's been gone for quite a while now. Second, his one real tanking ability thus far (besides generally being much more durable than the others) just has him take some of the damage for other characters when they get hit, it doesn't actually draw enemy attention or the like. Granted, switching direct control to him would draw enemy attention to him since the AI is designed to mostly focus on the player controlled character, but their attention would just go right back to the others shortly after I switched back. And, as I mentioned, he's kind of the least fun character to play, so I don't really want to spend much time actually playing him.

    Quote Originally Posted by tyckspoon View Post
    Pretty much, yeah. There are a few fights where I think the intended/best strategy would be to switch your controlled character frequently in order to make the enemy spend most of their time running across the battlefield when you make them change targeting, especially in the 2-person party sequences where you often have Cloud + a ranged character that will be standing off some ways away. And the character you're controlling earns ATB bar a lot faster (possibly because you as the player are probably just spamming their attack button while the AI tends to take breaks between attacks, but the active player may just actually get more ATB), so if you want one of your non-controlled party members to handle healing duties or support spells or something you will sometimes have to switch to them to make sure they're actually getting enough bar to do so.
    You could play that way, sure, but I think that illustrates precisely the problem I was criticizing with the way things are set up currently - that sounds less like a fun, intentionally-designed way to play an action RPG than it does a method of abusing the way this one's AI is designed.
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    "When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty, I read them openly. When I became a man, I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up." -C.S. Lewis

  5. - Top - End - #395
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    Default Re: What Are You Playing, Part 3: The Assassination of my Wallet by the Cowardly Sale

    I think I've settled on the two weirdest things about Warcraft 2.

    The first is the campaigns. Specifically, they don't play like an RTS.

    The computer starting with a full base is pretty normal. What's weird is how heavily the game discourages early aggression, scouting, and expanding. Those are all hallmarks of RTS play even in Warcraft 2 itself.

    In the campaigns however, scouting is near impossible unless you have zeppelins/flying machines. The map is littered with enemy units, sometimes in quite large groups. Areas of the map will be blocked off by guard towers with a contingent of soldiers guarding it. Getting an expansion isn't a matter of quickly moving out to one once your economy is online. You sometimes have to destroy an entire enemy base to get it. Secondary gold mines are only meant to be taken once the first gold mine collapses.

    The flow of the game becomes defend, defend, defend. Get a decent sized army, and slowly clear out the trash units around the map. Only then are you able to siege the enemy base.

    Another example of this weirdness is the mission I just completed. Objective: Build a bunch of shipyards and destroy all enemy ships. The logical RTS response to that is to quickly build a shipyard so you can get a fleet before the enemy techs up.

    Wrong. The enemy already has ships patrolling the coast, and will immediately attack your shipyard. If you get past them, they will send an attack force to destroy your oil derrick, which is out of range of any ground defenses. If you somehow beat them, the enemy will send gryphon riders to attack you - all before you can get enough oil to build a navy to defend it.

    The solution is to ignore the ocean for almost the entire mission. Wipe out the other enemies and tech up to dragons, then use your air force to beat the enemy into submission until you can get your naval economy online.

    Each mission is like a puzzle. There is a best strategy, and you are encouraged to play the mission multiple times to analyze the AI and exploit it.

    Little wonder that I was totally unprepared for Starcraft when it came out.

    -----

    The second is the command delay. There is a reaction time for units, and I remember the same thing happening in the DOS version. Units will "pause" for a moment after being given orders, and then react to them a couple seconds later. Order a group of dragons to move, and there will be a brief pause before the first dragon moves. The second dragon will wait for the first dragon to move, and then move itself. This goes down the line to the last dragon, which by this point is probably dead from whatever was attacking it. Microing units by individually selecting them is actually superior to selecting a group and moving them all at once.

    Fascinatingly, this can also be seen with AI controlled units and units acting on their own. If a group enemies are attacking your towers and you send a defensive force out, the attackers will freeze while they process this new threat. They don't attack during this time, even if they are being attacked. This can even result in units not doing anything - an archer put into a worker line may freeze up entirely. They spend a moment acquiring a peasant, then the peasant goes into the gold mine and becomes untargetable. The archer will then spend several seconds acquiring a new target, which gives the new target plenty of time to either enter the mine or the town hall. Melee units will do the same unless told to stand their ground, in which case they have no problem smacking whatever comes close.

    I'm dead curious about this effect. Was it a side effect of the pathfinding processing? Was it intentionally put in?

  6. - Top - End - #396
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    Default Re: What Are You Playing, Part 3: The Assassination of my Wallet by the Cowardly Sale

    Quote Originally Posted by Cespenar View Post
    Also, no offense, but while it may define your preferences (and rightly so), if all games were designed for people who simultaneously are supposed to eat supper, we would live in a boring world of gaming indeed.
    Oh absolutely, I like plenty of games that cannot be played with a sandwich firmly in hand. Unless I master WASD with my feet for instance - and I'm sure somebody has - any dreams of a culinary evening of FPS domination remain sadly out of reach.

    But I do enjoy a good strategy game over supper, something which is easy with TBS titles. Its completely impossible with an RTS obviously, and also sadly with RTP games, which leaves them competing with RTSs for non-dinner gaming. Which really is a bummer, I'd quite like Pathfinder: Kingmaker over a nice quesadilla.
    Blood-red were his spurs i' the golden noon; wine-red was his velvet coat,
    When they shot him down on the highway,
    Down like a dog on the highway,
    And he lay in his blood on the highway, with the bunch of lace at his throat.


    Alfred Noyes, The Highwayman, 1906.

  7. - Top - End - #397
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    Default Re: What Are You Playing, Part 3: The Assassination of my Wallet by the Cowardly Sale

    I picked up Outer Wilds recently; interesting game, but it's a little overwhelming. There's so much to discover; just Brittle Hollow has a bunch of stuff to try and explore, and I've barely touched any of the other planets. It's also weirding me out how small the solar system is; it makes sense for simplifying gameplay, but it's hard to take it seriously when "planets" are a few hundred meters wide.
    ithilanor on Steam.

  8. - Top - End - #398
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    Default Re: What Are You Playing, Part 3: The Assassination of my Wallet by the Cowardly Sale

    Quote Originally Posted by IthilanorStPete View Post
    I picked up Outer Wilds recently; interesting game, but it's a little overwhelming. There's so much to discover; just Brittle Hollow has a bunch of stuff to try and explore, and I've barely touched any of the other planets. It's also weirding me out how small the solar system is; it makes sense for simplifying gameplay, but it's hard to take it seriously when "planets" are a few hundred meters wide.
    I picked it up too on the recommendation of someone that said it's a lot like Subnautica. I can't remember if it was someone in this thread or somewhere else. Anyway, I'm not far enough into it yet to have an opinion. The control scheme was really frustrating on keyboard and mouse, but the game does tell you that it's best played with a controller. I'll have to try it again later when I have a controller with me.

  9. - Top - End - #399
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    Default Re: What Are You Playing, Part 3: The Assassination of my Wallet by the Cowardly Sale

    Quote Originally Posted by warty goblin View Post
    Oh absolutely, I like plenty of games that cannot be played with a sandwich firmly in hand. Unless I master WASD with my feet for instance - and I'm sure somebody has - any dreams of a culinary evening of FPS domination remain sadly out of reach.

    But I do enjoy a good strategy game over supper, something which is easy with TBS titles. Its completely impossible with an RTS obviously, and also sadly with RTP games, which leaves them competing with RTSs for non-dinner gaming. Which really is a bummer, I'd quite like Pathfinder: Kingmaker over a nice quesadilla.
    Final Fantasy XII is the kind of game for you. You can program your characters to be automated, down to item use, target selection, healing allies who are on low HP or down, etc.

    There was this point where I entered a boss fight, went to the bathroom, came back and done.

    The game is hard, too, if you want to do all the optional stuff (which takes like twice as long as the base plot to grind for).
    Quote Originally Posted by KOLE View Post
    MOG, design a darn RPG system. Seriously, the amount of ideas I’ve gleaned from your posts has been valuable. You’re a gem of the community here.

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  10. - Top - End - #400
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    Quote Originally Posted by warty goblin View Post
    Oh absolutely, I like plenty of games that cannot be played with a sandwich firmly in hand. Unless I master WASD with my feet for instance - and I'm sure somebody has - any dreams of a culinary evening of FPS domination remain sadly out of reach.

    But I do enjoy a good strategy game over supper, something which is easy with TBS titles. Its completely impossible with an RTS obviously, and also sadly with RTP games, which leaves them competing with RTSs for non-dinner gaming. Which really is a bummer, I'd quite like Pathfinder: Kingmaker over a nice quesadilla.
    I can see a new fad in the future already: Youtube channels pairing food with video games.

  11. - Top - End - #401
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    Default Re: What Are You Playing, Part 3: The Assassination of my Wallet by the Cowardly Sale

    Quote Originally Posted by Cespenar View Post
    I can see a new fad in the future already: Youtube channels pairing food with video games.
    Are we sure there isn't a channel like that already? I feel like its one of the rules of the internet.
    Quote Originally Posted by Celestia View Post
    The British conquered the world in search of spices and then decided to use none of them.

  12. - Top - End - #402
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    Default Re: What Are You Playing, Part 3: The Assassination of my Wallet by the Cowardly Sale

    There's several channels recreating food from video games, but not that way around, I think.
    Resident Vancian Apologist

  13. - Top - End - #403
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    Default Re: What Are You Playing, Part 3: The Assassination of my Wallet by the Cowardly Sale

    Started playing The Outer Worlds.

    Honestly, I'm kinda disappointed in it so far. Writing seems good, decent-enough diversity in conversations to be interesting, but the rest of the game is kinda...flat.

    Trying to use Stealth as a "combat solution" doesn't help much more than "Deal an extra 20% more damage to the first guy you shot". You can't hide from enemies that already know where you are.

    There also aren't a lot of alternate means of accomplishing quests. Seems like most of them are "Go here, kill everything with brute force or run away from them, come back". The most clever thing I've been able to do in a fight is wait for an enemy to patrol near a barrel and kill them before the entire base starts advancing on me.

    There are a ton of locked computer terminals, and locked things require resources to break into while the skill determines WHAT you can break into, but a lot of those terminals don't have any relevant information. Lots of locked stuff are just emails of randos chatting back and forth.

    The best way I could probably describe it is "Fallout 3 with better dialogue", which probably could have just been done with a mod.
    Last edited by Man_Over_Game; 2020-07-03 at 12:40 PM.
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    MOG, design a darn RPG system. Seriously, the amount of ideas I’ve gleaned from your posts has been valuable. You’re a gem of the community here.

    5th Edition Homebrewery
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  14. - Top - End - #404
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    Default Re: What Are You Playing, Part 3: The Assassination of my Wallet by the Cowardly Sale

    Quote Originally Posted by warty goblin View Post
    Which really is a bummer, I'd quite like Pathfinder: Kingmaker over a nice quesadilla.
    Use the so-popular-they-made-it-an-official-option-in-the-sequel TBS mod. Seriously. Most like TT RPG I've ever played and it's legions better with it on. Owlcat made an amazing TBS game - somewhat inadvertently, because they copied the TT rules so well - with a thin veneer of RTwP slathered on top; my honest first impression of if it RTwP mode (after playing D:OS 2 and PoE 2 in RTwP mode was "this is basically a TBS system, isn't it?")

    (Pair with the free camera mod, because you just very occasionally want to juggle the angle slightly from the default for some 5-steps.)
    Last edited by Aotrs Commander; 2020-07-03 at 02:17 PM.

  15. - Top - End - #405
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    Default Re: What Are You Playing, Part 3: The Assassination of my Wallet by the Cowardly Sale

    So I picked up Late Night for The Sims 3 (the Open World still makes it the best Sims game, even if the Story Progression system needs fixing), and so turned off everything else and played with just it and the base game.

    Just went with the one Sim, which is something I rarely do, and it was fun trying to get everything I wanted into a small apartment (couldn't get a TV in there with the three different art objects, and I got back into the swing of things. It was all going great, I'd got my first promotion and was on my way to fulfilling my lifetime wish when my laptop ran out of power. Guess I forgot to plug it in. I'm going to have to start again, but that's fine as I wanted to swap out a couple of traits anyway.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Zelphas View Post
    So here I am, trapped in my laboratory, trying to create a Mechabeast that's powerful enough to take down the howling horde outside my door, but also won't join them once it realizes what I've done...twentieth time's the charm, right?
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    How about a Jovian Uplift stuck in a Case morph? it makes so little sense.

  16. - Top - End - #406
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    Default Re: What Are You Playing, Part 3: The Assassination of my Wallet by the Cowardly Sale

    Quote Originally Posted by Aotrs Commander View Post
    Use the so-popular-they-made-it-an-official-option-in-the-sequel TBS mod.
    They have announced they will make it official in Kingmaker too. There's gonna be a patch on August, at the same time as the console release.
    Many thanks to Assassin 89 for this avatar!

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    Default Re: What Are You Playing, Part 3: The Assassination of my Wallet by the Cowardly Sale

    Quote Originally Posted by Narkis View Post
    They have announced they will make it official in Kingmaker too. There's gonna be a patch on August, at the same time as the console release.
    Oh, wow, I hadn't heard that. That's double-especially awesome of them.

  18. - Top - End - #408
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    Default Re: What Are You Playing, Part 3: The Assassination of my Wallet by the Cowardly Sale

    Quote Originally Posted by PraetorDragoon View Post
    Are we sure there isn't a channel like that already? I feel like its one of the rules of the internet.
    Quote Originally Posted by Eldan View Post
    There's several channels recreating food from video games, but not that way around, I think.
    So, who do we contact about this?

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    Default Re: What Are You Playing, Part 3: The Assassination of my Wallet by the Cowardly Sale

    Well, I know I like to drink beer and eat kettle corn when I play Yakuza, so there's a decent starting point. =p

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    Default Re: What Are You Playing, Part 3: The Assassination of my Wallet by the Cowardly Sale

    I bought Into the Breach a few months ago because I love FTL. I gave it a quick whirl, didn't really click and felt overwhelmingly difficult, forgot about it again.

    Gave it another shot yesterday, and I think I'm starting to get hooked. It's one of those games that do not really open up until you have some understanding of the mechanics, it seems, but I've reached a point where I kind-of sort-of know what I'm doing. Still early days, I've only just unlocked my third island and only have two squads so far.

    Since I'm home alone this weekend, I've also plugged in my PSVR set again (takes up a ton of space in our tiny apartment with all those wires), so I had some magical moments with Tetris Effect yesterday. Also tried out the demo of Astro Bot: Rescue Mission and am thinking about getting the full game. There seems to be a lot of interesting gameplay possibilites for a Mario-style platformer in VR (and really I just desperately want to play Mario Odyssey, but I'm not quite ready to buy a Switch yet).

  21. - Top - End - #411
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    Default Re: What Are You Playing, Part 3: The Assassination of my Wallet by the Cowardly Sale

    Quote Originally Posted by Narkis View Post
    They have announced they will make it official in Kingmaker too. There's gonna be a patch on August, at the same time as the console release.
    Now we're talking! Think I'll wait until then before diving back in. Thanks for the heads up.

    I suppose I could give Pillars of Eternity 2 another whirl in turn based mode. Last time I tried I was already bored to death in the first hour. A whole lot of people talked at me for a while and then I was killing pointless boars on the starter beach. I could never kill pointless boars on a starter beach again and die a happy man.
    Blood-red were his spurs i' the golden noon; wine-red was his velvet coat,
    When they shot him down on the highway,
    Down like a dog on the highway,
    And he lay in his blood on the highway, with the bunch of lace at his throat.


    Alfred Noyes, The Highwayman, 1906.

  22. - Top - End - #412
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    Default Re: What Are You Playing, Part 3: The Assassination of my Wallet by the Cowardly Sale

    Quote Originally Posted by Corlindale View Post
    I bought Into the Breach a few months ago because I love FTL. I gave it a quick whirl, didn't really click and felt overwhelmingly difficult, forgot about it again.

    Gave it another shot yesterday, and I think I'm starting to get hooked. It's one of those games that do not really open up until you have some understanding of the mechanics, it seems, but I've reached a point where I kind-of sort-of know what I'm doing. Still early days, I've only just unlocked my third island and only have two squads so far.
    The best advice I could give would be to take your time with your turns and trust in the probability that there is a solution for each turn. I don't know if it's an AI trick or something, but even on Hard difficulty, there are very, very few turns where you logically can't avoid losing a building. It's just a matter of finding it, similar to those old "checkmate in 3" puzzles in the newspapers.

    Also a basic tip: a good way to start a turn is to identify the "critical" enemies: the ones that threaten the buildings. The rest can often be ignored (not really, but we're talking basic). Most of the time you'll have 3 mech actions, and 3 critical enemies, and you just have to tie those together. Later on, you will find yourself in situations where there are more than 3 critical enemies, and that's where you'll have to pull the real shenanigans.

    Quote Originally Posted by warty goblin View Post
    I suppose I could give Pillars of Eternity 2 another whirl in turn based mode. Last time I tried I was already bored to death in the first hour. A whole lot of people talked at me for a while and then I was killing pointless boars on the starter beach. I could never kill pointless boars on a starter beach again and die a happy man.
    I found half speed combat to be the perfect speed to keep on top of things, personally. I'd suggest trying that.
    Last edited by Cespenar; 2020-07-04 at 09:29 AM.

  23. - Top - End - #413
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    Default Re: What Are You Playing, Part 3: The Assassination of my Wallet by the Cowardly Sale

    Yeah, I used combat auto-slow on all the recent RTwP games and it's just much better.

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    Default Re: What Are You Playing, Part 3: The Assassination of my Wallet by the Cowardly Sale

    The best advice I could give would be to take your time with your turns and trust in the probability that there is a solution for each turn. I don't know if it's an AI trick or something, but even on Hard difficulty, there are very, very few turns where you logically can't avoid losing a building. It's just a matter of finding it, similar to those old "checkmate in 3" puzzles in the newspapers.

    Also a basic tip: a good way to start a turn is to identify the "critical" enemies: the ones that threaten the buildings. The rest can often be ignored (not really, but we're talking basic). Most of the time you'll have 3 mech actions, and 3 critical enemies, and you just have to tie those together. Later on, you will find yourself in situations where there are more than 3 critical enemies, and that's where you'll have to pull the real shenanigans.
    Thanks for the tips! I can definitely feel myself getting better. And I typically realize that it's my own fault when I paint myself into a corner and end up in a situation where I have to make hard decisions about what to sacrifice. But it's also immensely satisfying when you manage to pull off some crazy trick where all the enemies end up killing or obstructing each other.

    Unlocked a third squad today, the electric storm ones (perhaps my favourites so far, it's nice that the storms are both a DoT effect and a temporary lockdown). I like how they all seem to have different playstyles. But I guess that makes sense from the designers of FTL, where it was also great fun to try out the different ships with their strengths and weaknesses.

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    Default Re: What Are You Playing, Part 3: The Assassination of my Wallet by the Cowardly Sale

    Just finished up Final Fantasy 7 Remake. I would say I definitely enjoyed it a great deal - it's probably fair to say that it's now my favorite Final Fantasy game. (Though bear in mind that was a low bar up until now; previously I'd have called FF1 my favorite, because the series has never much impressed me before.)

    Besides the AI criticism I gave before, I have to say that its combat comes together extremely well. I'm quite impressed that they managed to put together an action-RPG combat system that feels so thoroughly influenced by both action game combat and RPG elements, yet doesn't end up feeling like an awkward, half-assed mish-mash. In many ways it kind of raises the bar on the action-RPG subgenre in general, honestly. Sure, there's enemies you can deal with just by mashing basic attacks, but plenty that are better dealt with in more varied ways. Almost every ability you get on each character feels useful in its own way, with very few feeling pointless or obsoleted even by the end - even lower-tier magic can still be useful after unlocking higher-tier versions due to its much lower MP cost and the fact that it'll still build significant stagger bar on enemies weak to it. That stagger bar in general felt like an excellent addition as well, enabling some moves to be better at building it than dealing damage and feel like they have a solid purpose there, others to exist to be big damage-dealers for once the enemy is staggered, and giving a satisfying flow to battles. Bosses whose discrete parts you can attack to affect the fight in various ways or build extra stagger meter was a great design element, too - by and large I thought the game's boss battles were pretty well-handled. The materia system was pretty good too, though there were certain materia that I question the usefulness of (why is there one that's just poison spells? Who is ever going to equip that over so many other useful materias, given the limited number of slots you get?).

    About the only additional criticism I have gameplay-wise comes from something I noticed late in the game - why the hell, in a game with four playable party members, can you never exceed three actually being used in a single fight? It was so strange how they bent over backwards to keep Barrett out of the party for certain fights once the group had joined up in full near the end. And to be fair, I liked the part where the party was split into two groups of two that helped each other advance, but come on, the full party should've been able to participate in a couple of those end-game boss fights.

    Story-wise, also pretty impressed. Again, I don't know the full story of the original FF7, since I only played partway through it once and don't remember a lot of even what I did play, so I'm sure there's plenty of allusions/foreshadowing that I'm in the dark about, but it does make me want to know the answers to those mysteries, while still leaving this game feeling like a satisfying overall narrative (ending it when you leave Midgar seems to have been a good choice for that, I'd say). And all in all the character work in the game is impressive. By the end I do like pretty much all of these characters - still like Cloud the least, but even has his moments. Jessie in particular impressed me for how much more impact her fate had in this one than the original. Wedge did indeed eventually get to be more than a walking fat joke, which was a pleasant surprise by the time it happened; albeit they also still never stopped doing that, to my annoyance. Even minor villains and supporting characters get memorable personalities and roles.

    Honestly, it almost makes me want to pull out my PS3 and go back to the original game, see if I can get through that in full for once, so that I'm up to speed on what's actually in the original and what's expansion or new additions, and so that I'll have some idea what might be coming in the next installment. Not sure if I will, but weighing the possibility. In the meantime, probably going to try out that hard mode I apparently unlocked, see how that handles.
    Last edited by Zevox; 2020-07-04 at 11:12 AM.
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    Default Re: What Are You Playing, Part 3: The Assassination of my Wallet by the Cowardly Sale

    Quote Originally Posted by Corlindale View Post
    Thanks for the tips! I can definitely feel myself getting better. And I typically realize that it's my own fault when I paint myself into a corner and end up in a situation where I have to make hard decisions about what to sacrifice. But it's also immensely satisfying when you manage to pull off some crazy trick where all the enemies end up killing or obstructing each other.

    Unlocked a third squad today, the electric storm ones (perhaps my favourites so far, it's nice that the storms are both a DoT effect and a temporary lockdown). I like how they all seem to have different playstyles. But I guess that makes sense from the designers of FTL, where it was also great fun to try out the different ships with their strengths and weaknesses.
    No problem. And yeah, they are pretty much 2/2 with FTL and this one. I'll be very interested if they ever come up with a third title.

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    Default Re: What Are You Playing, Part 3: The Assassination of my Wallet by the Cowardly Sale

    Quote Originally Posted by Zevox View Post
    Honestly, it almost makes me want to pull out my PS3 and go back to the original game, see if I can get through that in full for once, so that I'm up to speed on what's actually in the original and what's expansion or new additions, and so that I'll have some idea what might be coming in the next installment. Not sure if I will, but weighing the possibility. In the meantime, probably going to try out that hard mode I apparently unlocked, see how that handles.
    On that point (in a spoiler, because obvious spoilers for the ending of FF7R):

    Spoiler: Spoilers for the ending of FF7 Remake
    Show

    I was pretty confused by a couple of the aspects of the end of FF7Remake (mostly about that Zack guy that pops up in a flashback near the end). I originally attributed it to not having played the original, so I did some research, and apparently Square Enix did something really, really interesting in the end there. That mega-sized boss you fight before fighting Sephiroth was quite literally the force keeping the game on the rails established by the original, and with its destruction the possibilities have been knocked wide open. It's even implied that this was arranged on purpose by Sephiroth because hew knows he's going to lose if fate has its way.

    So, yeah, playing through the original to get a feel for what's next might no be as useful as the game being a remake might imply.
    Last edited by DeTess; 2020-07-05 at 11:30 AM.
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    Default Re: What Are You Playing, Part 3: The Assassination of my Wallet by the Cowardly Sale

    Quote Originally Posted by DeTess View Post
    On that point (in a spoiler, because obvious spoilers for the ending of FF7R):

    Spoiler: Spoilers for the ending of FF7 Remake
    Show

    I was pretty confused by a couple of the aspects of the end of FF7Remake (mostly about that Zack guy that pops up in a flashback near the end). I originally attributed it to not having played the original, so I did some research, and apparently Square Enix did something really, really interesting in the end there. That mega-sized boss you fight before fighting Sephiroth was quite literally the force keeping the game on the rails established by the original, and with its destruction the possibilities have been knocked wide open. It's even implied that this was arranged on purpose by Sephiroth because hew knows he's going to lose if fate has its way.

    So, yeah, playing through the original to get a feel for what's next might no be as useful as the game being a remake might imply.
    Spoiler: FF7R Ending
    Show
    I figured that was probably the case - I'd heard there was some controversy about the ending, and with the whole element of the Whispers being Arbiters of Destiny trying to make sure Destiny goes as intended, I guessed that was most likely what it was. Still, I can't imagine they'll change things too wildly, at least not at first. It is still a remake, and very obviously fanservice to those who loved the original is very high on the list of priorities for the devs.

    That also feels like all the more reason to play the original, anyway - to understand, when the next part of Remake comes out, what's a deviation and what's not. Because as-is, I'd be in the dark about any changes they made, unless they change literally the most famous moment of the game (Aerith's fate, which is such a ubiquitous spoiler that I know it despite not having gotten that far the one time I played the game).
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    Default Re: What Are You Playing, Part 3: The Assassination of my Wallet by the Cowardly Sale

    Quote Originally Posted by DeTess View Post
    On that point (in a spoiler, because obvious spoilers for the ending of FF7R):

    Spoiler: Spoilers for the ending of FF7 Remake
    Show

    I was pretty confused by a couple of the aspects of the end of FF7Remake (mostly about that Zack guy that pops up in a flashback near the end). I originally attributed it to not having played the original, so I did some research, and apparently Square Enix did something really, really interesting in the end there. That mega-sized boss you fight before fighting Sephiroth was quite literally the force keeping the game on the rails established by the original, and with its destruction the possibilities have been knocked wide open. It's even implied that this was arranged on purpose by Sephiroth because hew knows he's going to lose if fate has its way.

    So, yeah, playing through the original to get a feel for what's next might no be as useful as the game being a remake might imply.
    Spoiler: same topic
    Show
    On the other hand, in interviews and other media situations where the development/project coordinators/other people who ought to know have been asked about this.. the official line is consistently that FFVII fans will still recognize the overall story. We can probably expect some specific beats or the execution thereof to change, because if they don't than what was even the point of introducing and destroying an eldritch force dedicated to trying to preserve the 'right' story.. but the major events are presumably still going to find a way to happen.

    Hopefully the Kalm Flashbacks will be shorter, or at least more engaging to play through.. still an open question as to how long the overall story/later part games are going to end up being, I believe. They took the 5-8 hours of Midgar in the original and blew it out to a 40+ hour story in its own right, although it'd be a fair bit shorter if you for some reason ignored all the sidequest requests. If all the rest of the original story gets a similar amount of expansion we could be looking at like 300 hours of game split up across who knows how many episodes. Or they can compress and speed through things a lot more than they did on this first episode; will that feel like giving up or a drop in quality to everybody who enjoyed the launch episode, if they don't get to spend five hours running around helping out the citizens of Kalm with their cow-herding problems, 10 hours exploring the various sections of Junon, etc?
    Last edited by tyckspoon; 2020-07-05 at 12:44 PM.

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    Default Re: What Are You Playing, Part 3: The Assassination of my Wallet by the Cowardly Sale

    Quote Originally Posted by tyckspoon View Post
    They took the 5-8 hours of Midgar in the original and blew it out to a 40+ hour story in its own right, although it'd be a fair bit shorter if you for some reason ignored all the sidequest requests. If all the rest of the original story gets a similar amount of expansion we could be looking at like 300 hours of game split up across who knows how many episodes. Or they can compress and speed through things a lot more than they did on this first episode; will that feel like giving up or a drop in quality to everybody who enjoyed the launch episode, if they don't get to spend five hours running around helping out the citizens of Kalm with their cow-herding problems, 10 hours exploring the various sections of Junon, etc?
    Oh, I don't imagine they'd possibly expand every part of the original game to the degree that they did Midgar - even not knowing exactly how long it was, I could confidently guess they'd be working on it for the next few decades if they tried something like that. Midgar getting this much expansion probably just fit conveniently for them narratively (establishes the characters, world, and main plot quite thoroughly, while still having its own satisfying narrative arc and conclusion to it), and allows them to wait to do the larger game world for the next console generation, while having the assets (and engine?) they made for this title as a starting point to work with going forward. I'd guess we'll see maybe two more parts, assuming they will still be doing a fair amount of expansion on the original material.
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