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

[Razade]

Synergy is certainly one of those things that makes a good Roguelike great. I certainly hope they develop more though I've never known Supergiants to do further content on their games so I'm not holding my breath. They generally tend to make their game and then move on to the next, which is not a strategy that does well for Roguelikes considering balance issues and whatnot. I'm happy with what I have and people seem to manage with the rules as they are but I'd absolutely love to see Boon Synergy as something they develop if they're going to keep working on this past the release yesterday. Keep in mind that Isaac had no real synergy between the release and Wrath of the Lamb and they had to do the remake because Flash could no longer support the synergies that Ed wanted to put in. Likewise Enter the Gungeon's synergy list was incredibly small on release, and wasn't even highlighted or well known due to how minor it was and it took three progressively larger and more in depth updates over its lifespan. Both of those games were totally improved by it and it's inarguable that it had further life after release because of it. Here's to hoping.

I've been meaning to get Dead Cells on Switch. I have it on computer but I hate the mouse and keyboard controls. It very much feels like a controller game and I hate plugging my controller into my PC to play a PC game. If I wanted to play a game that needed controllers I'd play it on console.

I agree with the Bow with Dash is...I even hesitate to call it different? Maybe I'm bad at timing but it just let me go right into a charged shot out of a dash which is...nowhere near as cool as the other weapons and what they provide.

[factotum]

Then Kingdoms of Amalur dropped, which took more or less the same idea as TES, but gave it combat that was actually fun s and smooth to control. Sure it was total over the top high fantasy nonsense, but running into another group of enemies wasn't actually unpleasant.

I think I've completed Skyrim three times, using different character types each time and taking around 100 hours for each playthrough. I've completed KoA *once*, taking 60 hours, and the last fifteen hours of that I was more or less forcing myself to play it because I wanted to see the ending. I can't really identify why KoA just failed to grab me.

I can definitely identify why Oblivion didn't grab me, though--the obvious and in your face level scaling of enemies. I noticed when I revisited an area and the wolves that had been all over the place were gone, replaced by mountain lions, or when a bandit wearing 20,000gp worth of daedric armour tried to shake me down for 100gp, or an Oblivion gate was populated entirely by Dremora Caitiffs--who are supposed to be leaders leading groups of weaker dremora. Every time something like that happened it threw me out of the game, and by the time I hit level 20 I just couldn't continue anymore. Maybe that's why I was able to enjoy Skyrim, because I hadn't burned myself out on Oblivion first?

[Rynjin]

I picked up Re-reckoning and it's...okay. About what I remember of the original.

It reminded me though of the game I dropped it for: Dragon's Dogma, and with the anime coming out yesterday I've now reinstalled that again, with some mods.

[Man_Over_Game]

I agree with the Bow with Dash is...I even hesitate to call it different? Maybe I'm bad at timing but it just let me go right into a charged shot out of a dash which is...nowhere near as cool as the other weapons and what they provide.

It extends beyond that.

You DO have a Dash Attack with the bow, it's just almost identical to the normal attack, with less range and charge up time.

However, your boons treat them as different. If you have a boon that activates on a normal attack, it doesn't apply to your dash attacks, and vice-versa.

But the most natural way of playing a bow user is Shoot-Dash-Shoot-Dash, which means you're only getting like 50% of whichever of the two you decided to invest towards (usually normal attacks).

[Narkis]

It reminded me though of the game I dropped it for: Dragon's Dogma, and with the anime coming out yesterday I've now reinstalled that again, with some mods.

The Netflix anime reminded that this game existed and I'd been interested in it once upon a time. And what do you know, Steam has it on sale. So I've played for a bit, just got to the capital and changed my class to Sorceror. Seems pretty neat so far.

[Spacewolf]

Dragons dogma is one if those games where I can still remember the map, enemy placement and certain quests years later. It has plenty of flaws but is a standout game.

[factotum]

OK, Trails of the Sky SC has committed a cardinal sin. It has one of the things I hate most in the world--a boss fight that essentially comes down to random chance if you win it or not. Renne, in Chapter 7--the boss battle starts with Renne herself hitting you with an attack that can randomly kill any number of your party members, then there are *six* robots that each fire lasers that not only damage you but also apply a random status effect. If that effect happens to be Petrify, and you get hit with another one, well, you're just flat out dead again. It took me six attempts before the RNG generously allowed three of my party members to survive the initial assault, giving me the chance to go all-out against Renne and beat her down before she could kill anyone else. Not a superbly designed boss fight, that one.

[Cespenar]

OK, Trails of the Sky SC has committed a cardinal sin. It has one of the things I hate most in the world--a boss fight that essentially comes down to random chance if you win it or not. Renne, in Chapter 7--the boss battle starts with Renne herself hitting you with an attack that can randomly kill any number of your party members, then there are *six* robots that each fire lasers that not only damage you but also apply a random status effect. If that effect happens to be Petrify, and you get hit with another one, well, you're just flat out dead again. It took me six attempts before the RNG generously allowed three of my party members to survive the initial assault, giving me the chance to go all-out against Renne and beat her down before she could kill anyone else. Not a superbly designed boss fight, that one.

Yeah, some of the boss fights in SC can get a bit unfair at times. Still, you can meta-prepare some stuff against that fight -- lots of status immunity trinkets (mainly petrify), open with an S-break, etc.

[Rynjin]

The Netflix anime reminded that this game existed and I'd been interested in it once upon a time. And what do you know, Steam has it on sale. So I've played for a bit, just got to the capital and changed my class to Sorceror. Seems pretty neat so far.

Some quick tips, if you'd like them:

1.) The game encourages you to try out new Vocations; there are key Augments for some classes that only appear in others (eg. any physical damage fighter wants Clout, available only from leveling Warrior). For Sorcerer (which does get perfect stat-ups if you plan to go to the end of the game as a pure mage guy), as an example, you may want Stability from Ranger (to make you harder to knock down from stuff like a chimera's roar attack, which you should have experienced the annoyance of in the tutorial) or Inflection from leveling Mage.

2.) The game is short and meant to be replayed; its why some quests are fail-able. Don't sweat it too much if you botch a quest, you can always pick it up on another go around. As a quick example, there's a quest you probably already missed in your playthrough that involves going BACK to Cassardis after going to the Encampment, which fails if you go to Gran Soren like the game tells you to.

3.) Black Blood Isle is very fun, but not recommended to try until level 50+.

4.) You can rent other peoples' pawns to round out your party, and may be encouraged to search out a complimentary team.

5.) As a Sorcerer, BTW, there's a semi-hidden Spell Syncing mechanic whereby other Sorcerers in your party will cast the same spell as you if they also have it equipped (and if it's compatible; basically only the damaging Sorcerer only spells), increasing their casting speed immensely and letting you unleash horrific barrages of magical artillery on people. It's fun!

6.) The Forger is your friend. Particularly when it comes to a story relevant item you would normally have to give up which increases your cast speed by 10%.

7.) Gear matters more than stats from leveling past a certain point of the game.

8.) Listen to party chatter as you face certain enemies. While certain chatter may get old ("Their kind fears ice and fire both!" particularly), for when you're learning it's vitally important to know that, for example, Cyclopes are weak to cold magicks, as exploiting elemental weaknesses can make things a lot easier.

9.) Similarly, Debilitations are rad. If you put an enemy to sleep, they take double damage, and if you douse them with a water flask they take more damage from cold and electrical attacks.

9a.) Miasma (the poison spell) initially seems a bit useless. It is not.

Edit:

Remembered the last important one.

10.) You can manually aim targeted spells by mashing left stick (on a controller) or shift (on keyboard).

[Lord Raziere]

I tried to play Antechamber. its interesting and is similar to Portal in terms of the minimalist setting and first person puzzle solving, but the problem with it is that the entire game on a timer so you basically have to solve everything within 1 hour and 30 minutes when you dealing with higher dimensional geometry and other such puzzles, so I'm not inclined to try it again because each time I'd have to delete my progress and then do the whole thing over again but fast enough to save enough time to solve alter puzzles and I'm just not feeling that.

I'm also replaying Amalur and I'm loving the opportunity to use faeblades and chakrams again and to explore the faelands more thoroughly, I basically sped through Amalur the first time I played it and I'm intentionally taking it slow so I can complete all of it or at least a lot more than usual, enjoy its combat and being a badass magical elf ninja as long as I can.

I've been exploring an oceanic planet in modded Starbound so I can pick up squirt guns that will give me infinite liquids of varying kinds, and I've been thinking of setting up a liquid farm on said planet so I can harvest them from infinite pools for various crafting and other uses.

[factotum]

Yeah, some of the boss fights in SC can get a bit unfair at times. Still, you can meta-prepare some stuff against that fight -- lots of status immunity trinkets (mainly petrify), open with an S-break, etc.

The problem with this particular fight is that it's the fourth one in a chapter where you don't get to visit regular shops, and while you can get orbment updates and healing items on the Arseille, I never found anywhere to buy actual *equipment*. So, yes, I sure could have equipped items to prevent instant death and petrify on all my characters, *if I happened to possess them*--which I did not, because in the rest of the game those things are mildly annoying things that happen rarely and which aren't worth giving up other benefits offered by your accessories for. The only way I could possibly have prepared for this fight in the way you describe is to go back to the previous chapter, get the relevant items, and then play through all three previous boss fights again!

Oh, and starting with an S-break isn't an option because the fight is a surprise attack, so Renne and her robots get to go first every time.

[Zevox]

Finished up my War of the Chosen run. Wow, all of those extra benefits the expansion throws your way really end up making the endgame a lot easier. That finally mission actually got tense at points for me in the vanilla version of the game, during a mid-part-1 portion where I triggered so many enemies it was hard to find a way to manage things, and again as part 2 drug on because it kept throwing so many enemy reinforcements at me. But this time? I had so many ways to have soldiers kill a lot enemies on one turn that most enemies never took an action - including all of the Avatars. The Chosen's sniper rifle in particular is completely busted with the Death from Above perk, so my sniper having those plus a Wraith Suit (for the grappling hook) meant that she could just wipe out almost every enemy she could see in a turn with hardly any chance of failure as long as she could find some high ground. Then I had a grenadier who had picked up the Sniper perk that gives him a turn where any kills with his main weapon refunded his actions, and of course a Ranger with the Reaper perk to chain-kill with melee attacks, which is even better with that Chosen's sword - yeah, just mind controlling one enemy each with my Psi Operative and Avatar almost seemed tame by comparison. Honestly, it feels like you get so OP that I might want to consider trying the game on the hard difficulty some time, see if that balances things out a bit more.

Anyway, all in all, I do like the expansion. The Chosen, the new mission types and variations of old mission types, new units, there's a lot of good stuff. Could've stood to tone down some things, and the final fights with the Chosen themselves could've used some variation between them besides just the alterations to the terrain of the room, but overall it added a lot fun things to the game, and I'm glad I played it. Still, I'm also glad it was on that sale when I got it, as even with all it added, I'm not so sure I'd be entirely happy paying $40 for it on top of what I'd already paid for the base game.

[Cygnia]

Started "Sumatra: Fate of Yandi" yesterday, made by the same folks who did "Legend of Hand".

[Cespenar]

The problem with this particular fight is that it's the fourth one in a chapter where you don't get to visit regular shops, and while you can get orbment updates and healing items on the Arseille, I never found anywhere to buy actual *equipment*. So, yes, I sure could have equipped items to prevent instant death and petrify on all my characters, *if I happened to possess them*--which I did not, because in the rest of the game those things are mildly annoying things that happen rarely and which aren't worth giving up other benefits offered by your accessories for. The only way I could possibly have prepared for this fight in the way you describe is to go back to the previous chapter, get the relevant items, and then play through all three previous boss fights again!

Oh, and starting with an S-break isn't an option because the fight is a surprise attack, so Renne and her robots get to go first every time.

Yeah, I don't remember the logistics and was only suggesting a "second try" solution. Load, equip items if you have, try again. Also, I'm only 90% sure about this, but S-breaks should be able to interrupt enemy turns -- though you have to use its special keybind and spam it right at the start if you want to go before their turn 1, as if you're trying to go into BIOS on your PC.

[factotum]

Yeah, I don't remember the logistics and was only suggesting a "second try" solution. Load, equip items if you have, try again. Also, I'm only 90% sure about this, but S-breaks should be able to interrupt enemy turns -- though you have to use its special keybind and spam it right at the start if you want to go before their turn 1, as if you're trying to go into BIOS on your PC.

I got through it now anyway, but as I said, I think it was more due to lucky rolls of the RNG than anything else.

On an entirely unrelated note, ran into the weirdest little bug earlier--there's a point in the game where you have to enter somebody's name into a computer terminal. Since it's a console port, you have to do this by selecting the first name from a menu, then the middle initial, then the last name. However, the game won't actually let you make the "middle initial" selection using the controller--for some reason, that menu (alone in the game!) *has* to be selected using the mouse! Took me a few minutes to figure out why that wasn't working, let me tell you.

[EDIT] I just tested, and you're right--you can use S-breaks to interrupt the enemy's turn. Well, that sure would have made that fight a lot easier!

[Narkis]

Some quick tips, if you'd like them:

1.) The game encourages you to try out new Vocations; there are key Augments for some classes that only appear in others (eg. any physical damage fighter wants Clout, available only from leveling Warrior). For Sorcerer (which does get perfect stat-ups if you plan to go to the end of the game as a pure mage guy), as an example, you may want Stability from Ranger (to make you harder to knock down from stuff like a chimera's roar attack, which you should have experienced the annoyance of in the tutorial) or Inflection from leveling Mage.

2.) The game is short and meant to be replayed; its why some quests are fail-able. Don't sweat it too much if you botch a quest, you can always pick it up on another go around. As a quick example, there's a quest you probably already missed in your playthrough that involves going BACK to Cassardis after going to the Encampment, which fails if you go to Gran Soren like the game tells you to.

3.) Black Blood Isle is very fun, but not recommended to try until level 50+.

4.) You can rent other peoples' pawns to round out your party, and may be encouraged to search out a complimentary team.

5.) As a Sorcerer, BTW, there's a semi-hidden Spell Syncing mechanic whereby other Sorcerers in your party will cast the same spell as you if they also have it equipped (and if it's compatible; basically only the damaging Sorcerer only spells), increasing their casting speed immensely and letting you unleash horrific barrages of magical artillery on people. It's fun!

6.) The Forger is your friend. Particularly when it comes to a story relevant item you would normally have to give up which increases your cast speed by 10%.

7.) Gear matters more than stats from leveling past a certain point of the game.

8.) Listen to party chatter as you face certain enemies. While certain chatter may get old ("Their kind fears ice and fire both!" particularly), for when you're learning it's vitally important to know that, for example, Cyclopes are weak to cold magicks, as exploiting elemental weaknesses can make things a lot easier.

9.) Similarly, Debilitations are rad. If you put an enemy to sleep, they take double damage, and if you douse them with a water flask they take more damage from cold and electrical attacks.

9a.) Miasma (the poison spell) initially seems a bit useless. It is not.

Edit:

Remembered the last important one.

10.) You can manually aim targeted spells by mashing left stick (on a controller) or shift (on keyboard).

Thanks for the tips, I really appreciate advice like that. And more specifically:

1) Yep, I definitely plan to go full Sorceror. Any doubt I might have had evaporated when I learned the newer spells and started throwing out pillars of ice and whips of lightning. I think this is the most visually impressive magic I've seen in an action rpg. As for vocations, my fighter pawn learned an augment that lets her carry more weight, which seems mandatory with the amount of crap lying around. At some point I plan to open up the wiki and see what augments I want from each class.

2) That, unfortunately, I cannot do. I am a little obsessive with not missing out on stuff, so I've checked the wiki on what quests expire when. Haven't spoiled myself on what the quests are, other than titles, but haven't missed any yet.

3) Funny story about that. When I went back to Cassardis for the side quests the game lingered on that woman in the pier and insisted I see what's that about. So I headed to Bitterblack Island, took the notice board quests and headed in. Things weren't so bad in the beginning, the wolfs were tough but the rest of the enemies were just normal goblins. Until I entered a courtyard, and Death awaited me, quite literally. Luckily, being a mage and standing far away from the action allowed me to leg it losing only two pawns in the process. I'll be back for him one day.

4) Yep, pretty hard to miss with how hard the game pushes it. So far I've went with the standard adventurer party of fighter (my main pawn), rogue (strider or ranger pawn, not sure which I prefer), caster (me), healer/buffer (mage pawn). Been working well so far.

5) Now that I had no idea about. I'll switch out the Ranger pawn for a Sorceror next time I change my party and see how it goes.

6) Oooh, so I can give the questgiver the forgery and he'll never know the difference? Neat. I'd assumed he was useful only for duplicating hard to get consumable items.

7) Good design that. Otherwise you wouldn't want to switch classes to get augments in fear of gimping your build.

8) Funny story about that as well. I went down into the well in Cassardis and met the lizardmen. My spells just tickled them and every attack of theirs would take a chunk out of my pawns' health. Just then, my main pawn yelled "there is no shame in running if the battle is too hard". So I took her advice and ran out of the well. Things were considerably easier when I came back five levels later and a sorceror. And the same thing happened with some overpowering bandits on my way to escort Quina in the woods. And I must say, I really appreciate a game that's not afraid to have side quests with overpowering enemies.

9) Haven't really tried playing with status effects, so I'll take your word for it. But I will confirm Miasma seems useless compared to anything else I could be doing with the same caster time.

10) Oh man, that's amazing. I used to charge my fireballs and slowly walk until they locked on. Now I can snipe! Why does the game not tell you something so useful?

[Razade]

Making my way through Hades. On Escape 25 and I've made it up to Elysium once, am fairly consistently making it to Asphodel at this point. Prioritized getting all the weapons and as expected, the gun is a whole lot of fun. Managed to beat the Hydra with it on my latest run. I've liked both boss fights up to this point. Magera has enough RNG to make each fight against her feel a little different and the stages of the Hydra are a good time. Working on being better at being better each run and it's been paying off. I do think my issue about taking "unfair damage" was off base as just beginner complaints, especially as I've tried out other weapons. I hadn't been using the trinkets until I realized they leveled up, as I wanted to run as pure a run as possible without any bonuses. I think that was a mistake on my part. Been hammering Chaos pretty hard with Nectar as well as Charon, Charon's heart meter is maxed to one with a key so I imagine I've got that as far as it's going to go until I get better and progress deeper. Chaos is pretty close behind. Figured the Devil Room ala Isaac and the Shopkeep were the most sensible of the NPCs to cozy up to. Of the weapons, I still am finding the bow and now the gun to fit best with my playstyle. I've enjoyed the sword quite a bit as well. I think I just need to change how I play with the gauntlets and the trident, as those are the only two weapons I haven't done particularly well with.

Would have got farther on the last run if I hadn't chosen the two Boon rooms. Zeus and Ares was a tough choice either way considering their AoE effects, just pure greed on my part taking that when I only have one life. I had full health so I thought I could give it a shot, was down to what I think was the last enemy. Those Elysium Archers are no joke, shot me right where it counted after a pretty rough room layout. All in all though, didn't regret dying there, just a little sad since I think I could have reached the boss at the rate I was going if I was just not greedy. Enjoying the game a great deal still though despite some of the flaws.

[Man_Over_Game]

Magera has enough RNG to make each fight against her feel a little different and the stages of the Hydra are a good time.

So I gotta give Supergiant Games props here. They have INGENIUS boss design.

You might not have gotten there yet, but there are 3 different Fury bosses you can fight, and you'll start running into them in Meg's place. Her sisters are:
Tisiphone: Brain Dead Psycho
Alecto: Sadistic Psycho

And they both basically have the same moves as Megaera:

• Bullet Hell
• Dash
• Circle Slash
• Nuke The Room

But the way they're incorporated makes each of the sisters demands a different type of challenge.

Megaera's fight is extremely random from her shuffling moveset and her randomly spawning minions. She forces you to adapt, and to not get cornered.
Tisiphone's is extremely brutal, but has major telegraphing for her big attacks, and she constantly shrinks the size of the room to make dodging her that much harder. She forces you to be precise and learn the boss.
Alecto's forces you to be the aggressor so she doesn't build up Rage, while occasionally putting you on defense and pressuring your positioning with traps. She forces you to maintain awareness and control while being aggressive.

Adaptation. Precision. Aggression.

This is what the Developers force you to learn with three different bossfights, at the same checkpoint, with the same moves. It's ****ing brilliant.

And it works. I didn't really understand Alecto's mechanics or point at first, when the other two were so obvious in comparison, as I already naturally played in a way that Alecto demanded of me. As a result, her fight feels so friggin' easy to me, since I have nothing left to learn from her.

They did it again with the Hydras. During the first mode of the Hydra, you fight it with the homing purple shots, and then other Hydra heads occasionally pop up while the main head is invulnerable and start harassing you with their own effects. But the main Hydra head eventually starts swapping around with its supports, so you occasionally have to deal with a Main head that distracts you with minion spawners, or starts nuking the room, or shoots predictable (but hard to dodge) scythe projectiles at you. Once again learning how to adapt towards newer situations through the same mechanics you've already played against.

I hadn't been using the trinkets until I realized they leveled up, as I wanted to run as pure a run as possible without any bonuses. I think that was a mistake on my part. Been hammering Chaos pretty hard with Nectar as well as Charon, Charon's heart meter is maxed to one with a key so I imagine I've got that as far as it's going to go until I get better and progress deeper. Chaos is pretty close behind. Figured the Devil Room ala Isaac and the Shopkeep were the most sensible of the NPCs to cozy up to. Of the weapons, I still am finding the bow and now the gun to fit best with my playstyle. I've enjoyed the sword quite a bit as well. I think I just need to change how I play with the gauntlets and the trident, as those are the only two weapons I haven't done particularly well with.

So fun strategy with relics, you can abuse the fact that you can swap out your relic after each boss fight (it's a renovation you can buy), to utilize the once-per-run relics effectively. I usually start with Hypnos, for a chunk of gold at the start, and then the one that gives me an extra live (Skelly's? Not sure), and then swap THAT out once I burn through it for some kind of Boon relic. Overall, it means I'm getting ~120 gold, an extra Live, and a Boon, all through shrewd relic selection.

I think I might switch it up to get a boon to start off a build I'm looking for, as the rarity boost applies to future boons from that god too. Then switch to gold, then the extra life to help me deal with the final boss (who I haven't beat yet). I won't do any spoilers, but it's a slow, methodical fight that requires a high level of precision and few mistakes, similar to Tisiphone.

The gauntlets are a bit awkward, but they have an insane amount of potential through Boons. It's important to learn that the Dash-Upper followup can be canceled by pretty much anything, so you can immediately do anything else right after using it (Including going Dash-Upper > Dash-Upper > Upper). That, and your Dash-Attack is pretty devastating and has some crazy reach. The point of the gauntlets is to be in control and dashing constantly, while surprisingly being less aggressive than the Sword (which is basically all about Dash-Attacking into enemies so they get stunlocked into walls). Dash in, do the thing, dash out. It's about getting a rhythm of timing your assaults/retreats around your Dash recharge.

Most people say they like the Spear, due to the level of range it gives them. Few things of note about it:

• You can Dash while charging your Spin Attack, and this will move where your Spin Slash goes. This is great for charging for an incoming wave that hasn't spawned yet, or just dealing an insane amount of damage to an approaching horde when you feel like you're not at risk while charging.
• Your Dash Attack sucks, but you don't want to be using it aggressively anyway.
• Don't underestimate your Special (the spear throw/return). It has surprisingly good DPS at range and single targets, and it is an amazing attack to improve with Boons (as most Boons that empower it do so to massive degrees). There have been a few spear runs where I just threw my spear at everything unless I had a horde of nearby enemies that were closing on my position.

You could say it plays rather similarly to the Gun, but sacrificing some reach/speed for adaptability.


But, my personal advice for both fun and success is to get Athena's deflection dash or deflection attack. Helps a LOT, with pretty much any build it works on.

[Cespenar]

Started on Hades as well, a few escapes in, everything seems pretty good so far. Only nitpick: not enough fluff. I hope I'll stand corrected at that point the further I play, but I'm just saying because it's Supergiant. I need a lot of Supergiant fluff from a Supergiant game. But anyway, the Diablo/Isaac gameplay is fun.

I got through it now anyway, but as I said, I think it was more due to lucky rolls of the RNG than anything else.

On an entirely unrelated note, ran into the weirdest little bug earlier--there's a point in the game where you have to enter somebody's name into a computer terminal. Since it's a console port, you have to do this by selecting the first name from a menu, then the middle initial, then the last name. However, the game won't actually let you make the "middle initial" selection using the controller--for some reason, that menu (alone in the game!) *has* to be selected using the mouse! Took me a few minutes to figure out why that wasn't working, let me tell you.

[EDIT] I just tested, and you're right--you can use S-breaks to interrupt the enemy's turn. Well, that sure would have made that fight a lot easier!

I don't remember that computer terminal bit, but that's funny.

S-breaks: Yeah, I figured I must be remembering it right, because I used them to often steal some initiative-slot bonuses away from the enemies. They are pretty useful in that regard too.

[Rynjin]

2) That, unfortunately, I cannot do. I am a little obsessive with not missing out on stuff, so I've checked the wiki on what quests expire when. Haven't spoiled myself on what the quests are, other than titles, but haven't missed any yet.

There is at least one quest I'll be very surprised if you manage to complete the first time through without a walkthrough in hand.

4) Yep, pretty hard to miss with how hard the game pushes it. So far I've went with the standard adventurer party of fighter (my main pawn), rogue (strider or ranger pawn, not sure which I prefer), caster (me), healer/buffer (mage pawn). Been working well so far.

I meant more "other players' pawns are available" since the game often starts me in Offline mode when I boot it up, and you won't see them without changing that option.

6) Oooh, so I can give the questgiver the forgery and he'll never know the difference? Neat. I'd assumed he was useful only for duplicating hard to get consumable items.

There is something you miss out on, but it's a win/lose scenario either way. Basically if you keep the real item you miss out on a different piece of equipment later, but if you give the item there's no way to get it back in that playthrough.

7) Good design that. Otherwise you wouldn't want to switch classes to get augments in fear of gimping your build.

Yeah...real good in Dark Arisen, at least.

In the base game the exact scenario you described was a thing. Well, more than that. You literally had to keep a spreadsheet of when you were supposed to enter a certain class and leave it to get the exact level 200 stats you needed for your chosen build.

Now, though, "jack of all trades" builds are possible so you can actually play a character that swaps classes regularly even at endgame since BBI gear is so powerful. You can actually "choose your own difficulty" in a lot of ways by using less powerful gear at endgame.

If you plan to level Sorc to 200 though, even without that you'd be sort of golden. Leveling Sorc straight up is also great for a Magick Archer build, since they also do almost entirely magic damage, and i's not terrible for Mystic Knight either (though you deal an even phys/mag split with that vocation).

9) Haven't really tried playing with status effects, so I'll take your word for it. But I will confirm Miasma seems useless compared to anything else I could be doing with the same caster time.

High Miasma in particular is really solid. Not necessarily for the poison effect, but that it counts as an attack. Of particular note you can use it to trigger a Mystic Knight's Great Cannon if you're playing one, sort of turning them into auto-turrets for a bit; every tick fires a shot from one of the cannons.

But the poison isn't bad either; it can absolutely rip through a ton of enemies. I mentioned it because it might be tempting to just never level it since the base spell is pretty worthless.

10) Oh man, that's amazing. I used to charge my fireballs and slowly walk until they locked on. Now I can snipe! Why does the game not tell you something so useful?

Not sure. Might be because the game is literally unfinished; it was shipped only about 60% complete from what I recall, so the tutorial is really sparse. Most of what got cut is story content, map locations, and quests, however.

[Razade]

So I gotta give Supergiant Games props here. They have INGENIUS boss design.

You might not have gotten there yet, but there are 3 different Fury bosses you can fight, and you'll start running into them in Meg's place. Her sisters are:
Tisiphone: Brain Dead Psycho
Alecto: Sadistic Psycho

And they both basically have the same moves as Megaera:

• Bullet Hell
• Dash
• Circle Slash
• Nuke The Room

But the way they're incorporated makes each of the sisters demands a different type of challenge.

Megaera's fight is extremely random from her shuffling moveset and her randomly spawning minions. She forces you to adapt, and to not get cornered.
Tisiphone's is extremely brutal, but has major telegraphing for her big attacks, and she constantly shrinks the size of the room to make dodging her that much harder. She forces you to be precise and learn the boss.
Alecto's forces you to be the aggressor so she doesn't build up Rage, while occasionally putting you on defense and pressuring your positioning with traps. She forces you to maintain awareness and control while being aggressive.

Adaptation. Precision. Aggression.

This is what the Developers force you to learn with three different bossfights, at the same checkpoint, with the same moves. It's ****ing brilliant.

And it works. I didn't really understand Alecto's mechanics or point at first, when the other two were so obvious in comparison, as I already naturally played in a way that Alecto demanded of me. As a result, her fight feels so friggin' easy to me, since I have nothing left to learn from her.

They did it again with the Hydras. During the first mode of the Hydra, you fight it with the homing purple shots, and then other Hydra heads occasionally pop up while the main head is invulnerable and start harassing you with their own effects. But the main Hydra head eventually starts swapping around with its supports, so you occasionally have to deal with a Main head that distracts you with minion spawners, or starts nuking the room, or shoots predictable (but hard to dodge) scythe projectiles at you. Once again learning how to adapt towards newer situations through the same mechanics you've already played against.

Sounds pretty awesome to me. I did know the other two Furies eventually show up, since I did a small bit of wiki surfing after my last run got me to Elysium and before I wrote the post. Looking forward to giving them a go, especially the three on one fight I saw mentioned. Sounds like it'll be pretty wild. Also cool to know that the Hydra will start changing things up, I don't feel like that's totally needed with just how much stuff the thing has going for it, but I can see the argument. It's a strategy that Isaac used well and I'd wished they had done with Gungeon honestly. We get two bosses where the arena changes and...that's it. The biggest gripe I have with Gungeon is just how samey the limited selection of bosses were.

So fun strategy with relics, you can abuse the fact that you can swap out your relic after each boss fight (it's a renovation you can buy), to utilize the once-per-run relics effectively. I usually start with Hypnos, for a chunk of gold at the start, and then the one that gives me an extra live (Skelly's? Not sure), and then swap THAT out once I burn through it for some kind of Boon relic. Overall, it means I'm getting ~120 gold, an extra Live, and a Boon, all through shrewd relic selection.

Just unlocked that after my last run, as well as Orpheus. This is all great advice, I'll have to put it in motion. Not sure that Skelly is the one that gives an extra life though, I have his though I don't remember what it does. I have Chaos's egg, Megera's relic, Nyx, Cerberus, Hypnos, Athena and Skelly unlocked.

The gauntlets are a bit awkward, but they have an insane amount of potential through Boons. It's important to learn that the Dash-Upper followup can be canceled by pretty much anything, so you can immediately do anything else right after using it (Including going Dash-Upper > Dash-Upper > Upper). That, and your Dash-Attack is pretty devastating and has some crazy reach. The point of the gauntlets is to be in control and dashing constantly, while surprisingly being less aggressive than the Sword (which is basically all about Dash-Attacking into enemies so they get stunlocked into walls). Dash in, do the thing, dash out. It's about getting a rhythm of timing your assaults/retreats around your Dash recharge.

This is basically what I did the last time I used them. The dash for the fists and just zipping around like a maniac is pretty fun.

Most people say they like the Spear, due to the level of range it gives them. Few things of note about it:

• You can Dash while charging your Spin Attack, and this will move where your Spin Slash goes. This is great for charging for an incoming wave that hasn't spawned yet, or just dealing an insane amount of damage to an approaching horde when you feel like you're not at risk while charging.
• Your Dash Attack sucks, but you don't want to be using it aggressively anyway.
• Don't underestimate your Special (the spear throw/return). It has surprisingly good DPS at range and single targets, and it is an amazing attack to improve with Boons (as most Boons that empower it do so to massive degrees). There have been a few spear runs where I just threw my spear at everything unless I had a horde of nearby enemies that were closing on my position.

You could say it plays rather similarly to the Gun, but sacrificing some reach/speed for adaptability.

I'll certainly keep this in mind. I did get an upgrade that increased its range, which I felt was a pretty neat trick. I find I like taking the Daedelus boons over most others with just how varied their gameplay changes are. I'm hoping to get the shotgun boon next time I use the gun since I skipped it for more ricochet which paired well with the Zeus boon that gives chain lighting on hits.

But, my personal advice for both fun and success is to get Athena's deflection dash or deflection attack. Helps a LOT, with pretty much any build it works on.

For sure, I've had it a few times, almost beat the Hydra with it on the run before the gun run that saw me to Elysium.

Started on Hades as well, a few escapes in, everything seems pretty good so far. Only nitpick: not enough fluff. I hope I'll stand corrected at that point the further I play, but I'm just saying because it's Supergiant. I need a lot of Supergiant fluff from a Supergiant game. But anyway, the Diablo/Isaac gameplay is fun.

After you speak to Achilles a number of times he'll give you his tome and that's where all the lore is hiding.

[Silverraptor]

Been playing a lot of Among Us with friends. Also, couldn't have been me, I was in electrical doing tasks.

[tonberrian]

Been playing a lot of Among Us with friends. Also, couldn't have been me, I was in electrical doing tasks.

Sounds pretty sus to me.

(one of my Discord servers had a bunch of people buy it, we've only played like 3 times tho)

[Lord Raziere]

Been playing a lot of Among Us with friends. Also, couldn't have been me, I was in electrical doing tasks.

I have not been playing it, but I do consider it my new spectator sport, given how fun it is to watch people distrust each other over the little actions they take and see which person becomes a detective who can consistently catch them and who becomes an imposter good enough to fool them enough to actually win. like at a certain point you just start rooting for any impostor who manages to survive long enough without being suspected to actually get a win. though at the same time the detectives often become just as suspicious as the people they accuse, and its fun to see the cassandra truth play out when they eject the person who is right first then realize that later they should've listened to them. I myself would be bad at it, because I don't have any way to use voice chat, so I'd be suspicious every game because I wouldn't be able to talk.

[Zevox]

Been playing a lot of Among Us with friends. Also, couldn't have been me, I was in electrical doing tasks.

Tried that out myself today after watching the Yo! Videogames videos of it, rather enjoy it. It's similar to some... I guess board games is the closest term, though it doesn't feel quite appropriate. But yeah, games that my D&D friends and I already play together from time to time, Secret Hitler and One Night Ultimate Werewolf. Nice to have a video game take on that kind of thing, I'll definitely float it to my group as something else for us to try together.

[Silverraptor]

Been playing on discord with the old gang on root party. Mario, dsop, legoshrimp, etc. We're always looking for people to play with practically every day.

[Rynjin]

My impression of Among Us is that its best feature is its accessibility. I think Town of Salem, Werewolf, Secret Hitler, etc. are all way more interesting and varied games, but they're so obtuse to get into (especially Salem), which is their biggest flaw.

[Zevox]

My impression of Among Us is that its best feature is its accessibility. I think Town of Salem, Werewolf, Secret Hitler, etc. are all way more interesting and varied games, but they're so obtuse to get into (especially Salem), which is their biggest flaw.

Yeah, that's probably fair. There's much more focus on the social and deductive aspects of the game in Secret Hitler or Werewolf, whereas Among Us a lot of the game is just walking around doing your tasks if you're with the crew, since completing those means a win, and those are a lot less interesting. And the in-game chat is especially limiting.

But yeah, accessibility and simply becoming widely known compared to every other game of the type are big points in its favor, especially in terms of drawing an audience.

[Anteros]

I've been exploring an oceanic planet in modded Starbound so I can pick up squirt guns that will give me infinite liquids of varying kinds, and I've been thinking of setting up a liquid farm on said planet so I can harvest them from infinite pools for various crafting and other uses.

Any mods you recommend for starbound? I enjoyed the first 20 hours or so, but it got pretty samey after that. Every planet feels very similar, and the gear isn't very diverse either.

It's probably unfair because I played it after Terraria which is basically the same game but much better.

[factotum]

It's probably unfair because I played it after Terraria which is basically the same game but much better.

I dunno...at least in Starbound the NPCs inhabiting your village(s) can use ladders and stairs, which (unless something has changed recently) they never could in Terraria!