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

[Anteros]

Re: Hades.
I've completed my third successful run (Sword, Spear and Fists). I want to try a more long-range style too, but I just can't seem to get it... I start having troubles as soon as Asphodel, and I can't even reach Theseus reliably. Between the remaining weapons, the gun is my favorite, so I guess I'll use that for a while (alternating with a few 1 Heat runs with every weapon, just to get more Titan Blood and Diamonds from the Furies and the Hydra).

For now, I start every run with the money-giving accessory (the money it gives me will translate into an extra Boon or life-up somewhere along the run). After Tartarus, I switch for the personal accessory of one of the Olympian gods, depending on the build (so I'm veeery slowly levelling them up too). After Asphodel, I usually equip the Feather Duster (having a semi-reliable source of health recovery isn't bad during Elysium). For the last area, I finally equip Skelly's Tooth for one more revival chance against the final boss.

I'm also quite close to achieving all the Olympian Gods' prophecies, which... will give me a lot of Gemstones that I can only use for cosmetic purposes. I'll just wait for the times where the Broker offers the 100 Gemstones -> 1 Diamond trade.

Well, you can just treat the gun as close range instead. Get the shotgun upgrade and just dash and blast. It's honestly the best playstyle for it I think, although relying on the special is safer.

Some of the gemstone upgrades do cause gameplay or story changes. Some small, and some very large. Keep an eye out for those.

I'd really advise against Poseidon. While it's possible to make it work, Poseidon is far out the worst god of all, mainly because the knockbacks don't work against bosses and the bosses are your real enemy.

His ultimate is the most broken boss killer in the game though. Tons of damage, dash, and invincibility for like 10 seconds? Yes please.

[Man_Over_Game]

Well, you can just treat the gun as close range instead. Get the shotgun upgrade and just dash and blast. It's honestly the best playstyle for it I think, although relying on the special is safer.

Can't agree. Got the shotgun once and I regretted it instantly. Although, I play on console, and the ranged weapons suck so much worse without having different movement and aiming controls, with the shotgun just exacerbating the problems even further. I ended up succeeding on that run, but only by not ever using my basic attack again (got a Hazard rocket + Zeus).

His ultimate is the most broken boss killer in the game though. Tons of damage, dash, and invincibility for like 10 seconds? Yes please.

Yeah, one of Poseidon's boons is like "Deal extra 30% more damage to bosses with your Poseidon boons", with Poseidon boons having some of the highest damage output in the game. The only time they suck is when you only dip into it.

[oxybe]

So after watching one of my fav streamers solo Fatalis, I finally decided to get Monster Hunter World. I'm doing good, having gotten to the "Kill Rathalos" and "Kill Diabolos" quests, and having just slain the latter. Gonna farm up the materials for a full Diabolos armour set for it's fire resist, as my current set isn't the best kitted out for Rathalos. Fun stuff.

Outside of that not playing much. doing some minecrafting and the occasional fortnite romp, just to complete my weeklies now that i have finished my battlepass (mostly finished. I still need to do the "Kill Wolverine" so i can get his skin, but dang he's a monster).

Just waiting for Cyberpunk, really.

[Zevox]

I guess where the actual disconnect between our opinions is coming from, then, is the relative importance of gameplay and story. In an interactive medium like gaming I give much greater weight to the gameplay side of things--after all, if story is all you're interested in, there are generally better ways to tell it, such as movies and books. This might be partially because my first experience of video games is from 40-odd years ago (making no assumptions about your age here, obviously), when story in a game was barely a thing and they *had* to stand up entirely on their gameplay.

Now, obviously story in a game like Persona or Trails of Cold Steel isn't entirely unimportant--part of what keeps you playing is wanting to see what happens to the characters. The gameplay does have to carry its weight, though, and (again IMHO) Persona 4's really didn't.

That's definitely a disconnect - though also certainly not one based on ages, since I grew up playing NES and Genesis games that barely had stories myself. As far as that goes, which I think is more important depends on which the game itself seems to emphasize. With something like a Mario game that just has enough story to explain why you're doing the things the gameplay has you doing, obvious the gameplay is the focus and that's what makes or breaks the game, while it matters little whether the story is bare-bones or not. One the opposite end of the spectrum however you find story-heavy RPGs and the Visual Novel genre, which put the focus squarely on their stories and much less emphasis on the gameplay. The Persona franchise falls into that category, I feel - hell, between the main plot, various random events scattered across the calendar, and the social links, the story and characters are easily half of the time you spend on the games.

Plus there's also the disconnect of you feeling like P4's gameplay didn't carry its weight, which I definitely feel it does. It can be stronger - and as we've noted has since been made stronger by its successor - but it's still pretty good as-is.

Undoubtedly, but there still needs to be some sort of game there. If your game consists entirely of several hours of selecting dialogue options between story chapters then it's not a good game.

Anybody who enjoys the Visual Novel genre will likely disagree with you there, since those can often involve little more than that.

[NRSASD]

The only time they suck is when you only dip into it.

Fitting, since Poseidon is the God of the Sea, not puddles.

[Triaxx]

*sarcastic symbols* That pun was terrible.

[Razade]

I'd really advise against Poseidon. While it's possible to make it work, Poseidon is far out the worst god of all, mainly because the knockbacks don't work against bosses and the bosses are your real enemy.

I'm going to echo the others. Poseidon is absolutely one of the best choices if you intend to push down his Boon line. The 30% damage to bosses with all Boons that have pushback is wild. Get that on your Dash and Dash Strike and you're going to absolutely melt bosses. The most OP run I've ever had was a full Poseidon/Demeter run where I had Rupture and Chill for the double stat increase and the boss increase damage. It melted Hades. I could probably have melted him at stage 4 of Extreme Measures even with the build. It was that nuts.

[Corvus]

Picked up something rather old school over at GOG - Stronghold. No, not the Stronghold series that came out in 2001 but the older 1993 game based on D&D. I played his game a lo back when it came out. The nostalgia is very strong with this one.

It was a kingdom simulator released by SSI in which you had a group of 5 characters chosen from 7 races - warrior, mage, cleric, thief, dwarf, elf and halfling. Yup, we are talking basic D&D here when demi-humans were races.

Yeah, the graphics are a little dated but it is still a fun game.

[factotum]

It was a kingdom simulator released by SSI in which you had a group of 5 characters chosen from 7 races - warrior, mage, cleric, thief, dwarf, elf and halfling. Yup, we are talking basic D&D here when demi-humans were races.

I assume you mean when demi-humans were *classes*? They were always races. And I was a bit surprised to hear that a game released in 1993 was based on Basic D&D, so I looked it up and found they were still printing that as late as 1994!

[Corvus]

I assume you mean when demi-humans were *classes*? They were always races. And I was a bit surprised to hear that a game released in 1993 was based on Basic D&D, so I looked it up and found they were still printing that as late as 1994!

Whoops. Yup, classes.

Yeah, it was a bit of a strange one given that 2E was published in '89.

[Eldan]

I assume you mean when demi-humans were *classes*? They were always races. And I was a bit surprised to hear that a game released in 1993 was based on Basic D&D, so I looked it up and found they were still printing that as late as 1994!

There was a Basic D&D for basically as long as there was an Advanced D&D, so almost until WotC bought them and made 3E.

[LibraryOgre]

There was a Basic D&D for basically as long as there was an Advanced D&D, so almost until WotC bought them and made 3E.

Yep. The idea was not dissimilar to today's starter kits... you'd play Basic for a while, get a hang of things, then go on to Advanced. Basic was cheaper to start, but lots of people just started with Advanced.

[Anteros]

Can't agree. Got the shotgun once and I regretted it instantly. Although, I play on console, and the ranged weapons suck so much worse without having different movement and aiming controls, with the shotgun just exacerbating the problems even further. I ended up succeeding on that run, but only by not ever using my basic attack again (got a Hazard rocket + Zeus).

The shotgun double taps during its dash attack, so constant dashing is mandatory to make it work. I do play on PC but I use a controller and haven't had issues with the gun. The bow on the other hand, is terrible. At least for me.

[Man_Over_Game]

The shotgun double taps during its dash attack, so constant dashing is mandatory to make it work. I do play on PC but I use a controller and haven't had issues with the gun. The bow on the other hand, is terrible. At least for me.

The Shotgun seems to have a big problem with not utilizing the auto-aim at enemies until they're already within melee range, resulting in your shotgun not aiming at enemies unless they're already like 20% into your range. There were many times where I'd just be shooting into the air as an enemy approached me.

Perhaps it wasn't really that bad, it just made relying on auto-aiming impossible, which the Gun uses fairly naturally with the default setup. As a result, it felt like playing with the Bow (where you have to aim-attack-aim-dodge constantly), but with 1/5 the range.

Honestly, all they'd have to do is change the auto-aim to lock on to the closest target relative to where you're aiming, prioritizing distance over direction, regardless of the range of the weapon. If they fixed that, using the Bow wouldn't feel like a chore since you wouldn't have to aim your dodges and your shots as two separate inputs (and stop dashing TOWARDS your target while wielding a BOW).

[warty goblin]

I'm finding the enjoyability of my evening World of Warships games to follow a very predictable flowchart.

Are there aircraft carriers? If no, fun will he had. If yes, proceed to question 2. If there are 2 CVs per team, better hope Aquaman is on board, because we will be meeting some fish up close and personal in the near future.

Does the aircraft carrier spend most of the game murdering schmucks on the other side of the map? If yes, fun will be had until the precise moment the CV shifts attention. If not, Aquaman.


What I'm getting at here is that there isn't really any decent counter play to CVs. Your options consist of choosing to shoot at planes extra hard on one side of your ship for a couple seconds, a consumable that lets you shoot extra extra extra hard on that side, or a likely useless fighter squadron consumable with an epic cooldown. So basically you sail around playing the actual naval combat game until the sky gods decide you should die, at which point you will die quite quickly.

Fortunately the actual numbers of games with carriers in them seems to have gone down considerably.


Also for genuinely mysterious reasons Wargaming just started randomly giving people free Dreadnoughts, which you usually have to pay for. It's not super useful, since its very low tier, but it's the freaking Dreadnought, so I ain't gonna complain. Besides, the early dreadnought ships with their more turrets everywhere approach are a lot of fun to play. No matter where the bad ships are, you've probably got a couple guns pointing at them. Plus, at T3, there's a lot fewer CVs.

[Cespenar]

I'm going to echo the others. Poseidon is absolutely one of the best choices if you intend to push down his Boon line. The 30% damage to bosses with all Boons that have pushback is wild. Get that on your Dash and Dash Strike and you're going to absolutely melt bosses. The most OP run I've ever had was a full Poseidon/Demeter run where I had Rupture and Chill for the double stat increase and the boss increase damage. It melted Hades. I could probably have melted him at stage 4 of Extreme Measures even with the build. It was that nuts.

I doubt you melted Hades with your dashes alone (well, maybe with poseidon and zeus legendaries and duo you can). You probably had some OP attacks to go with that build anyway. Though yeah, the dash and ulti are his top picks.

I mean, I had runs where I made poseidon work as well, but in the time you get two specific boons to get that damage against bosses, a simple Aphro will deal better damage against all + basically heal you through Weak.

The shotgun double taps during its dash attack, so constant dashing is mandatory to make it work. I do play on PC but I use a controller and haven't had issues with the gun. The bow on the other hand, is terrible. At least for me.

The bow has the shotgun setup as well, if you like that sort of thing. Or the cast inserting aspect could get pretty one shotty too, with dio or artemis.

[Anteros]

The Shotgun seems to have a big problem with not utilizing the auto-aim at enemies until they're already within melee range, resulting in your shotgun not aiming at enemies unless they're already like 20% into your range. There were many times where I'd just be shooting into the air as an enemy approached me.

Perhaps it wasn't really that bad, it just made relying on auto-aiming impossible, which the Gun uses fairly naturally with the default setup. As a result, it felt like playing with the Bow (where you have to aim-attack-aim-dodge constantly), but with 1/5 the range.

Honestly, all they'd have to do is change the auto-aim to lock on to the closest target relative to where you're aiming, prioritizing distance over direction, regardless of the range of the weapon. If they fixed that, using the Bow wouldn't feel like a chore since you wouldn't have to aim your dodges and your shots as two separate inputs (and stop dashing TOWARDS your target while wielding a BOW).

I suppose I never noticed that because I'm always dashing into them. It's a shotgun after all.

I doubt you melted Hades with your dashes alone (well, maybe with poseidon and zeus legendaries and duo you can). You probably had some OP attacks to go with that build anyway. Though yeah, the dash and ulti are his top picks.

I mean, I had runs where I made poseidon work as well, but in the time you get two specific boons to get that damage against bosses, a simple Aphro will deal better damage against all + basically heal you through Weak.



The bow has the shotgun setup as well, if you like that sort of thing. Or the cast inserting aspect could get pretty one shotty too, with dio or artemis.

The bow just feels bad to play for me. If you could guarantee hammer upgrades it would be more worth it for me, but sometimes I don't see one until Elysium. The prospect of going through most of the game with the base bow means I'll never touch it.

[Man_Over_Game]

I suppose I never noticed that because I'm always dashing into them. It's a shotgun after all.

From my understanding, the shotgun doesn't do any extra damage or any kind of "bullet spread". It seems to just damage everything in a small cone in front of you like an AoE pulse. So you're sacrificing DPS from reloading and shrinking your range for the opportunity to deal with small, clumped up groups.

Doesn't seem worth it. However, I could be remembering it incorrectly.

If it did have a higher damage per second (which it could, I don't remember exactly), it would scale differently than it would with the normal gun, making damage-focused boons (Artemis, Poseidon, Aphrodite) better than per-hit (Dionysus, Demeter, Zeus), which could result in basically saying "You have no Attack boon" with such a drastic change in priorities. I happened be stacking Zeus, so it felt like a huge waste, but it could be different for someone else if it added damage to compensate for the benefits you sacrifice.

[Cespenar]

The bow just feels bad to play for me. If you could guarantee hammer upgrades it would be more worth it for me, but sometimes I don't see one until Elysium. The prospect of going through most of the game with the base bow means I'll never touch it.

I could be wrong but there's always a hammer in Acts 1 and 3, at least for me.

Also, I presume that you're an "always dashing" kinda player, so you might try the special of bow while you wait for the hammer upgrades. The special is pretty much like a shotgun on crack, and you don't have to charge it. If you'd play the bow's special like you just were talking about playing with the shotgun gun a couple posts back, it feels like it would fit perfectly.

From my understanding, the shotgun doesn't do any extra damage or any kind of "bullet spread". It seems to just damage everything in a small cone in front of you like an AoE pulse. So you're sacrificing DPS from reloading and shrinking your range for the opportunity to deal with small, clumped up groups.

He's not sacrificing DPS, though, since the shotgun has 4 times the base damage. It easily overcomes the reload loss. Also he presumably bypasses the range issue by dashing into people. Obviously, as you guessed, your per-hit buffs would be unsynergistic with that, though.

[Anteros]

From my understanding, the shotgun doesn't do any extra damage or any kind of "bullet spread". It seems to just damage everything in a small cone in front of you like an AoE pulse. So you're sacrificing DPS from reloading and shrinking your range for the opportunity to deal with small, clumped up groups.

Doesn't seem worth it. However, I could be remembering it incorrectly.

If it did have a higher damage per second (which it could, I don't remember exactly), it would scale differently than it would with the normal gun, making damage-focused boons (Artemis, Poseidon, Aphrodite) better than per-hit (Dionysus, Demeter, Zeus), which could result in basically saying "You have no Attack boon" with such a drastic change in priorities. I happened be stacking Zeus, so it felt like a huge waste, but it could be different for someone else if it added damage to compensate for the benefits you sacrifice.

Yeah, I wouldn't try it with per hit buffs. You need base damage, crit, and dash buffs for the build. You have to build completely differently than you would for the normal gun.

[Man_Over_Game]

I did also notice that the shotgun doesn't lock on at max range, so it does kinda fail at the kiting game.

It also doesn't gain any additional knockback, so it ended up feeling like an using the Spear at melee range. Which is to say, suboptimal.

[Anteros]

I did also notice that the shotgun doesn't lock on at max range, so it does kinda fail at the kiting game.

It also doesn't gain any additional knockback, so it ended up feeling like an using the Spear at melee range. Which is to say, suboptimal.

Well again...it's a shotgun. You don't want to kite or knock them back. The whole point is to be close to them. You don't want knockback on the knuckles or any other close range weapon either.

[Razade]

I doubt you melted Hades with your dashes alone (well, maybe with poseidon and zeus legendaries and duo you can). You probably had some OP attacks to go with that build anyway. Though yeah, the dash and ulti are his top picks.

I didn't say I melted him with dashes alone. I specifically included Dash Strike in there, which you should be doing when you Dash in general. Poseidon gives you an attack + pushback Boon which is included in the Dash Strike which just combos beautifully.

I mean, I had runs where I made poseidon work as well, but in the time you get two specific boons to get that damage against bosses, a simple Aphro will deal better damage against all + basically heal you through Weak.

You don't have to like using Poseidon, no one here's trying to convert you. You're just on the wrong side of this giving advice to others that Poseidon is on the weaker end when mechanically he is not if you do his build right.

[Cespenar]

You don't have to like using Poseidon, no one here's trying to convert you. You're just on the wrong side of this giving advice to others that Poseidon is on the weaker end when mechanically he is not if you do his build right.

A couple working builds don't nullify my position of Poseidon's whole package being on the weaker side when considered against all of the other gods, but a) I don't have any conclusive data, and b) no one has any conclusive data, so I won't argue any longer.

[Man_Over_Game]

a) I don't have any conclusive data, and b) no one has any conclusive data, so I won't argue any longer.

I bet you could compile that data, though. There's a way you can look up your history with specific boons. Wouldn't take much to figure out what people win with.

Or, hell, do it in reverse. Find folks who rarely lose, and track what they lost with.

[LibraryOgre]

Wing Commander: Privateer: The slow build to having an invincible Orion.

[Cespenar]

I bet you could compile that data, though. There's a way you can look up your history with specific boons. Wouldn't take much to figure out what people win with.

Or, hell, do it in reverse. Find folks who rarely lose, and track what they lost with.

That's good, but even that would still be arguable. Is a boon that lets a few good players go to extremes better than a boon that lets a lot of average players do only slightly better? And so on and so forth. But at least it's an avenue to venture.

My own in-game stats apparently put Dionysus and Hermes boons up top, for example, for what that means. Strong Drink and Greatest Reflex seem to make me win.

[Anteros]

I bet you could compile that data, though. There's a way you can look up your history with specific boons. Wouldn't take much to figure out what people win with.

Or, hell, do it in reverse. Find folks who rarely lose, and track what they lost with.

Eh, once you've beaten the game a few times it's pretty rare to lose at all. I was sitting on something like a 19 streak by the time I was satisfied I'd seen everything the plot had to offer and got sloppy, and I'm pretty sure there are a lot of people much better than me. I'm old and my reaction times suck.

It's also not going to be very meaningful anyway because people are selecting for the boons they they enjoy playing. If you look at my wins I probably don't have many with Ares, Poseidon, or Dionysus for example, because I dislike their boons in general so I don't go for their rooms. Which doesn't mean they're bad, but I prefer fast paced, bursty playstyles and DoTs or knockback are counterproductive to that style. A player that likes to play carefully and wear their enemy down might be just as successful, but inclined to play differently.

A couple working builds don't nullify my position of Poseidon's whole package being on the weaker side when considered against all of the other gods, but a) I don't have any conclusive data, and b) no one has any conclusive data, so I won't argue any longer.

For what it's worth, I actually agree that Poseidon is subpar except for his ultimate. Something like 30% extra damage might seem decent on the surface, but it requires a huge investment in other sub-par boons to make it work. There are plenty of other boons you can get that give similar damage boosts without the investment. It's certainly more than good enough to win with, but it's not top-tier.

I do pick him sometimes just for the extra gems and etc. I hate the grinding, so anything that lessens it is welcome.

[Rynjin]

I'm surprised you don't truck with Ares if you like burst; I quite like the Doom mechanic for chunking people.

[zlefin]

I'm finding the enjoyability of my evening World of Warships games to follow a very predictable flowchart.

Are there aircraft carriers? If no, fun will he had. If yes, proceed to question 2. If there are 2 CVs per team, better hope Aquaman is on board, because we will be meeting some fish up close and personal in the near future.

Does the aircraft carrier spend most of the game murdering schmucks on the other side of the map? If yes, fun will be had until the precise moment the CV shifts attention. If not, Aquaman.


What I'm getting at here is that there isn't really any decent counter play to CVs. Your options consist of choosing to shoot at planes extra hard on one side of your ship for a couple seconds, a consumable that lets you shoot extra extra extra hard on that side, or a likely useless fighter squadron consumable with an epic cooldown. So basically you sail around playing the actual naval combat game until the sky gods decide you should die, at which point you will die quite quickly.

Fortunately the actual numbers of games with carriers in them seems to have gone down considerably.


Also for genuinely mysterious reasons Wargaming just started randomly giving people free Dreadnoughts, which you usually have to pay for. It's not super useful, since its very low tier, but it's the freaking Dreadnought, so I ain't gonna complain. Besides, the early dreadnought ships with their more turrets everywhere approach are a lot of fun to play. No matter where the bad ships are, you've probably got a couple guns pointing at them. Plus, at T3, there's a lot fewer CVs.

yeah, they never did figure out a good way to put in counterplay to cvs; and the cv rework made things worse in some ways.
Especially at low tiers there's just not much that can be done to stop them; at high tiers sticking in a group with strong AA somewhat works.
They need some devs who are better at fixing gameplay problems.

I stopped playing several months ago; are they still trying to get subs into the game? that seemed like a nonsensical mess when I left.