What Are You Playing 5: New Thread+

[LibraryOgre]

New thread, same as the old thread.

I'm playing through Pathfinder: Kingmaker. I think this is my 3rd or 4th time restarting in the past few weeks, not counting the "I start to make a build and then decide it's not as good as my favorite" abortive chances. I keep getting bogged down in various details, most recently messing up the Jaethal and her daughter section because I made the wrong choice in her quest many hours ago.

My favorite party:

Myself, a Bard (Archaeologist 6/Dragon Disciple 8/Bard+) Aasimar (the one with Burning Arc). Mostly specc'd melee, but starting with 14 14 14 16 10 16... Power attack, cleave, cleaving finish, corungun's smash (great on someone who is heavy persuasion).

Valerie: Fighter/Stalwart Defender. Same feat line as my bard.

Amiri: Pure Barbarian. Going the Beast Totem line this time; I want Pounce. Same feat line as my bard.

Harrim: Mostly Cleric, but I added 1 level of Freebooter Ranger to get Martial Weapons this time... feats are more valuable than levels, and a 1 level pause in casting level is worth it to get him more weapon options (including Dwarven Waraxes). Same Feat line as my bard, then going into at least Augment Summoning, and selective channelling once he's been sitting on a Charisma bonus long enough.

Ekundayo: I throw a level of Divine Hunter Paladin on him, and proficiency with Heavy Armors, and give him the Paladin Full Plate. His Smite Evil is amazing, and with the Necklace of Double Crosses and Devourer of Metal, he can open a combat with 3-6 arrows of 6d6+Strength bonus of damage (2d6 for devourer, 2d6 for devourer's acid, 2d6 for Necklace of Double Cross sneak attack).

Tristan: I'm trying something new with Tristan... Cleric 6, Empyrean Sorcerer 4, Mystic Theurge 10. Cleric 6 because the Healing Domain bonus is so useful (Empowered Cures for free? Thank you!). All spellcasting is Wisdom, and Empyrean is appropriate for him. In going sorcerer, I'm avoiding any touch spells, because post-Vordakai, he's not so good at them. He's DEFINITELY going to be full summons, and going to be using the staff that gives your animated dead +3 weapons. Between their meat-shield properties and the little bit of damage they do, they've really saved my bacon in the past.

I use the others as appropriate, of course, but these folks get the pick of my best gear. I AM a bit annoyed about a couple things... minor things, really

1) You can't rebuild Davik Nettle's Bridge. Having a bridge there would be hella useful, and it would make a nice, simple, project for your Treasurer.
2) ...I cannot remember what the other one was. For the life of me.

[warty goblin]

So I picked up Aliens: Fireteam Elite, since sometimes a person just wants to walk through some hallways, shooting some monsters.

FE certainly does this, and has ruthlessly paired away everything that does not contribute to either hallways, shooting, or monsters. There's a pretty detailed equipment system, and some RPG nonsense, but it's all in service to, rather than replacing, the core shooting. This really works for me. it's just such a purely videogame thing, hallway, monster, gun. No open world, no side quests or materials to farm, or plot twists you're supposed to actually be surprised by, just permutations of that simple, marvelously compelling core. Hallway, monster, gun. Change one or two and repeat. Hallway, monster, gun.

[Triaxx]

I'd love to play Kingmaker but I can't get it to stop crashing on me.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

Sekiro is the only soulslike that I ever decided to install a mod to beat. and I play like four others when I feel like it. Nioh 2, Dark souls 1 and 3 and Code Vein those all feel fair at least. Sekiro? sure Genichiro Ashina was the toughest, hardest most exhilarating fight of my life but that was only the half-way boss and I just felt tired and spent after that, so I just cheesed my way through the rest of it. I think that speaks for itself how unnecessarily hard Sekiro is.

Oh yeah, when I was fighting Genichiro, I was running all over the place and attacking as much as I can. the fight was frantic, it was a back and forth of sword and bow as I spiraled into madness, and by the time I finally beat him, I felt like I had run a marathon. like were they trying to make me feel like I was in actual combat? geez. in that fight I glimpsed how Sekiro was meant to be played and I managed after so many tries to pull it off.....but I'm not sure its something I'd want to do again, if I could even repeat the feat. I'd rather just play ninja build in Nioh 2.

Every time I boot up Sekiro, I do the Genichiro fight in the Reflections of Strength until I beat him to warm up*. I still only win about 1/3 of the time, though that number is rising as I finally get the hang of countering his lightning. Now the move that throws me is how when he does his jump attack, he can still follow it up with either a thrust or a spinning move, but unlike the 2nd phase the spin isn't a sweep attack anymore, so jumping to try and counter it leads to me losing a sword-sized chunk of my health bar.

One thing I discovered mostly by accident that really helps with the fight? The Floating Passage secret technique you can buy in the flashback sequence. It does a great job of locking him down for the full five attacks, and each one does a little chip damage through his block. Open with that one each time you engage him for a little free damage, then follow up with regular attacks. As long as you keep pressing him, he has a limited number of counters for you to learn (at least until the 3rd phase, where he gets a few more), and most of them are punishable.

This strategy relies on staying at high health (so your posture can survive parrying his attacks long enough to counter attack), so once you get down to half health or so, retreat until you're at least half an arena-length away from him to chug from your gourd - in the first two phases, he'll shoot an arrow at you but spends long enough drawing it that you can still block/parry and then usually runs at you with his sword for two swings (you can parry these, but I recently learned that if you dodge behind him instead you can get a few free hits in); in the third phase he'll do a leaping thrust attack (Mikiri counter it), and it's very important that you start far enough away that he needs a running start, or he reaches you too fast and you'll lose all that health you just got back.

The whole thing is like a dance of applying pressure, countering, and staying alive, and it's the best boss fight in the game so far.

Spoiler: *

Show

When he finally shows his punk ass in the story again, oh, is he going to be in for a world of hurt.

[Resileaf]

Have started playing through Mass Effect 3. Just finished the Mars mission.

My first thought at the intro was "Who lets a child play on the roof of a skyscraper unsupervised? Also why is there a residential building next to a Very Important Building where a defense meeting by Alliance generals is taking place at that very moment?"

Otherwise, good times are being had.

[Cespenar]

Played a lot of Humankind, the new civlike from the Endless guys.

It's pretty much Civ 7, or more like Civ 6b, perhaps. Solid chassis, a pretty good OST, has some things that Civ doesn't have, and vice versa. Very enjoyable.

The balance seems a little 'wack', though, as the young'uns say . Unlike Civ, there seems to be myriad ways to pull some D&D 3.5-like combos to suddenly have tons of food/production/science/whatever, but the AI doesn't seem to be taking full advantage of the system. But, fortunately, the highest difficulties add enough bonuses to counteract this and end up somewhat okay.

[Starbuck_II]

New thread, same as the old thread.

I'm playing through Pathfinder: Kingmaker. I think this is my 3rd or 4th time restarting in the past few weeks, not counting the "I start to make a build and then decide it's not as good as my favorite" abortive chances. I keep getting bogged down in various details, most recently messing up the Jaethal and her daughter section because I made the wrong choice in her quest many hours ago.

My favorite party:

Myself, a Bard (Archaeologist 6/Dragon Disciple 8/Bard+) Aasimar (the one with Burning Arc). Mostly specc'd melee, but starting with 14 14 14 16 10 16... Power attack, cleave, cleaving finish, corungun's smash (great on someone who is heavy persuasion).

Valerie: Fighter/Stalwart Defender. Same feat line as my bard.

Amiri: Pure Barbarian. Going the Beast Totem line this time; I want Pounce. Same feat line as my bard.

Harrim: Mostly Cleric, but I added 1 level of Freebooter Ranger to get Martial Weapons this time... feats are more valuable than levels, and a 1 level pause in casting level is worth it to get him more weapon options (including Dwarven Waraxes). Same Feat line as my bard, then going into at least Augment Summoning, and selective channelling once he's been sitting on a Charisma bonus long enough.

Ekundayo: I throw a level of Divine Hunter Paladin on him, and proficiency with Heavy Armors, and give him the Paladin Full Plate. His Smite Evil is amazing, and with the Necklace of Double Crosses and Devourer of Metal, he can open a combat with 3-6 arrows of 6d6+Strength bonus of damage (2d6 for devourer, 2d6 for devourer's acid, 2d6 for Necklace of Double Cross sneak attack).

Tristan: I'm trying something new with Tristan... Cleric 6, Empyrean Sorcerer 4, Mystic Theurge 10. Cleric 6 because the Healing Domain bonus is so useful (Empowered Cures for free? Thank you!). All spellcasting is Wisdom, and Empyrean is appropriate for him. In going sorcerer, I'm avoiding any touch spells, because post-Vordakai, he's not so good at them. He's DEFINITELY going to be full summons, and going to be using the staff that gives your animated dead +3 weapons. Between their meat-shield properties and the little bit of damage they do, they've really saved my bacon in the past.

I use the others as appropriate, of course, but these folks get the pick of my best gear. I AM a bit annoyed about a couple things... minor things, really

1) You can't rebuild Davik Nettle's Bridge. Having a bridge there would be hella useful, and it would make a nice, simple, project for your Treasurer.
2) ...I cannot remember what the other one was. For the life of me.

Maybe everyone is still scared of that ghost that was there.

Tristian as a MT is interesting.


Finally playing Wrath of the Righteous:
Decided evil campaign (going for Lich), but first evil choice was being a jerk for no reason so I didn't do it.

My Current Party at Mongrel camp:
Me, Monster Tactician (Inquisitor) 2, human, took that evil god death as deity. Scythe action. Basically evil Pokémon dude. I have a bow but monster I'm slicing and summoning
Stats:
14 15 12 12 17 10 (if I remember right)
Took a background that lets me use Wis for Persuasion (Diplomacy/Intimidate) skills. Took SF Conj/Augment summoning for stronger summons.

Camellia, Spirit Hunter (Shaman) 2
Seelah, Paladin 2, Sword/Board
Wuega (however spell her name), Fighter 1/Crusader (Cleric) 1 Archer of team, she has terrible wisdom (12) but extra healing is nice. Plus bonus feats.

I missed a treasure or two according to a guide I found later.

So far, not bad.

Keep forgetting how to tell if vendor trash (sellable) or should I keep.

[Blackhawk748]

Got Kingmaker on sale, played that for a few hours and that went ok.

Until I ran into a stupid fear spamming skull and I didn't feel like reloading.

Now I'm playing Kenshi, which I cannot recommend enough. The game is a blast. I pretty much reenacted Magnificent Seven with Shek Warriors

[Balmas]

I recently installed a PC emulator version of Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. After about two weeks, I'm 55 hours, sixty-five shrines, and just shy of a hundred korok seeds in.

Definitely appreciate that this game gives you all the tools you need to succeed, right at the beginning of the game. It means that you can go effectively anywhere and still be pretty sure you can do it all.

[Yora]

I've been playing Kenshi a lot for the last week with a stupid amount of hours. It's now day 64, I have a team of 7 people, and a base with four buildings, defensive walls with balista turrets and two gates, and several huge rock and ore processing machines, wheat fields, cotton industry, a cactus rum production line, a weapon forge, and as my latest addition a leatherworking shed. I also have a near permanent war with three different gangs of bandits and ninja who have driven me out of my base and forcing me to take it back from them four times.
And I am still in the starting area between the only two towns that are on the map at the default game start.

After an innitial surprising start in which I had no trouble or even fights because I was playing cautious, the game turned completely Mad Max once I had a place that I needed to defend from raiders. I think that's the reason why you can't build in the areas defended by the town guards.

The greatest thing about this game is how it's a perfect implementation of the principle of falling forward. In the default starting area, the enemies are just human bandits and a very few rare bonedogs. Their attacks are usually not fatal or causing the loss of any limbs. Unless you suffer heavy bleeding and die from blood loss, you will simply pass out for a few minutes, possibly with a limb or two out of order for a while. You also don't have anything valuable on you, so the only thing enemies might loot from your body is maybe a piece of meat you had kept for later. (They don't seem to take money, since money is a global resource pool shared by all your squads and not stored as an item in any location.) So getting beaten up by starving bandits with metal bars doesn't really cost you anything. But that's exactly what you need to do to get your characters tougher. At the end of a lost fight where you got badly beaten, you still actually come out stronger than you were before.
Even when I had to flee from my base to the safety of the town against overhelming numbers (and often still fetting knocked out before reaching the town) many times, there never was really an incentive to go back to a recent save and try again, go around dangerous enemies, or hope that a randomly spawning gang doesn't spawn a second time. Reconquering my base would take time and work, but reloading would mean losing all the XP I gained in the various combat abilities, which are really the most important thing to gain early on. Because I play on a rathwr old Linux computer, which the game really isn't made for, I have occasional crashes, and while a 15 minutes autosave makes that not much of a serious issue, I found it actually really frustrating when I was losing the result of a terrible fight and wouldn't get it back because it happened randomly.

The best word to describe the game is bonkers. This is the kind of game you can really only get from a guy doing what he wants without being accountable to anyone. Even though the controls are an RTS, combat actually uses hit detection with the havok engine for ragdolls, which is just as hilarious as havokmragdolls always are. But even more so when characters have broken arms or legs. You can take any piece of equipment from knocked out or dead enemies, and pick any characters up to carry around and dumb somewhere else. Knocked out enemies to drag them out of your base before they wake up, or injured allies to drag them to safety. Or silently knock out enemies, carry them stealthily out of their bases, and deliver them as prisoners to enemy factions to collect a bounty. And then there's just a whole lot of really funny random shouts from enemies or in item and upgrade descriptions. Yesterday I had just annihilated several groups of starving bandits, stripped them all naked and threw all the unconscious and dead bodies into a nearby ditch. And some minutes later one of the naked bandits wakes up and asking "did we kill them?"
Not being able to kill kncked out enemies is an odd design choice, but it certainly gives the game a very unique feel.

And remember: Beat day is prayer day.
A preacher will come to your home to check if everyone has their holy book and not harboring any heathens or other abominations. Better come out of your hideout to pray, or he'll be back. With faithful brothers.

[Blackhawk748]

The reason you can't kill knocked out enemies is simple.

Because then the NPCs could. Players get no special exemptions

[Catullus64]

I just acquired and downloaded the Enhanced Edition of Icewind Dale. I'm having a good time with it; or at least I did after a few trips through some manuals to figure out how a lot of stuff works. I appreciate the amount of difficulty-customizing options the game gives you, so you can still have a meaty challenge while dialing down some of the more punishing aspects of old-school D&D, like the absurdly slow natural healing rate.

My party consists of an Elven Fighter/Thief, a Half-Orc Cleric of Talos, a Dwarven Defender, a human Archer, and a human Dragon Disciple. They're currently working their way through the Lizardfolk section of Dragon's Eye.

The story seems like a pretty by-the-book affair, certainly less involved than Baldur's Gate (which I've never played, but am familiar with the story through secondary media). But since there's no real main character, and the companions simply have whatever personality is present in their character barks and what you make up for them, it honestly feels more like a tabletop adventure than stuff like Baldur's Gate or Pillars of Eternity, that have to center their story around one player-controlled protagonist. (Although, Pillars fans, try an all-custom companions run someday; it's very liberating to get to just make my decisions without somebody shouting "Nerr, Watcher, I have strenuous moral objections" in my ear. Shut it Pallegina, I don't care.)

I will say that I have certainly been spoiled by modern CRPGs like Tyranny, Pillars of Eternity, and Divinity: Original Sin, Pathfinder: Kingmaker (more thoughts on that one later, maybe) in terms of user-friendliness and general quality of life. Pathfinding is absolutely borked, and I really miss the fast movement speed from PoE. The inability of my Thief to sneak and search for traps at the same time is pretty annoying, especially since the early-mid game dungeons I'm reaching are absolutely stuffed with traps. Limited inventory space doesn't bother me nearly as much as I thought it would.

[MCerberus]

Got to level 50 on FF14. Did the original storyline quests and am collecting gear/cleaning up loose ends etc. Surely nothing I could come across after the end of the first main story would completely and utterly destroy the tone of the game.

Why yes, townsperson, I will find Inspector Hildebrand for you.

[Gnoman]

Picked up an Early Access game called Sprocket, which is a tank design simulator. Could not make a tank that could drive forward without destroying itself - either I couldn't move, or else my RPMs constantly went through the roof and wrecked the engine. The next day, there was a patch that fixed the issue - torque wasn't being applied correctly if you didn't have all your roadwheels on the ground.

[Zevox]

Still playing Guilty Gear Strive regularly, and attained a first the other day: with the start of the month everybody but the top players in the Celestial Floor had to go through challenger status again to get to stay there, and I managed to win the right to stay on day 1. Not on the first attempt, I lost a couple of matches to a strong Giovanna player there, but on my second attempt I had six straight matches with a pretty good Jack-O, and managed to take five of them. Granted, Jack-O's still new, but this was probably the second-best Jack-O player I've seen since she dropped, so I feel fairly good about that. Maybe next month I'll try to challenge myself to win back VIP status playing someone other than my main.

And since I wrapped up Great Ace Attorney Chronicles and find myself with just a week to fill until Tales of Arise releases, I've started playing probably the shortest game I have waiting to be played: Shantae: Half-Genie Hero. Got it during a Playstation Store sale last month at a friend's recommendation, since I've wanted to try the series for some time. Well, technically I did try the very first game a while back, but it's an old GBC title and I recall having issues with the controls, and I kind of got lost at one point, so I never came close to finishing it, and I figured the series has surely gotten better since then.

And it looks like I was quite right about that, I'm enjoying Half-Genie Hero already. Seems like just the kind of cartoony, silly platformer I like to see. I took an immediate liking to the music, the gameplay seems solid (I thought the difficulty seemed low at first, but it's looking like that was just the first stage being a cakewalk to get you introduced to things), and the characters seem fun. Though the humor does occasionally become a bit more juvenile than I'd like, such as the name of the first boss, which is a lengthy and odd one... that Shantae immediately abbreviates P.O.O.P T.O.O.T. Yeah. That kind of thing aside though, I think I'll enjoy this thoroughly.

Also, monkey Shantae is adorable.

[Catullus64]

So for the people playing Pathfinder: Kingmaker, help sell me on it. I've started a play-through and only gotten a few hours in: I barely reached the part where you actually get your kingdom, so I've not really engaged with that element of the game. Overall the opening stretch of the game has utterly failed to grab me.

As my post about Icewind Dale hopefully shows, I am a great lover of classic-style CRPGs, so I don't think the genre is to blame. Another problem is the companions. Since the game decides based on your actions in the prologue what companions you'll start the campaign with, I found myself in an irritating position.

Spoiler

Show

Even though I generally made pragmatic or selfish choices in the prologue, when called upon to defend my actions I chose the "good" dialogue because I wanted to roleplay my mischievous character talking my way out of trouble. The game apparantly reads this as me being a good-hearted sort, and so all the more morally ambiguous (and, incidentally, much cooler) characters wanted nothing to do with me. Oops. So I ended up with Linzi (annoying), Valerie (boring), and Amiri (whole different kind of annoying) as my companions. My personal problems with them aside, this left us a party with very little spellcasting (I'm a Rogue) and as such the combat feels a little lacking.

Combat in general feels fine though; it's not as flashy as something like Divinity: Original Sin (which was frankly too flashy sometimes, and not as tightly designed or polished as the combat from Pillars of Eternity (my gold standard for this genre of game), but it does the job. Character progression is quite fun: I don't know much about Pathfinder, but it mostly feels like 3.5 with some of the most obnoxious edges sanded off. The traveling mechanics are also well-presented and add a lot to the experience of moving over the map.

But so far, the writing, quest design, and art direction have all been kind of letdowns, which is a problem since those are the primary thing I play CRPGs for. Particularly the quest design; a good CRPG uses its writing to disguise its limited flexibility, but I've never played one that felt like a better simulation of a railroading DM than this one. Dialogue choices seem very limited, and so far I haven't encountered a single option directly related to my character's race or class. People who have played more, is this degree of linearity and strict-sequencing characteristic of the rest of the game, or does it open up and give you more options in the later game? Does the dialogue get more reactive? Does the game let you stretch your legs, step away from the main plot, and just soak in the world with some side-quests? Does it ease up on the darn ticking clocks, or does that persist? And is the domain management which the game seems to be selling itself on really all that fun, or is it busywork?

In many ways, the game reminds me of Neverwinter Nights; stilted and awkward, but with the potential to be really good if you push on through. Does the game turn into the sort of CRPG I like, or is the first act a representative sample?

[tonberrian]

So for the people playing Pathfinder: Kingmaker, help sell me on it. I've started a play-through and only gotten a few hours in: I barely reached the part where you actually get your kingdom, so I've not really engaged with that element of the game. Overall the opening stretch of the game has utterly failed to grab me.

As my post about Icewind Dale hopefully shows, I am a great lover of classic-style CRPGs, so I don't think the genre is to blame. Another problem is the companions. Since the game decides based on your actions in the prologue what companions you'll start the campaign with, I found myself in an irritating position.

Spoiler

Show

Even though I generally made pragmatic or selfish choices in the prologue, when called upon to defend my actions I chose the "good" dialogue because I wanted to roleplay my mischievous character talking my way out of trouble. The game apparantly reads this as me being a good-hearted sort, and so all the more morally ambiguous (and, incidentally, much cooler) characters wanted nothing to do with me. Oops. So I ended up with Linzi (annoying), Valerie (boring), and Amiri (whole different kind of annoying) as my companions. My personal problems with them aside, this left us a party with very little spellcasting (I'm a Rogue) and as such the combat feels a little lacking.

Combat in general feels fine though; it's not as flashy as something like Divinity: Original Sin (which was frankly too flashy sometimes, and not as tightly designed or polished as the combat from Pillars of Eternity (my gold standard for this genre of game), but it does the job. Character progression is quite fun: I don't know much about Pathfinder, but it mostly feels like 3.5 with some of the most obnoxious edges sanded off. The traveling mechanics are also well-presented and add a lot to the experience of moving over the map.

But so far, the writing, quest design, and art direction have all been kind of letdowns, which is a problem since those are the primary thing I play CRPGs for. Particularly the quest design; a good CRPG uses its writing to disguise its limited flexibility, but I've never played one that felt like a better simulation of a railroading DM than this one. Dialogue choices seem very limited, and so far I haven't encountered a single option directly related to my character's race or class. People who have played more, is this degree of linearity and strict-sequencing characteristic of the rest of the game, or does it open up and give you more options in the later game? Does the dialogue get more reactive? Does the game let you stretch your legs, step away from the main plot, and just soak in the world with some side-quests? Does it ease up on the darn ticking clocks, or does that persist? And is the domain management which the game seems to be selling itself on really all that fun, or is it busywork?

In many ways, the game reminds me of Neverwinter Nights; stilted and awkward, but with the potential to be really good if you push on through. Does the game turn into the sort of CRPG I like, or is the first act a representative sample?

It gets better, but it takes its time. Linzi will stay with you always, and the other characters that you didn't get will eventually join you as you do main story quests. I don't remember race or class being a big influence on dialogue choices, but alignment is a big one. So big, in fact, the optimal solutions for a couple of quests are alignment locked (some for no good reason). The game is also more than a little picky about what it counts as good/evil/law/chaos, so I installed a mod that opened up all the alignment-based dialogue options so i could choose them even if i didn't match them - they'd just influence me further along those paths. Which ended up forcing me away from LG to NG instead. As you progress you'll start seeing more conversations that are based on the things you have done.

The Main Quests, however, are an ever-present timer on progress. If you finish them early, you get some (actually a lot) of time to finish up sidequests. But if you don't? The game will force more and more bad kingdom events until you collapse.

I like the game, and it does get better. But it is not without its flaws. It is entirely possible to remove all possible characters for one of the positions on the council - getting them killed or driving them away. The secret ending pretty much needs a guide. It very much is finicky about things. But once it does get going, there's an epic plot and bunches of character development.

[Rynjin]

Kingmaker, IMO, was not the greatest choice for a CRPG, especially for the company's first game.

So far, Wrath of the Righteous has engaged me far more due simply to it having much more FOCUS. Sandbox elements in CRPGs, especially when you're trown right into them, put me off a bit.

[Theoboldi]

Kingmaker, IMO, was not the greatest choice for a CRPG, especially for the company's first game.

So far, Wrath of the Righteous has engaged me far more due simply to it having much more FOCUS. Sandbox elements in CRPGs, especially when you're trown right into them, put me off a bit.

Speaking of Wrath of the Righteous, how's the encounter balancing and difficulty in that one? As I recall, it was all over the place in Kingmaker. I played the first game on Normal a short time after release, and recall a lot of encounters that left me scratching my head early on. Like a group of bandits I ambushed as they were sleeping after sneaking past their traps, only for them to completely wreck me because they were a full group of sixth level rogues and a sixth-level wizard while my party was around second or third.

Or that cave full of spider swarms. shudders

I have at least seen other people post that the companions are much better built? I tried going with their basic set-ups and builds in Kingmaker, and only really focused on optimizing my main character, but ended up with a severely gimped set of partymembers as a result.

[Rynjin]

So far both encounters and companions are satisfying. Encounters isn't surprising; Wrath of teh Righteous is notorious for being an AP that's really easy by Paizo AP standards even if your characters go through the whole thing as non-Mythic characters.

The companions are a bit more surprising. Valerie in Kingmaker BROKE MY SOUL. You have a limited number of archetypes to add, and one of the ones you choose is TOWER SHIELD SPECIALIST? REALLY?

In this game though the companions I've met so far range from decent (Seelah, the Iconic Paladin, who has Shield Focus and Dodge as her starting Feats, but...well she's still a PALADIN) to absolute beasts (Lann, who is a Zen Archer Monk; already good, cranked to 11 because the CRPG Pathfinder games use Core Monk archetypes with Unchained Monk base chassis). None of them are bad.

[Taevyr]

New thread, same as the old thread.

I'm playing through Pathfinder: Kingmaker. I think this is my 3rd or 4th time restarting in the past few weeks, not counting the "I start to make a build and then decide it's not as good as my favorite" abortive chances. I keep getting bogged down in various details, most recently messing up the Jaethal and her daughter section because I made the wrong choice in her quest many hours ago.

I loved kingmaker up to

Spoiler

Show

The House at the End of Time.

It just became one immense slog at that point with how much more punishing the fights were. It was never an easy game, especially with no previous Pathfinder experience and the slight difficulty spike in

Spoiler

Show

Pitax

, but that just made it decently challenging, not the "spend every resource you have in 2-3 fights max. before resting and rinse/repeat for this entire zone".

I finished it, but it killed any replay value for me. Which is a shame, since I really loved the combination of kingdom building, good C&C, and time actually being important.

Might still try WotR though, once reviews are in and the unavoidable release bugs fixed. Playing buggy Deadfire on release was still kind-of-fun in spite of the bugs, and sometimes because of messing around with the bugs, but I'd rather wait with a game I'm less invested in.

[Triaxx]

I have done all custom runs of BG1/2 and it's interesting. It's a bit better in the first because most of the companions aren't too interesting and have no quests requiring their presence.

Of course if you go 6-man archer spec they'll simply remove almost all challenge from the game as they erase every single encounter with such casual ease it's almost embarrassing.

[Starbuck_II]

In wrath I've set it to easy for damage but increased enemies for challenge (custom)
I want to win but I like to fight for that right. Plus more loot, but after a while in tutorial dungeon I started carrying only high price, masterwork, or magic stuff.

The Paladin gets injured the most, she really sees to act like a tank. Never had a real Paladin so lay on hands is surprising good.



The game even warns you before an optional tough fight in the dungeon (he wasn't hard just lots of hps). I could bet on harder difficulty he might be an issue.

For bugs:
Crashed when I zoomed to windows to look up something


Supposed bugs in beta that I want to check if still are real: Steelblood Bloodrageer sets ASF to 0 in armor (instead of just for Bloodrager spells) so people were dipping Bloodrager to cast in armor.

[Wookieetank]

Why yes, townsperson, I will find Inspector Hildebrand for you.

And you'll end up loving every crazy min of it (or at least I did). Just wait till you meet Greg, and Godbert. Its such a gentlemanly questline.

[LibraryOgre]

1) You can't rebuild Davik Nettle's Bridge. Having a bridge there would be hella useful, and it would make a nice, simple, project for your Treasurer.
2) ...I cannot remember what the other one was. For the life of me.

Remembered #2! None of the default options for difficulty are "Leave everything on normal settings". If you go with "Normal", you get weaker enemies doing a bit less damage, and things like that. Challenging, the one above, makes everything a bit harder than normal, on average. There's no "This is just normal."

Maybe everyone is still scared of that ghost that was there.

Tristian as a MT is interesting.

Especially after Vordakai, he's not much in combat; making him and MT gives him a ton more spells to work with, and a lot of flexibility.

Got Kingmaker on sale, played that for a few hours and that went ok.

Until I ran into a stupid fear spamming skull and I didn't feel like reloading.

Reminds me... I need to go back now that I've hit 7th level and am immune to his bull****.

I just acquired and downloaded the Enhanced Edition of Icewind Dale. I'm having a good time with it; or at least I did after a few trips through some manuals to figure out how a lot of stuff works. I appreciate the amount of difficulty-customizing options the game gives you, so you can still have a meaty challenge while dialing down some of the more punishing aspects of old-school D&D, like the absurdly slow natural healing rate.

I somewhat regret never finishing my "Spice Girls" playthrough of that... five different bards, of different types (including a True Bard with a boosted level to get the regeneration song). I've played the original through several times over the years, though.

So for the people playing Pathfinder: Kingmaker, help sell me on it. I've started a play-through and only gotten a few hours in: I barely reached the part where you actually get your kingdom, so I've not really engaged with that element of the game. Overall the opening stretch of the game has utterly failed to grab me.

...

Even though I generally made pragmatic or selfish choices in the prologue, when called upon to defend my actions I chose the "good" dialogue because I wanted to roleplay my mischievous character talking my way out of trouble. The game apparantly reads this as me being a good-hearted sort, and so all the more morally ambiguous (and, incidentally, much cooler) characters wanted nothing to do with me. Oops. So I ended up with Linzi (annoying), Valerie (boring), and Amiri (whole different kind of annoying) as my companions. My personal problems with them aside, this left us a party with very little spellcasting (I'm a Rogue) and as such the combat feels a little lacking.

There's a couple options, here.

First of all, you'll pretty quickly pick up spellcasters, and alignment of allies doesn't matter much in game. Jaethal or Harrim is available pretty much right out of Olegs, and you'll have the other in your party by the time you're Baron. Also pretty soon into the game (post-prologue), you pick up a Magus and a Mage/Thief.... you can dump Amiri, Valerie, and Linzi and never touch them again. Chapter 2, you pick up an alchemist and a ranger, and possibly a kineticist (if you have that expansion). Chapter 3, you get a DPS rogue (who I usually make a Mad Dog Barbarian).

You'll also run into a guy in the Inn, first at Oleg's, then at your capital, who will let you hire mercenaries... basically letting you build your entire team, if you want. You can then ignore the playable NPCs, except, perhaps, to take them along for their missions.

But so far, the writing, quest design, and art direction have all been kind of letdowns, which is a problem since those are the primary thing I play CRPGs for. Particularly the quest design; a good CRPG uses its writing to disguise its limited flexibility, but I've never played one that felt like a better simulation of a railroading DM than this one. Dialogue choices seem very limited, and so far I haven't encountered a single option directly related to my character's race or class. ... Does it ease up on the darn ticking clocks, or does that persist? And is the domain management which the game seems to be selling itself on really all that fun, or is it busywork?

I've not encountered much more than incidental dialogue related to race or class... I'll get called Aasimar, but it's far more relevant that I'm the Baron most of the time. Since I haven't played long as any other race, I don't know if you get special options there.

And there is ALWAYS a ticking clock. Your timer is the Ancient Curse quest, so I tend to do the main quest stuff, then do the side quest/kingdom management stuff in the leftover time. I like the domain management stuff, personally, and your limited number of people (even when you get a full 10 advisors) can make for some good strategy.

In many ways, the game reminds me of Neverwinter Nights; stilted and awkward, but with the potential to be really good if you push on through. Does the game turn into the sort of CRPG I like, or is the first act a representative sample?

I've found myself getting invested in the game, personally (as my repeated playthroughs of the early stuff no doubt shows). While I'm a good guy, I find myself caring for a number of NPCs and their quests, even the bad guys... my last restart was because of Jaethal's quest not going the ideal way, and Reogonar and Octavia's quest is a good examination of the characters, even if I don't particularly like Reogonar as a person. While YOUR alignment matters, THEIR alignment mostly does not... Reogonar is CE, but he can happily be a member of your LG character's party, just with some banter around the fire. The only way it matters that he is CE is if you're using alignment-based magic, like Holy Word or something. It goes beyond NWN, where the companion quests were largely "Go to place, get the thing"... the dialog choices you make shape the character and their outcomes.

I like the game, and it does get better. But it is not without its flaws. It is entirely possible to remove all possible characters for one of the positions on the council - getting them killed or driving them away. The secret ending pretty much needs a guide. It very much is finicky about things. But once it does get going, there's an epic plot and bunches of character development.

Co-signed.

[Theoboldi]

So far both encounters and companions are satisfying. Encounters isn't surprising; Wrath of teh Righteous is notorious for being an AP that's really easy by Paizo AP standards even if your characters go through the whole thing as non-Mythic characters.

The companions are a bit more surprising. Valerie in Kingmaker BROKE MY SOUL. You have a limited number of archetypes to add, and one of the ones you choose is TOWER SHIELD SPECIALIST? REALLY?

In this game though the companions I've met so far range from decent (Seelah, the Iconic Paladin, who has Shield Focus and Dodge as her starting Feats, but...well she's still a PALADIN) to absolute beasts (Lann, who is a Zen Archer Monk; already good, cranked to 11 because the CRPG Pathfinder games use Core Monk archetypes with Unchained Monk base chassis). None of them are bad.

In wrath I've set it to easy for damage but increased enemies for challenge (custom)
I want to win but I like to fight for that right. Plus more loot, but after a while in tutorial dungeon I started carrying only high price, masterwork, or magic stuff.

The Paladin gets injured the most, she really sees to act like a tank. Never had a real Paladin so lay on hands is surprising good.



The game even warns you before an optional tough fight in the dungeon (he wasn't hard just lots of hps). I could bet on harder difficulty he might be an issue.

sighs wistfully because of Valerie and her stupid high charisma score

But anyways, that all sounds very promising. I do enjoy RPGs that are on the easier side, but what's more important for me is that I don't have to minmax absolutely everything manually and that encounters are of a consistent and fair range of difficulty so long as I make reasonably smart decisions without needing to know that they are coming up ahead. At least on normal.

That's definitely convinced me to at least check out Wrath of the Righteous. I can definitely get past the occasional bug and crash so long as the game itself isn't tedious in these specific ways for me.

[Eldonauran]

The current game(s) I am playing:

Mass Effect LE

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I currently have four simultaneous playthroughs going on:
1) Paragon Male Shep (Sentinel): Romanced Ashley, left Kaiden behind. Currently post-collector ship ME2 (No ME2 romance)
2) Paragade FemShep (Soldier): Romanced Kaiden, left Ashley behind. Currently pre-Horizon ME2 (undecided ME2 romance)
3) Renagon FemShep (Engineer): Romanced Liara, Left Kaiden behind. Never recruited Garrus. Shot Urdnot. Currently pre-Horizon ME2 (Kelly romance)
4) Renegade Male Shep (Vanguard): Renegade in the field, Paragon on the ship. Will attempt to romance everyone. Name is Chadwick Shepherd. Current new game, just got to Citadel ME1

Kingdom of Amalur: Re-Reckoning

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I had NEVER played this game before and I am pretty blown away with it. Currently playing as a jack of all trades, focusing on Chakrams and Feyblades for weapon attacks, and using the Might section for MOSTLY defensive purposes, and Earth Stomp because ... awesomeness.

Pathfinder: Kingmaker

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Lots of various playthroughs that sort of faded out once I got wrapped up in something else. This last playthrough, however, I am sure is a keeper. I've made plenty of backups just in case....

Main: Human Archaeologist/Divine Guardian (Bard/Paladin). Planning for a 16/4 split on levels.
Valerie: Fighter.... *drum roll* Kineticist. Yeah, I was not letting that insane CON score go unused. She mostly walks around with huge shield, full plate armor and beats things to death with her Kinetic Blade. Focus of Fire and Earth. Valerie is going to be our best tank. Plan is for Fighter4/Kineticist16
Amiri: Barbarian/Freebooter (Barbarian/Ranger). 16/4 Split like the others. Just enough to allow for wand usage.
Linzi: No funny business here. All Bard, all the way. ... Well, maybe a little funny business. Might go for some Arcane Archer later. No more than the 16/4 split.
Tristan: Lots of funny business. Well, mostly all Cleric and a single level of Barbarian (Armored Hulk). I generally use him for his channel healing and keep him sheathed in metal to protect him. He can use his spells before/after a fight, not during. Serious considerations to retrain him into a Cleric/Sorcerer/Mystic Theurge once we hit level 11 or so.
Kalikke / Kanerah: You better believe we are taking these two. Two party members for the price party slot of one! Water/Air/Earth for one and Fire/Water/Air for the other.

Between the two bards (Main and Linzi) we have enough arcane might to carry the party. Adding in Tristian as a Theurge later covers the bases we just cannot. Tristian carries the divine casting load all by himself, which is fine. Valerie and Amiri will just wreck faces with Tristan never far away to provide healing and flanking as needed. Main and Linzi are close buddies, with Linzi as the target of the Divine Guardian ability. Both use ranged weapons and Main is quite skilled with reach weapons. Kalikke/Kanerah have the ranged cannon role down perfectly and can handle anything that gets close with Main's help.

Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous

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Just started playing this game. Eager to test out some of my favorite classes like the Shaman. I'll probably turn it into a Shaman/Sorcerer/Mystic Theurge, though with a few of the more interesting archetype I might experiment before I really lock in my choices. Got a little frustrated with how they laid out the character creation screen, with picking your feats BEFORE your class features, which prevented me from getting Selective Channeling while I did later select a channeling skill (and the feat SHOWED that I met the requirements but was still greyed out).

Skryim

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I will never NOT be playing this game.

Witcher 3

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Just started playing this game. Did just about everything in the beginner map. Just got to the real start of the game. Liking it so far.

There are others I play on an irregular basis. The ones I listed above are the ones I've touched about twice a week each for the last month or so.

[LibraryOgre]

Valerie: Fighter.... *drum roll* Kineticist. Yeah, I was not letting that insane CON score go unused. She mostly walks around with huge shield, full plate armor and beats things to death with her Kinetic Blade. Focus of Fire and Earth. Valerie is going to be our best tank. Plan is for Fighter4/Kineticist16

This is an interesting take. I assume Kinetic Knight? I'll have to look into it, and may do that instead of Stalwart Defender... maybe even retrain her down to a 4/x, or a 5/x (since at level 5, she loses the attack penalty from tower shields)

[tonberrian]

Honestly I just gave up on Valerie. She sucks.

[LibraryOgre]

Honestly I just gave up on Valerie. She sucks.

With Defensive Fighting and as much armor as you can pile on her, she's a great anvil for your hammers. I'm looking forward to respeccing her as a Kinetic Knight.