What Are You Playing 5: New Thread+

[Rynjin]

Shiv Silent is great, but half the time you get shafted by Timekeeper if you build that way.

[IthilanorStPete]

Shiv Silent is great, but half the time you get shafted by Timekeeper if you build that way.

Only half the time; it's hard, but possible, to beat Time Eater with a Shiv deck, with careful play, and I've done it. (I'm pretty sure you know, just making sure the less-experienced players know it's not impossible)

[Eldan]

I mean, I have no idea what other builds there are. It was literally my second attempt ever, I just took the cards that came up.

[tyckspoon]

I mean, I have no idea what other builds there are. It was literally my second attempt ever, I just took the cards that came up.

The other 'basic' archetype for Silent is poison, I think - collect a lot of cards that add poison and a lot of Block cards and just tank up while you wait for stuff to die. It's easy to mix into a deck that doesn't primarily focus on it, but it can also be your main damage plan, especially if you manage to get a Catalyst (Skill card, doubles enemy's poison level or triples if upgraded) and gets really silly if you can combine with Burst (next Skill gets used twice.) I want to say all the key cards for that and Shiv are basic cards, but I no longer remember what's unlockable and what's default any more.

[Rynjin]

I think all of the key Poison cards (eg. Catalyst and Bouncing Flask) are unlockable, but I may be wrong.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

You can also spam Dexterity and block cards and just whittle your opponents down from behind an impenetrable shield. When that goes wrong, though, it goes really wrong.

My favorite Silent build requires unlocking Grand Finale. That's a card that does 50 damage to all enemies for 0 energy... but can only be played if you have no cards in your draw pile. My second-best scoring run of all time was built around using draw and discards to cycle through my whole deck several times per turn, playing two Grand Finales every time they came around.

My favorite Ironclad build is sadly quite hard to set up. It's a Wound deck, built around Fire Breathing (deal 6 damage every time you draw a status effect or curse; 10 when upgraded) and Evolve (every time you draw a status effect, draw a card; two cards when upgraded), turning all those Ironclad cards that give you Wounds, Burns, and Dazes as drawbacks into pure win. You do still need some method of exhausting status effects, though, or eventually your hand will have too many Wounds and not enough actually playable cards.

For the Defect, Frost/Lightning Orb spam and Power spam synergize quite nicely, but Darkness Orbs are hard to pull off as the lynchpin of a run, and I've yet to win with a 0-cost focused deck, though I love the premise. Basically all of my successful Defect runs end up following the same pattern: in the first act, Frost Orbs are your friend; turtle up behind tons of block and take your foes down. By about halfway through the second act, you should have enough powers to start spamming them, taking advantage of powers like Storm and Heatsink to get extra benefit from every power you play. The only powers you want to think twice about before adding to the deck are Biased Cognition and Hello World (and the colorless card Mayhem, if you're using Echo Form at all); everything else helps, and it's fine to have copies of most of them.

[Gnoman]

The one time I played through Dark Souls, I went with a club and pyromancy, with a bow as an obligatory backup. Managed to get a clear with it, but it wasn't the easiest. Tried out most of the weapons, but doing a flying leap at opponents while swinging my club over my head was just pure, simple fun for me. The pyromancy was more for pizazz than anything.

This isn't fundamentally a bad strategy, but it is generally best to upgrade to more powerful flying leap weapons like greatclubs and greataxes. The club does have the strong attack be the jump attack, for those who can't pull off the fiddlyness of the actual jump attack.

[Anteros]

Only half the time; it's hard, but possible, to beat Time Eater with a Shiv deck, with careful play, and I've done it. (I'm pretty sure you know, just making sure the less-experienced players know it's not impossible)

Shiv Silent is great, but half the time you get shafted by Timekeeper if you build that way.

Sure, but then you've got to fight the heart. I've found that the shiv build can beat the timekeeper if you're careful, but the Heart absolutely hard counters it.

Since people are talking about Pathfinder I'll mention that I've also finally tried it after having it in my library for over a year. It should be right up my alley in theory, but there's just something frustrating about the game. Everything from slow animations, to arbitrary time limits, to encumbrance penalties just seem to be there to frustrate the player. I just can't help but feel frustrated every time I try to get into it.

[tyckspoon]

Sure, but then you've got to fight the heart. I've found that the shiv build can beat the timekeeper if you're careful, but the Heart absolutely hard counters it.

It's not obligatory, you can just.. not fight the Heart >.> Most of the builds I've gotten there have more than enough Block or just raw health available to them to not really care about Beat of Death, tho - it's the cycles with the one big shot and the 15 flurry attack that threaten and will kill you if your own defenses can't consistently match it.

[Rynjin]

Sure, but then you've got to fight the heart. I've found that the shiv build can beat the timekeeper if you're careful, but the Heart absolutely hard counters it.

Fighting the Heart with a Shiv build is easier. You just need to have a good armor gain engine (or luck out and get that relic that reduces all incoming damage by 1).

[Zevox]

So, I've done just about everything in Shantae: Half-Genie Hero now. Pretty much the only modes I didn't touch were Hero Mode (which sounds like it's just the main game except you start with everything unlocked anyway) and Hardcore Mode - everything else I finished and 100%ed (though did not do speedruns).

On the whole, I greatly enjoyed it. It's obvious that the developers were big fans of a lot of the same kinds of platformers I like, particularly Mega Man, and so I found the gameplay very fun. Story-wise, quite enjoyable too - particularly, honestly, the goofier alternate modes. The main story was fine and good, albeit it felt like Shantae talking about feeling like her human half was somehow lesser or something came right out of nowhere when that happened. Seems like they wanted it to be a character growth thing for her at that point in the game, but it wasn't set up at all. But that's about the only criticism I have there, and hey, it's an old-style platformer, the story's far from the main draw anyway, even if they are obviously trying to have more of it than the classics did. They did manage a colorful cast of fun characters at least.

My favorite alternate mode was Officer Mode - because, well, it's basically Mega Man mode, plus a weird but fun block gimmick. Risky and Bolo/Rotty/Sky's modes were great too, though I wish Risky had a more unique mode, as it feels like her excuse to be playing through the same stages as the main game is quite weak, especially for the first and final stages, where she's fighting her own forces.

There were really only two things gameplay-wise I didn't like: one, Beach Mode. Specifically, the sunscreen mechanic. Oh god, that was frustrating, needing to constantly be looking for more damn sunscreen to keep from being burned to death. Also, it seems like the devs might have been under the impression that sunscreen just cools you off, since a dip in the water in stages that have it affects you the same way sunscreen itself does, so that was weird. The other was the Drider/scorpion-woman enemies. Because as far as I can tell, they just block your attacks at complete random - there's no way I could find to consistently actually hit them with anything. So you kind of end up mashing attacks on them until enough get through... and they're the biggest non-boss damage sponges in the game. So yeah, that was both boring and frustrating, as they ground things to a complete halt for a while every time you ran into them.

The only other criticism that I have, aside form the ocassional cruder humor, is some of the sexualization of the characters. Now, Shantae's magic belly dances and genie outfit are fine and all, I don't mean that; but when Risky is soaking in a bathtub in between stages in her mode, with only bubbles covering her chest, that's pretty awkward, and feels quite out of place considering she's supposed to be the intimidating pirate queen villain. Or there's the intro to Beach Mode very creepily encouraging fan art of Shantae putting on sunscreen. Yeah, there's a line with this sort of thing where you go from being in good taste to poor, and the game unfortunately does cross it on several occasions.

But yeah, those criticisms aside, on the whole I really enjoyed it. Next time I need a shorter game or just feel like a good, old-school platformer, I'll probably pick up one of the other Shantae titles.

[Man_Over_Game]

I think all of the key Poison cards (eg. Catalyst and Bouncing Flask) are unlockable, but I may be wrong.

They are, you can't make a good poison build until your first unlockable set as the Silent.

That being said, she still has some of the best generalist cards to pull everything you need. 1 cost, 5 block, draw 2 cards? That's one of the Silent's worst cards, and it's still a great pick when you aren't offered anything specific for your build.

Whereas the Ironclad's version of a generic pick is 0 Cost, Draw 1, put a from your hand back on your deck, Exhaust. AKA Draw a card, lose a card, and then lose this card for the rest of the fight; it's hot garbage.

[Rynjin]

It's only garbage if you don't view the card Exhausting as an upside of its own, which it very well can be.

[Man_Over_Game]

It's only garbage if you don't view the card Exhausting as an upside of its own, which it very well can be.

There are only two Ironclad cards that give you a benefit anytime you exhaust a card, and this card is a 0-cost draw effect. I think it's one of the last cards you'd want to exhaust.

[Rynjin]

There are only two Ironclad cards that give you a benefit anytime you exhaust a card, and this card is a 0-cost draw effect. I think it's one of the last cards you'd want to exhaust.

There's also the meme-dream Dead Branch deck. And of course the general benefit of less cards = mo' power; you want to streamline and refine over the course of a battle. Use it to draw your combo starter and then get rid of it.

[Eldonauran]

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)

Nah, Kinetic Knight is a trap as far as I am concerned. I made Valerie a Kineticist to give her touch attacks with her Kinetic Blade and the ability to make ranged touch attacks when she just was not able to clear the distance with charging (obstructions, movement impairment, etc). Also, to offset the penalty from tower shields, but I ended up giving her the water defensive talent (Fire/Earth/Water) and the Crane Style line of feats.

Valerie ended up as an amazing tank/damage dealer/self-healer. Solid party member.

[Starbuck_II]

Nah, Kinetic Knight is a trap as far as I am concerned. I made Valerie a Kineticist to give her touch attacks with her Kinetic Blade and the ability to make ranged touch attacks when she just was not able to clear the distance with charging (obstructions, movement impairment, etc). Also, to offset the penalty from tower shields, but I ended up giving her the water defensive talent (Fire/Earth/Water) and the Crane Style line of feats.

Valerie ended up as an amazing tank/damage dealer/self-healer. Solid party member.

I figure Kinetic Knight makes her not get any burn while attacking with her touch attack "sword". The penalty from Tower shield is offset from it being a touch attack.

[Rynjin]

Yeah, Kinetic Knight can cast Kinetic Blade for free. I wouldn't call it a "trap" per se, at least in tabletop though when I tried it out in Wrath it seems like a lot of the stuff that makes Kinetic Knight decently strong isn't in the game (Kinetic Whip, Blade Rush, Blade Whirlwind, etc.).

[Zevox]

I picked up Tales of Arise and played through the first major boss today. So far, so good. The default control scheme was a little weird (the main attack button being R1), but you can remap it, so I've changed things around to be more to my liking. Combat feels very Tales, with, as usual, some specifics of the mechanics changed around. Interestingly, this time there's a meter (CP, for cure points) limiting your use of healing magic specifically, but any other magic and abilities seem to be free reign, which is cool. You need AP (the little crystal icons the series sometimes uses) to use anything besides basic attacks, but those regenerate rapidly in combat while you're not attacking, so they're not much of a hindrance. Though of the two leads, the guy is much more interesting to play, at least at first, since the girl is a gunner/healer, which mostly just leads to sitting back spamming gun shots if you take active control of her.

The story is kind of intense for the series, honestly. I'm going into it mostly blind, having only seen a couple of trailers that didn't really explain anything anyway. It's set on a pair of planets that apparently orbit each other, since the one is clearly visible in the sky over the other; the inhabitants of the second world, Rena, being more advanced than those of the first, Dahna, by a hefty margin apparently came and conquered Dahna some 300 years ago, and have had the people of Dahna enslaved for all that time. You're one of those slaves, and of course join up with a resistance movement to overthrow them. Straightforward, and honestly extremely black-and-white by Tales standards, since the Renans are being portrayed about as evil as you can portray someone. Their leaders only care about gaining power, the guards watching the slaves will casually beat them (including children), the slaves in general are in intentionally miserable conditions, and the Renans happily punish (read: kill) anyone who happens to be anywhere near a rebel group, even if they're not involved with them. And after three centuries of such treatment, most of the Dahnans have no hope of things ever getting better, to the point where some actively speak out against the rebel groups and discourage others from joining them as they believe they just making things worse for everyone. It's a pretty bleak opening, honestly. About the only sliver of hope the game's offered that the Renans aren't all hopelessly evil monsters so far is the fact that the female lead character is one, and, while she's pretty tight-lipped so far, implies at a couple of points that some Renans are also treated rather badly by their leaders.

Still, there's some neat ideas going on too. For instance, the male lead cannot feel pain, at all - which actually comes in handy since the female lead can create a very powerful magic sword made of fire, but can't use it since, unlike most magic fire weapons in fiction, it does burn the wielder (and they do make sure to show you how bad those burns can be, too, and they're pretty bad). Which turns into a mechanic where your male lead gets powerful attacks with this sword that don't even cost AP, but loses health when using them.

So yeah, so far, so good. I wouldn't say that it's hooked me as strongly as Berseria did at this point, but I'm interested and enjoying it.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

I picked up Poker Quest a week or so ago, and finally got my second win today with the Paladin, a character I quite like. (Technically a Win+++, since the last update made all but the first world optional).

Also bought and started Yoku's Island Express, a pinball metroidvania. Liking it so far; I got stumped on where to go next for a bit before I realized I'd been ignoring some paths on the (incorrect) assumption that they were one-way.

[Anteros]

I picked up Tales also and played through the first act. R1 is a weird choice for the attack button, but I'm not sure why you'd ever want to normal attack anyway since arts are objectively better and attacking slows their cool down.

I like that this Tales is a bit less silly and cartoony than other recent entries. The plot and characters in Beseria and Zestiria were extremely shallow so I'm optimistic so far, but we'll see.

Co-op will be sorely missed, as that was the main draw of the series. They'll have to greatly improve other aspects of the game to make up for the lack, but so far it looks like they accomplished it.

Not a fan of the "experience bundles" or whatever they're calling the pay to win dlc garbage they've tacked on. Especially when the ads for it infiltrate the actual game. Im worried that the game will eventually get too grindy without them. They don't seem to accomplish anything I couldn't do with a cheat engine though, so worst case scenario I'll cheat the grind away.

My only other complaint is that enemy variety and difficulty in the first act is basically non existent. Hope that picks up. Right now there are only 4 or 5 enemies and they're all painfully predictable.

[Zevox]

I picked up Tales also and played through the first act. R1 is a weird choice for the attack button, but I'm not sure why you'd ever want to normal attack anyway since arts are objectively better and attacking slows their cool down.

Because then you can string together longer combos to keep targets in hitstun longer, of course. Maybe against bosses who are very hard to make "break" so that you can hitstun them I could see the argument for just not using regular attacks, but against other enemies, they're helpful.

I like that this Tales is a bit less silly and cartoony than other recent entries. The plot and characters in Beseria and Zestiria were extremely shallow so I'm optimistic so far, but we'll see.

Oh, I would disagree with that. I never finished Zesitiria, but Berseria I thought was the best Tales game since Vesperia, largely off the strength of the characters and story. Velvet was a very compelling protagonist, and the way it played with genre conventions in making its "heroes" seem a lot more like traditional villains and vice-versa was a lot of fun.

Not a fan of the "experience bundles" or whatever they're calling the pay to win dlc garbage they've tacked on. Especially when the ads for it infiltrate the actual game.

I didn't even know that those existed. So I would assume you can get rid of whatever ads you're referring to by playing offline, since well, that's how I'm playing.

[LibraryOgre]

Nah, Kinetic Knight is a trap as far as I am concerned. I made Valerie a Kineticist to give her touch attacks with her Kinetic Blade and the ability to make ranged touch attacks when she just was not able to clear the distance with charging (obstructions, movement impairment, etc). Also, to offset the penalty from tower shields, but I ended up giving her the water defensive talent (Fire/Earth/Water) and the Crane Style line of feats.

Valerie ended up as an amazing tank/damage dealer/self-healer. Solid party member.

Might have to respec her, then. Kinetic Knight has been underwhelming, and I've been using Earth, which leaves them at melee attacks. Since I'm higher level (5/6), Infusion Specialization might make it worthwhile... but the fact that she gets free trip attacks with every hit has also been AWESOME. I've taken Trip and Improved Trip as bonus feats, so she gets a +4 on her trips, and when she knocks someone down, everyone gets AoO on them. But the lack of AoO on melee attacks is pretty rough.

I wonder how Nok-Nok would do if he went rogue/kineticist, with a kukri in his off-hand?

[Anonymouswizard]

Well I picked up Battlefleet Gothic: Armada on sale and played through the first couple of training missions. This game takes a long time to load, as in thirty minutes, but once I got to the main menu it was mostly fine (voices in cutscenes occasionally paused, but the gameplay is fine).

Playing the first couple of training missions, and it is fun. The interface looking so much like Dawn of War is throwing me off, and it'll take a bit longer to get used to switching between ships to issue orders, but it does work really well. I like the idea of assembling your fleet before the battle instead of just building units from stations, makes each ship feel more precious.

On the other hand reading things is hard for me at the moment due to eye problems, so it's time to find some kind of font size increaser.

[Anteros]

Because then you can string together longer combos to keep targets in hitstun longer, of course. Maybe against bosses who are very hard to make "break" so that you can hitstun them I could see the argument for just not using regular attacks, but against other enemies, they're helpful.


Oh, I would disagree with that. I never finished Zesitiria, but Berseria I thought was the best Tales game since Vesperia, largely off the strength of the characters and story. Velvet was a very compelling protagonist, and the way it played with genre conventions in making its "heroes" seem a lot more like traditional villains and vice-versa was a lot of fun.


I didn't even know that those existed. So I would assume you can get rid of whatever ads you're referring to by playing offline, since well, that's how I'm playing.

So far, normal enemies are usually dead or almost dead by the time I get done unloading 4 arts into them. And that's with me playing on hard and not going out of my way to level. I'm about level 10 so far and just leaving the first area, so maybe it'll get harder. So far though, the dps you get just from spamming the arte that goes along the ground from the main character is about double of anything else I can do. The animation is twice as fast as most of the others and it's ranged. Definitely not balanced for this stage of the game. I'm sure higher level artes will come along and outshine it though, which may make longer comboes more valuable.

[LibraryOgre]

My hope was granted, and my brother got me Wrath of the Righteous for my birthday. Still gonna finish Kingmaker, I hope, but that's next on the list.

[tyckspoon]

So far, normal enemies are usually dead or almost dead by the time I get done unloading 4 arts into them. And that's with me playing on hard and not going out of my way to level. I'm about level 10 so far and just leaving the first area, so maybe it'll get harder. So far though, the dps you get just from spamming the arte that goes along the ground from the main character is about double of anything else I can do. The animation is twice as fast as most of the others and it's ranged. Definitely not balanced for this stage of the game. I'm sure higher level artes will come along and outshine it though, which may make longer comboes more valuable.

That starter arte is usually really good, especially for the low levels - that's kind of a Tales tradition. Usually the balancing factor is that you'll burn through your equally low level MP pool really rapidly, so if you try to just Demon Fang everything you have to go back to rest after every fight and you can't make any real progress. And yeah you will almost certainly eventually start seeing enemies that are armored and have to be hit with big melee arts to break their shells or flying stuff that just literally can't be hit by that attack or just stuff with more hp than can be burnt through in one cycle of arts.

[Sermil]

Got Loop Hero recently.

Strange little game. It looks like an "idle RPG" but it's anything but. It just, you don't control the fights, you control the environment. There's a lot of strategy in getting the environment right.

So far I've beaten the first boss and unlocked the Rogue. I've only been on one Expedition as Rogue, but don't really like the class so far. There's very little healing ability; yes, you can win fights faster but you're still losing heath and it's hard to regain enough to manage. The whole trophies thing doesn't seen like an advantage over the Warrior just getting stuff directly.

Otherwise fun.

[Triaxx]

If I'm recalling correctly Rogue has a natural Vamp effect and so benefits from hitting a lot. That and boosting Parry. Damage avoided is even better than damage healed.

[Anteros]

That starter arte is usually really good, especially for the low levels - that's kind of a Tales tradition. Usually the balancing factor is that you'll burn through your equally low level MP pool really rapidly, so if you try to just Demon Fang everything you have to go back to rest after every fight and you can't make any real progress. And yeah you will almost certainly eventually start seeing enemies that are armored and have to be hit with big melee arts to break their shells or flying stuff that just literally can't be hit by that attack or just stuff with more hp than can be burnt through in one cycle of arts.

This tales game doesn't have a traditional mp system, so there's not much incentive to not just spam arts.