What Are You Playing 5: New Thread+

[Anteros]

Well, my power went out last night...which somehow broke Wrath of the Righteous and it will no longer open. So I'm in the middle of re-downloading that. Hopefully my save games are intact on the cloud, because I'll be quitting the game otherwise. Not sure what they're doing behind the scenes that would cause the whole game to break if it's not properly shut down, but it can't be anything good.

Thanks, I'll look into it.

I think what my problem was with Slay the Spire, thinking about it more (and comparing, to, say, Hades) was that by the third act, I felt I was just hitting my stride a bit. Deck's working okay, just a few more cards to kick out, let's see what fun upgrades are coming, oh, it's over. I really wish there was another two acts or so to really get into the deckbuilding.

Your problem is comparing it to Hades. Hades is absolutely exceptional while STS is merely good. Very few roguelight games can hold up to the standard Hades sets.

[Cespenar]

I mean, I quite enjoy several other roguelites. This one was just very short.

Now that I look back, my sentence seems simple enough to sound sarcastic, but I was more trying to underline the recent evolution (maybe spearheaded by StS as Rodin said above) of deckbuilder or otherwise non-action roguelites also having shorter play cycles, which you might also not like.

Maybe since Hades is pretty high-octane action, the perceived length (time x focus?) of one cycle is much higher than something like StS, which led to your situation?

Edit: Also, what Anteros said above.

[warty goblin]

I find I tend to dislike roguelites mostly because I disagree with needing to unlock stuff over multiple playthroughs. Games are already horribly repetitive, announcing up front that I'm gonna have to play the whole thing a bunch of times to get to the good stuff or the "real game" is a hard turn off for me. It doesn't help that the sort of randomization these games tend to employ doesn't really produce that wide an array of experiences from run to run.


In news probably only of interest to me, World of Warships dropped the Getman battlecruiser Moltke for everybody with an Amazon Prime account yesterday. I had worried that they were gonna mess these ships up, but Moltke at least is a good interpretation of German battlecruisers. The ship is quite tough, but does not forgive mistakes, and due to only having three heals, lacks the staying power of a true battleship. In compensation she's very fast, and alarmingly maneuverable. No tier 4 battleship can force you to fight, or escape you if you want to run them down and burn them to death with your secondary armament, they can't stop you. The secondaries are quite good too, the latest round of commander skill changes definitely brought them back up to snuff.. The main guns are fine, 11 inches is a bit anemic, but they do work well for punishing cruisers who get get bit too cocky.

If Derrflinger and Mackensen are this good, I'll be a very happy camper. I'm less fussed about the ships after that, since they're mostly to pure fantasy; true the Mackensens were never finished, but they were at least launched, and Derrflinger of course was one of the most effective ships at Jutland.

[Man_Over_Game]

Your problem is comparing it to Hades. Hades is absolutely exceptional while STS is merely good. Very few roguelight games can hold up to the standard Hades sets.

Agreed. Best I've ever found that can come close are maybe Faster Than Light or Dead Cells, and while both have a bit more going on combat-wise, nothing can match Hades' atmosphere.

[Eldan]

And I like both of those, too. Interesting.

Maybe I'll just try another run of Fights in Tight Spaces for my roguelike deckbuilding. My one win so far really kind of felt like a fluke.

[Man_Over_Game]

And I like both of those, too. Interesting.

Maybe I'll just try another run of Fights in Tight Spaces for my roguelike deckbuilding. My one win so far really kind of felt like a fluke.

Not sure if mobile games are your schtick, but you might like Jobmania or Rogue Adventure. Both are free, both are pretty damn huge. Neither have plots, but both are really good for what they are.

Jobmania, specifically, is this weird perfect hybrid of strange, Japanese-esc mechanics that flow surprisingly well together once you start understanding more than "Play cards to hit things". It's a Gacha game that has actually fun combat mechanics, so it ends up playing like a really good roguelite with a progression system that never ends.

Rogue Adventure is basically a bigger version of Slay the Spire with better combos and simpler mechanics.

[Rodin]

Nearly quit my Witcher run. The Chapter 3 boss is incredibly badly designed.

Instakill boss when this mechanic hasn't existed previously in the game.

Badly hitboxed rocks you have to hit to slow the boss down, and if you miss either the boss kills you or the rocks fall on your head.

A room FULL of enemies that block your progress. It's pure RNG whether they leave a viable path for you to get through, and there are enough that it's a near certainty that the boss will catch you if you try to clear a path.

Important loot to pick up which you cannot pick up if an enemy from that room decides to randomly wander down the hall.

Oh, and once you've survived all of that? There's a bug tied to your save that means Geralt gets instakilled no matter where he is in the map. You have to reload from the opening cutscene and hope.

Took me about an hour and nearly 100 deaths. What a shambles.

Fortunately the rest of the game has been engaging enough that I want to finish playing. The gameplay may not be the best (by modern standards) but the story and world are still solid.

[Rynjin]

Well, my power went out last night...which somehow broke Wrath of the Righteous and it will no longer open. So I'm in the middle of re-downloading that. Hopefully my save games are intact on the cloud, because I'll be quitting the game otherwise. Not sure what they're doing behind the scenes that would cause the whole game to break if it's not properly shut down, but it can't be anything good.

I would venture a guess that your game was in the middle of saving or autosaving when your power went out. Old games used to say "Saving...don't turn off the power" habitually for a reason. Any game will snap in half if the power goes out mid-save.

You probably didn't need to redownload the whole game, just validate the game files on Steam.

Nearly quit my Witcher run. The Chapter 3 boss is incredibly badly designed.

Instakill boss when this mechanic hasn't existed previously in the game.

Badly hitboxed rocks you have to hit to slow the boss down, and if you miss either the boss kills you or the rocks fall on your head.

A room FULL of enemies that block your progress. It's pure RNG whether they leave a viable path for you to get through, and there are enough that it's a near certainty that the boss will catch you if you try to clear a path.

Important loot to pick up which you cannot pick up if an enemy from that room decides to randomly wander down the hall.

Oh, and once you've survived all of that? There's a bug tied to your save that means Geralt gets instakilled no matter where he is in the map. You have to reload from the opening cutscene and hope.

Took me about an hour and nearly 100 deaths. What a shambles.

Fortunately the rest of the game has been engaging enough that I want to finish playing. The gameplay may not be the best (by modern standards) but the story and world are still solid.

Yeah, this boss sucked ass. Thankfully they seemed to learn their lesson on that. While the second game does have "press button to not die" style quicktime events, they're actually optional (sorta). While you can't disable the quicktime events entirely, you can toggle an option that makes them impossible to fail. I recommend this option.

[Rodin]

Yeah, this boss sucked ass. Thankfully they seemed to learn their lesson on that. While the second game does have "press button to not die" style quicktime events, they're actually optional (sorta). While you can't disable the quicktime events entirely, you can toggle an option that makes them impossible to fail. I recommend this option.

I don't actually mind "press X not to die" quicktime events when the game introduces them early and is designed around them. Resident Evil 4 is a great example of how to do them right, even if it did have that one quicktime event boss that got old after you'd heard the dialogue a million times.

The problem here was that the game wasn't designed with running away in mind. The movement in the game is jerky enough to make maneuvering around terrain difficult, nevermind trying to maneuver around a group of enemies that are attacking you. The Witcher Signs are designed to hit an enemy 2 feet in front of you, not rocks 20 feet up on the ceiling with an invisible hitbox.

I plan to leave the QTEs in for Witcher 2, unless I find that something has gone wrong with them on more modern systems like happened with RE4. If I recall correctly, the timer on the QTEs was tied to your framerate, meaning you had less time to respond to them and it could be nearly impossible to mash X fast enough for some of the later ones. Having an option to bypass them would have been nice in that case.

Fortunately the boss was just a blip, and I'm already back to enjoying Chapter IV. I really like how the story is going back and revisiting plot threads that were left hanging by the original novels, especially since many years have passed since the original event. Still convinced Dandelion is secretly immortal though.

[Starbuck_II]

My Wrath my Aeon playthrough (till I unlock Lich) I go the Queen to join the campaign personally (or she says she will).

I found some cool treasure at army camp.

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Full Plate Barding granted your animal companion is unlikely to be able to have the feats yet. But you can get the +1 leather armor version in Grey Garrison behind secret area (I like that one better because +10 movement and +1 AoO/rd though it is around 4 AC less since my horse has good Dex).

I wasted money buying +1 Full plate armor when you can find +1 Half plate with cool abilities. Should have reloaded but waste so much time so didn't.


I really want that cloak that gives you DR vs swarm attacks, but way too costly right now. Also the Ring that gives you Fire spells.
But I am poorish in comparison (beside buying +1 ring/amulets, I gave Iberal, half orc, 7.5K to hire an army).

Bought Nenio a huge collection of spells to scribe also created a few extra Bolster metamagic versions.

[Anteros]

That ring is amazing if you're using spontaneous casters. Also the acid longsword that does aoe damage when it hits. Those are the only things I've bought so far aside from pots and some scrolls.

I like having a caster for control and buffs, but I despise Nenio, so I've been trying to fill in the gaps with other characters. It's definitely suboptimal, but I've made it work so far. I may end up respeccing someone to fill the gap.

[tonberrian]

I find that between Camellia, Woljif, Ember, and myself as a cleric, we have enough of the wizard spell list i don't miss nenio at all.

[Cazero]

You probably didn't need to redownload the whole game, just validate the game files on Steam.

Depending of how the game is packaged, that can mean redownloading the whole game.

[Anteros]

So this is probably the right forum to ask. I'm not very familiar with Pathfinder, but I'm playing Wrath of the righteous and I'm looking for something that will give me the ability to teleport to enemies and attack in the same round. Something like a blinkstrike ability, for a TWF. I don't necessarily want to dip into caster levels, but I will if I have to.

I know it's not necessary to play the game since they give you charge, and most fights are in fairly small areas, but it's something I want for flavor reasons. Anyone have any ideas on a class or feat I can work towards to get that? Right now the only options I'm seeing are monk's dimension door, or the mythic feat that lets you teleport to enemy casters after they target you.

[Rynjin]

Yeah, you need the cheat version of Dimension Door they put in the game (in tabletop DD ends your turn after casting so even if you Quicken it you don't get attacks).

Unless somebody makes a Path of War mod with Veiled Moon in play, you're not going to be teleporting as a non-caster. Try a Magus, maybe.

[Anteros]

Yeah, you need the cheat version of Dimension Door they put in the game (in tabletop DD ends your turn after casting so even if you Quicken it you don't get attacks).

Unless somebody makes a Path of War mod with Veiled Moon in play, you're not going to be teleporting as a non-caster. Try a Magus, maybe.

Monks get it at like level 5 or something, right? Monk is a pretty nice dip for a dex character anyway, so maybe I'll do that.

Also is it just me or are mythic paths really unbalanced? I have a hard time understanding how some extra stats, summons, or DR or anything is going to compete with

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an extra 20 levels.

[Rynjin]

Monks get it at like level 5 or something, right? Monk is a pretty nice dip for a dex character anyway, so maybe I'll do that.

Try level 8.

Also is it just me or are mythic paths really unbalanced? I have a hard time understanding how some extra stats, summons, or DR or anything is going to compete with

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an extra 20 levels.

If anything, Legend (the one where you get 20 extra levels) is super undertuned.

The first Azata power I got lets me make every enemy roll twice and take the lower on every spell, lets ME roll twice on Spell Resistance, and makes enemies only reduce damage by 25% on a successful Reflex save. No amount of extra levels gets me that capability on every spell. There's another that gives you permanent Haste and Blur. All of them are about this good.

Legend just makes you a ghetto Gestalt character.

[Anteros]

Try level 8.



If anything, Legend (the one where you get 20 extra levels) is super undertuned.

The first Azata power I got lets me make every enemy roll twice and take the lower on every spell, lets ME roll twice on Spell Resistance, and makes enemies only reduce damage by 25% on a successful Reflex save. No amount of extra levels gets me that capability on every spell. There's another that gives you permanent Haste and Blur. All of them are about this good.

Legend just makes you a ghetto Gestalt character.

I don't know. I'm pretty sure I'm gonna have permanent haste and blur and such anyway from the extended spells feat. Between that, how common scrolls are, and extra spell slots, buff availability is absolutely not an issue in this game. I'm only in act 2 and my party can already cast haste like 15 times between rests, without even counting all the scrolls I've scribed.

[Rynjin]

The benefit of permanence is it saves you an action at the start of a fight and it can't be dispelled. Enemies looove to spam Dispel.

You're also overlooking that Legend is only unlockable at Mythic Tier 8 (same as Gold Dragon and Swarm-that-walks) so you have to play through 80%-90% of the game as a different Mythic Path to even get it.

[Anteros]

The benefit of permanence is it saves you an action at the start of a fight and it can't be dispelled. Enemies looove to spam Dispel.

You're also overlooking that Legend is only unlockable at Mythic Tier 8 (same as Gold Dragon and Swarm-that-walks) so you have to play through 80%-90% of the game as a different Mythic Path to even get it.

Well, I'm no expert, but like I said, you can make most spells last 24 hours already. It's also just more fun for me to come up with my own builds rather than taking something preset by the game, so that's a thing.

[Rynjin]

Well, I'm no expert, but like I said, you can make most spells last 24 hours already. It's also just more fun for me to come up with my own builds rather than taking something preset by the game, so that's a thing.

None of the Mythic Paths are preset, they all have choices of options.

[LibraryOgre]

I have now been everywhere in Pathfinder: Kingmaker except the Castle of Knives... plus some Beneath the Stolen Lands and the Forgotten Tomb.

[Starbuck_II]

I can't solve Conundrum Unsolved. I just can't figure it out.

I had to run from two crusade battles, only my main team has a chance.
Things I learned

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Generals cost increase expontially

Scorching ray rocks but costly in energy: 4.

Rock shot is better (no resistance, however, DR, seems stronger too) but seems to 1/battle.

Gargoyles are really annoying. Not too strong but take forever to take down.

The fire demon guys are annoying because immune to fire and breath attack (line, 2 squares?)

Clerics/Paladins are awesome: Smite evil gives slightly better numbers, lay on hands self/others free cures

Footman are weak but can handle enemies slowly while the rest take them down.
Mounted Scouts have good mobility, but seem weak. I guess could be useful against enemy mages/archers
Shield Fighters are weak but take a lot of hits (better than Footman)

[Eldonauran]

I can't solve Conundrum Unsolved. I just can't figure it out.

Its like dominos, you match the ends of the tiles you put down together until you complete the square.

I had to run from two crusade battles, only my main team has a chance.

I've been studying the mechanics and it seems the listed values for damage are multiplied by the number of troops you have in each individual group. You might have to avoid fighting demon armies until you find ways to boost their power with artifacts and spend time to acquire more troops.

[Anteros]

Apparently there's a secret ending to Wrath of the Righteous, and it's ridiculously easy and arbitrary to lock yourself out of it. I didn't read too much into it because I didn't want spoilers, but decisions to include like that and the tedious crusade mode/kingdom management are what made the first game so frustrating. The developer really learned nothing from the criticisms of Kingmaker.

To clarify. I like secret endings. If they're hinted at and you can figure them out. Not when there are 20-something completely arbitrary steps. That's idiotic and basically requires following a wiki as you play. I also like strategy games. I don't like sitting and watching as my footmen try to whittle down a stack of gargoyles for 40 turns because neither army can kill more than 1 unit a turn. Who playtested this stuff? Why are spells a billion times more powerful than units? It's clear they either didn't actually test this stuff at all, or they're far too arrogant to listen to criticism. Considering the carryover of terrible things from Kingmaker I'm guessing it's the arrogance explanation.

I mean, if you're just going to steal the system from Heroes of Might and Magic anyway, why not at least balance things similarly so it's not a tedious slog?

[Starbuck_II]

Apparently there's a secret ending to Wrath of the Righteous, and it's ridiculously easy and arbitrary to lock yourself out of it. I didn't read too much into it because I didn't want spoilers, but decisions to include like that and the tedious crusade mode/kingdom management are what made the first game so frustrating. The developer really learned nothing from the criticisms of Kingmaker.

To clarify. I like secret endings. If they're hinted at and you can figure them out. Not when there are 20-something completely arbitrary steps. That's idiotic and basically requires following a wiki as you play. I also like strategy games. I don't like sitting and watching as my footmen try to whittle down a stack of gargoyles for 40 turns because neither army can kill more than 1 unit a turn. Who playtested this stuff? Why are spells a billion times more powerful than units? It's clear they either didn't actually test this stuff at all, or they're far too arrogant to listen to criticism. Considering the carryover of terrible things from Kingmaker I'm guessing it's the arrogance explanation.

I mean, if you're just going to steal the system from Heroes of Might and Magic anyway, why not at least balance things similarly so it's not a tedious slog?

Issue with Gargoyles: Good AC and DR.

Clerics are better since smite evil, but even that only gets them so far.

[Rynjin]

Yeah, both of those things are things that annoyed me. Having the secret ending get locked behind seemingly arbitrary dialogue options (though as far as I am now, mid-act 3, they are a bit LESS arbitrary than they initially appear, so should probably be pretty easy to get on a second playthrough) is dumb, and the Crusade battles suck.

They're one of the several annoyances I cheated my way out of having to really deal with, alongside the inability to Take 10 or 20 when it would be prudent.

[Anteros]

Yeah, both of those things are things that annoyed me. Having the secret ending get locked behind seemingly arbitrary dialogue options (though as far as I am now, mid-act 3, they are a bit LESS arbitrary than they initially appear, so should probably be pretty easy to get on a second playthrough) is dumb, and the Crusade battles suck.

They're one of the several annoyances I cheated my way out of having to really deal with, alongside the inability to Take 10 or 20 when it would be prudent.

How did you manage to cheat your way out of it? I tried toybox, but it doesn't seem to function properly for the crusade.

[Rynjin]

How did you manage to cheat your way out of it? I tried toybox, but it doesn't seem to function properly for the crusade.

I just cheated in A LOT of units into my army and started using it to smash the stuff in my way. The last straw was the forts, which you need to beat to get to certain parts of the map, and I had somewhere I reeeaaaally wanted to be early on in Act 3 but couldn't get to without passing through a couple of them.

[Starbuck_II]

Yeah, both of those things are things that annoyed me. Having the secret ending get locked behind seemingly arbitrary dialogue options (though as far as I am now, mid-act 3, they are a bit LESS arbitrary than they initially appear, so should probably be pretty easy to get on a second playthrough) is dumb, and the Crusade battles suck.

They're one of the several annoyances I cheated my way out of having to really deal with, alongside the inability to Take 10 or 20 when it would be prudent.

Oh, ghouls are the worse.
They can paralyze you for 1d3 turns each time they attack. It took forever for my footman, my archer, and cleric to win vs two ghouls and gargoyle.
This was on my secondary team I was leveling, (my primary go the free hell knights). He tried out ice bomb (it lowers speed so delayed gargoyle standing by archers, still happened the next turn because they can still fly really well but I got one extra turn; likely more useful for fire element enemies).

After I finally killed the ghouls (archer was doing all the damage to them since foot man was paralyzed holding them off and Cleric was soloing Gargoyle), the footman kept losing morale after so archer vs cleric whittling the guy down.

I lost way too much morale in Bug area (you slowly lose some while looting). I have a save before...I'm tempted to wait a couple turns to build up money to boost armies before going inside.