What Are You Playing 6: DLCs of Kevin Bacon

[NRSASD]

Playing Project Zomboid with friends. We’ve travelled half the map from Riverside to a small settlement just south of Louisville. We were fortifying the settlement but unfortunately we’ve run out of nails… and our truck loaded with welding supplies didn’t survive the journey. It got bogged down in West Point and absolutely swarmed by zombies, but miraculously the driver escaped on foot. Now we need to launch a recovery operation in the heart of infected territory, which is going to be… interesting. We have no guns and barely one car. Time to improvise!

{Scrubbed}

[Anteros]

Or in my experience with Soulsborne games you hit a hard wall where you can't get better because of your disability, and then remember that the developers are ableist. I've played every Dark Souls game and each is less accessible than the last one.

And yet everybody tells me 'level grinding is easy mode'. Good to know that it's as much hot air as I assumed.

Seriously, **** boss fights that force me to make 200 perfect dodges or lose half my health. The Gaping Dragon was the one time I felt like I experienced the intended difficulty level and it's apparently one of the wimp bosses. Dark Souls(/Elden Ring/Git Gud or whatever the next hand is called) needs some kind of accessibility options, even if it has to be taken into account within the matchmaking system.

For what it's worth, I believe you've said before that your reaction time is somewhere in the 300 ms range? You could absolutely beat Elden Ring. Especially if you went for a summon/mage build. There's no boss in this game that requires insanely fast twitch reflexes. It's all about memorizing their patterns. Usually you have a full second or two between the start of a move and the time you need to dodge. It's just a matter of actually recognizing the start of the moves rather than waiting for the boss to actually swing and reacting to that.

[Anonymouswizard]

Leveling makes the game easier but yes, at a certain point, if you are literally incapable of getting better at the game (which you have made it clear you are), no amount of leveling is going to make the game a cakewalk; nor should it.

It's just an argument I'm sick of hearing. 'Oh, just grind to make the game easier' is effectively saying 'we forgot to make the game properly accessible.

I agree. Thankfully, none of these exist (though Malenia comes close; good thing she's entirely optional).

While it's an exaggeration, 50-100 dodges and attacks eating a third of my life at is my experience with Dark Souls bosses. And unfortunately did me there is no leeway in the timing

You have often made valid complaints {Scrub the post, scrub the quote} about this game series.

This particular statement is {Scrub the post, scrub the quote} just objectively incorrect. Each game in the series has had more and more QoL features added to help people play the game at their pace. Elden Ring is by far the most accessible of the games, which is why it's outsold the previous games by a landslide; because the game has made things less obtuse and easier for people to get into, to the point that people that previously refused to touch the series or bounced off of previous games due to frustration have played and beaten it.

I wasn't talking about Elden Ring because the game's not accessible enough for me to drop money on. But still, each game until then moved more and more towards a specific playstyle, and one that only made it harder for those who struggle with timing to play it.

I don't buy that Elden Ring is really more accessible, in the same way that I don't buy that Undertale's combat makes it more accessible*. I suspect it comes down to apparently going back to the accessibility level of DD1 but doing a much better job of explaining itself, but I'm sure 95% of the people who got into Elden Ring but not DS3 could beat the latter game.

* I will admit that it likely would never have worked with standard JRPG.

I feel for you, that you seem to genuinely want to play these games and are unable to do so. That sucks.

{Scrub the post, scrub the quote}

I'm saying 'it's ****ty to find a game that basically perfectly meets your interests that you can't actually play'. It also says a lot that yes, the steel reinforced concrete wall comes a lot earlier every game for me. I'm talking from personal experience, which admittedly is not universal but is also not 'just talking out of my arse'.

Yes, there are issues with adding an Assist Mode style feature to Dark Souls that you don't have in sometime like Celeste, but they're not insurmountable. The simplest solutions are making AM players unable to use co-op and invasions (and tell them about this), or having separate AM and normal mode servers, and I'm sure a professional game developer can think of better ones.

Maybe I'm just tired of the toxic attitude towards any idea of accessibility features. Maybe if I could find a game that pulled off bleak (post-)apocalyptic fantasy that I could play I wouldn't care as much. I just don't get the viewpoint of excluding people from something you apparently like. Surely if you think something is great you want more people to experience the amazing.

Like, it's hard to describe how dyspraxia affects playing games, but I can have a DS boss's patterns down and still die because my hands don't always do what they're supposed to.

[factotum]

We have no guns and barely one car.

From what I've seen from Youtube videos of Project Zomboid, having a gun is the last thing you want--shooting one appears to attract every zombie inside half a mile, plus their entire family as well. You just don't have enough ammo to shoot all the trouble that'll be coming your way after shooting!

Maybe if I could find a game that pulled off bleak (post-)apocalyptic fantasy that I could play I wouldn't care as much.

Well, Elex is nominally SF but it has a lot of fantasy elements (e.g. you'll be hitting things with swords, axes and arrows a lot). Not as bleak as Dark Souls but might be worth your time having a look at it, especially if you've ever played and enjoyed any of the Gothic or Risen series.

[Anonymouswizard]

Well, Elex is nominally SF but it has a lot of fantasy elements (e.g. you'll be hitting things with swords, axes and arrows a lot). Not as bleak as Dark Souls but might be worth your time having a look at it, especially if you've ever played and enjoyed any of the Gothic or Risen series.

I played Risen 1 a bit years ago, would probably enjoy it more now. Unfortunately I played it at a time when I didn't have the patience to learn how to level up and gain skills properly back then.

But yeah, what I want more than the gameplay of Dark Souls (which isn't bad, but isn't inherently great) is that bleak 'late to the apocalypse' atmosphere. I've tried Salt & Sanctuary to see if the gameplay was much better and kind of bounced off the artstyle (I'm not a big fan of chibi), and found nothing else that really seems to manage it.

I've had ideas for what I'd do if I was making such a game, and they lean more in the 2D spectacle fighter direction. Actually did come up with an outline that used a similar premise to DS1 but I'm not really able to code right now (the world is dying and the great gods of old are dead, you have to reach and kill four remaining 'gods' and then descend into the *location* where you have the choice to let the world die or sustain it for a limited length of time). Had plans for something like four or five weapons and a rough outline of movesets.

[NRSASD]

From what I've seen from Youtube videos of Project Zomboid, having a gun is the last thing you want--shooting one appears to attract every zombie inside half a mile, plus their entire family as well. You just don't have enough ammo to shoot all the trouble that'll be coming your way after shooting

Hahaha that is absolutely true! WeÂ’re hoping to lure the zombies just outside of West Point using a police car weÂ’re going to repair, then try to reach our stranded vehicle and try to keep it clear long enough for me to repair it and get it out of there. ThereÂ’s no way the repairs are going to be quiet, hence the guns will be nice to keep it clear long enough for us to run away

[warty goblin]

I played Risen 1 a bit years ago, would probably enjoy it more now. Unfortunately I played it at a time when I didn't have the patience to learn how to level up and gain skills properly back then.

But yeah, what I want more than the gameplay of Dark Souls (which isn't bad, but isn't inherently great) is that bleak 'late to the apocalypse' atmosphere. I've tried Salt & Sanctuary to see if the gameplay was much better and kind of bounced off the artstyle (I'm not a big fan of chibi), and found nothing else that really seems to manage it.

I'd probably recommend Risen 3 over 1 (skip 2, it's janky even by Piranha Bytes standards and the best part is some fantastic profanity). But R3 has a bit of an apocalyptic vibe, and pirates plus apocalypse is a unique setup. The combat is also pretty solid, definitely doesn't require precise timing, and it comes from that long ago time before the stamina bar, when we didn't interrupt otherwise boring swordfights for the thrill of watching a dude pant while a green bar fills back up.

No I don't enjoy stamina bars, why do you ask.

If you're really just after creepy fantasy art and everything is going to crap vibes, I strongly recommend Othercide. It's turn based tactics, with a fairly interesting system, and does some cool stuff with the roguelite structure that fit in with the theme and story of the game. The art is fantastic, all hard blacks and phantasmal pale bone shades, cut with vivid red in these depictions of nightmare Victorian. Really top notch stuff, probably the strongest art direction of anything I've played in the last couple years. Just play on the easy mode, it's still hard as hell. The normal mode is obliteratingly hard.

Otherwise you could check out Mortal Shell, which is full Souls clone. But! it has this handy universal defense button where you temporarily turn yourself to stone. You can do this at any time, including on the middle of an attack, so you can in effect animation cancel out of an attack to deflect an enemy strike. Imagine, defending an attack in the middle of your own attack, it's almost like a fundamental concept of swordsmanship.

Actually its better than an animation cancel, because as soon as you revert to normal, you just continue your current animation. Queue strike, harden to take enemy strike, than paste them with your own hit. I don't know if that's enough to let you play and enjoy the game (no accessibility or difficulty options because it's a Soulsalike and basic features pretty much every other genre manages are just too much to ask of this precious genre), but it does make the timing a bit easier. Also it looks better than Elden Ring, and runs extremely basically flawlessly.

[Spore]

It's just an argument I'm sick of hearing. 'Oh, just grind to make the game easier' is effectively saying 'we forgot to make the game properly accessible.

Hear me out, please. Soulslike progression is effed if you loose too many souls to a mistake. Conversely if you plan a decent route through the game, it becomes so so much easier, which is impossible to do if you go in blind.

Most Dark Souls veterans will tell (or less "tell", more "show") you that after a certain loss of souls you're behind the curve, and if you are not far in, a reset might be smarter. And while your GEAR does not make your character, your WEAPON certainly does. Dark Souls has a level progression planned out, even if half of the games throw you into the world with little direction of where to go next. Some areas are planned with certain power in mind (be it weapon, HP/stamina bar, magic or weapon power). But you can tackle them in your personal preferred order.

I loved Dark Souls 3 for my first playthrough because there was little choice where to go next. Gear, skill and level progressed naturally so I was always faced with a bit steeper challenge than before. And DS 1 is too, if you keep to the intended early game path of Undead Burg > Smith > Bell Gargoyles > Forest > Sewers > Gaping Dragon > Blighttown > 2. Bell > Sen's Fortress > Anor Londo.

If you do however go to the graveyard and go spooky scary skeleton hunting like my friend with no idea how the mechanics work, and dive deeper, your progress will be absolutely effed. But back to my original point. Loosing souls does not only hurt progression, it does hurt fun in my eyes, too.

[Anteros]

Why would you ever reset instead of just grinding a bit if you feel behind?

[Lord Raziere]

Why would you ever reset instead of just grinding a bit if you feel behind?

Agreed, losing a lot of souls/runes (I still find myself referring to runes as souls when talking about them) can be frustrating, but you can always find a grinding spot to get it all back, you just have to find someplace with enemies you can reliably kill and are near the grace so that even if you screw up, soul/rune retrieval is easy and relatively safe. there is no reason to reset. and soulsborne games aren't really about saving up your currency anyways unless your grinding, you must have a "spend them as soon as possible" mentality so that at least you get something useful from losing them rather than nothing from losing them. like just spending your runes on levels is ignoring all the items, both weapon and consumable that you could use to get yourself an advantage.

[Cespenar]

I'd probably recommend Risen 3 over 1 (skip 2, it's janky even by Piranha Bytes standards and the best part is some fantastic profanity). But R3 has a bit of an apocalyptic vibe, and pirates plus apocalypse is a unique setup. The combat is also pretty solid, definitely doesn't require precise timing, and it comes from that long ago time before the stamina bar, when we didn't interrupt otherwise boring swordfights for the thrill of watching a dude pant while a green bar fills back up.

The Risens were a fun little jank in a limited game market back when, but I personally wouldn't return to them in this day and age.

Also, a bit too far off from the Souls vibe, in my eyes at least.

[GloatingSwine]

If you do however go to the graveyard and go spooky scary skeleton hunting like my friend with no idea how the mechanics work, and dive deeper, your progress will be absolutely effed. But back to my original point. Loosing souls does not only hurt progression, it does hurt fun in my eyes, too.

So here's a thing about losing souls. It feels like a big deal when it happens, but if you just play on normally then before long you'll get to a point where you realise that everything you've lost so far would only have been worth a couple of levels.

[Anonymouswizard]

If you're really just after creepy fantasy art and everything is going to crap vibes, I strongly recommend Othercide. It's turn based tactics, with a fairly interesting system, and does some cool stuff with the roguelite structure that fit in with the theme and story of the game. The art is fantastic, all hard blacks and phantasmal pale bone shades, cut with vivid red in these depictions of nightmare Victorian. Really top notch stuff, probably the strongest art direction of anything I've played in the last couple years. Just play on the easy mode, it's still hard as hell. The normal mode is obliteratingly hard.

I'll check it out after I've had my eye surgery, thanks.

And DS 1 is too, if you keep to the intended early game path of Undead Burg > Smith > Bell Gargoyles > Forest > Sewers > Gaping Dragon > Blighttown > 2. Bell > Sen's Fortress > Anor Londo.

I've done that, and hit two walls. The first was the Carpa(?) Demon, but after looking up strategies I realised he's mostly meant to teach you to use the environment and fight dirty. The second was after beating Ornstein & Smogh where there were four areas to go to but none felt particularly viable. But I suppose if I put three hundred deaths into it I could possibly have learnt one of the areas. It had just got to the point where I was making no progress towards the boss even with ten or so deaths, which as a significant jump compared to the earlier regions (except one particular section of Blighttown).

Then in DS2 everything was going fine until the intended path threw the Pursuer at me, and unfortunately death is significantly more punishing. Because of the limited number of human effigies I could find every failure felt much more costly, and after like two of my three I decided to drop it. At least in DS1 I could bash my head against a boss twenty times without losing any max health.

[Sermil]

Playing Hades (yes, yes, I know, a year behind the times). Got my mother back & am now getting the remaining quests and the "make sure Olympus doesn't declare war" stuff. Up to about heat level 4 or 5 on most weapons, except the sword which I hate. (I dodge much better when I have some distance.)

My main issue is that I'm almost always ending up on a particular build / keepsake pattern: Frostbitten Horn, get Crystal Beam, switch to Artemis arrow keepsake for Asphodel, get Artemis' Aid, and then try to get the Demeter / Artemis Crystal Clarity Duo. Get that and any crystal beam upgrades and any damage resistance I can find, and I can usually slaughter

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Hades

without using a single death defiance. By the end, I'm pretty much ignoring my weapon and just killing everything with Crystal Beam. The nice thing is that once I set up the Crystal Beams, I can just leave them and focus on dodging; I'm not good at dodging and attacking at the same time. (I'm not good at action games in general.)

But if I try to deviate from that pattern, I almost always end up dead. Sometime I can pull it out with the spear or Exagryph, but pretty rarely. I like the Artemis / Zeus Duo, but if I don't get the Duo, it doesn't work at all, whereas the Crystal Beams is still decent if I don't get the Duo.

So it's feeling a little stale.

[MCerberus]

Got the new console today. Xbox was kind enough to remind me that I own a digital copy of SSX for the 360.

Yes please. Inject the nostalgia STRAIGHT INTO MY VEINS

[Zevox]

DNF Duel beta has begun. Judging by how I lost track of time and stayed up later than I intended to, I'd say it's still a ton of fun; though it doesn't seem to have fixed the connectivity issues from the previous beta, and they sadly did not add a training mode option to the beta. I stuck mostly with my (likely) main, Inquisitor, whose crazy pressure with her fire bomb and giant wheel of fiery pain (which I am legitimately surprised did not get nerfed after the first beta) is just great. And also, she has the best DP ever, an upward axe swing that goes into a whole canned sequence of hits ending in a hard knockdown right in front of her. I did also try the new Ghost Blade though, and to my surprise, I was quite enjoying him. I'll have to play him some more over the weekend.

That brings me up to over half of the cast that I enjoy playing though... so yeah, I have no idea how I'm going to allocate the time I get with this game at this point. There's just too many cool things to do.

Playing Hades (yes, yes, I know, a year behind the times). Got my mother back & am now getting the remaining quests and the "make sure Olympus doesn't declare war" stuff. Up to about heat level 4 or 5 on most weapons, except the sword which I hate. (I dodge much better when I have some distance.)

My main issue is that I'm almost always ending up on a particular build / keepsake pattern: Frostbitten Horn, get Crystal Beam, switch to Artemis arrow keepsake for Asphodel, get Artemis' Aid, and then try to get the Demeter / Artemis Crystal Clarity Duo. Get that and any crystal beam upgrades and any damage resistance I can find, and I can usually slaughter

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Hades

without using a single death defiance. By the end, I'm pretty much ignoring my weapon and just killing everything with Crystal Beam. The nice thing is that once I set up the Crystal Beams, I can just leave them and focus on dodging; I'm not good at dodging and attacking at the same time. (I'm not good at action games in general.)

But if I try to deviate from that pattern, I almost always end up dead. Sometime I can pull it out with the spear or Exagryph, but pretty rarely. I like the Artemis / Zeus Duo, but if I don't get the Duo, it doesn't work at all, whereas the Crystal Beams is still decent if I don't get the Duo.

So it's feeling a little stale.

The cast-based builds (the Demeter/Artemis one you described, and Ares/Artemis with their duo boon) can be the easiest to win with, since once you've got the duo boons for them, they're just fire-and-forget, and you don't even really need to do anything else. But there's plenty of other strong builds out there. A few ideas for you:
- Any fast multi-hitting attack (fists or gun regular attack, bow special attack, shield of Zeus special attack) loves having the associated Zeus boon on it, since it gives a flat damage bonus, not a percentage, so it adds a lot more than on any other attack types. This alone can carry a run at times.
- Conversely, heavy single-hit attacks (most notably the Excalibur version of the sword, or the main attack of the bow) like high +% damage boons, like Aphrodite. Ares' Doom effect is also best on these, since it doesn't stack like other status effects.
- Ranged weapons can take good advantage of Poseidon's boons and their pushback effect, since they like not having enemies near them. I particularly liked this on the gun, since it ends up looking like you're fighting with a super-soaker. You do really want the upgrade that makes this inflict Rupture, though, since pushback is useless against bosses otherwise.
- Demeter's attack boons are almost always good on anything, due to the chill effect slowing enemies.
- Certain weapon variations can enable unusual builds. The Hera bow or Beowulf shield, for instance, absolutely love having Aphrodite's cast, which is otherwise normally one of the hardest casts to use to good effect.
- There's good synergy between Demeter and Dionysus' status effects, slowing foes and dealing damage-over-time. Both of those on a weapon that can apply enough of them can be pretty effective.
- Don't forget your Aid move! I often neglected it except against bosses, and sometimes it might be worth using against other things, if you're in a tough spot. Pretty much all of the Aid/super moves are strong, except, in my experience, Zeus'. It just has a tendency not to hit things you want it to hit for some reason. You should be aware that to make Dionysus' good though you shouldn't charge it up to full, only use a single segment at a time, since it can't stack more than 5 hangovers on a target at a time, so it'll waste a lot of them if you do the full charge version. Probably the strongest overall though, I think, is Ares', when properly upgraded with his boons that enhance Blade Rifts.
- Some Duo boons besides the "make the Demeter/Ares cast overpowered" ones to look at: Ares/Aphrodite, Ares/Dionysus, Dionysus/Artemis, Artemis/Poseidon, Dionysus/Demeter, Poseidon/Zeus.

[Eldan]

Finished Mass Effect, picked up Surviving Mars. After the first six or so colonies that imploded very quickly, I now feel that I have a handle on the mechanics for the most part and sort of know what I'm doing. The planet is doing very well terraforming-wise, there's now over 50% atmosphere, temperature and water, the first trees are coming along too. IT helps that on this colony, the game randomly turned the technology for a Mohole (super mine) at me, though it took me ages to get the resources together for it. Kind of solved all my resource and money problems.

Still, it's very enjoyable in that very stressful "oh my god I need to fix 27 problems this instant or everyone dies" kind of way.

Not sure if I should have bought the DLC. Neither asteroid mining nor underground building seem worth the effort.

[LibraryOgre]

I have never reached the point where I start terraforming Mars.

[NeoVid]

Just finished Psychonauts 2, and since I had recently played through the original game, the fact that Double Fine had 20 years of game development experience in between the two games was blindingly obvious. The first game had plenty of frustrating features, while I have a sole complaint about the sequel: the way it locks you into the Point of No Return for so long you can't backtrack for collectibles/side objectives until after completing the end boss. Why prevent the player from getting some of the upgrades until after there's no point in having them? Aside from that, Psychonauts 2 is fun and funny as hell, which was helped by the fact that I'd managed to stay unspoiled since the game released, so nearly all the mindscapes were a complete surprise.

And for what's supposed to be a humor game, the writing also went heavily into some damn serious subjects, as well as having a main plot that took me by surprise with its twists several times as I thought I was getting close to the big finish.

In an interesting coincidence, the last two games I've played through were both spotlighting characters with mental disorders, and I thought of something that left me wishing I had any image manipulation skills. I want to create a fake promo for a crossover game:

"The Psychonauts are about to face the greatest challenge in their organization's history..." [cuts to an image of the main character of Disco Elysium]

[Eldan]

I have never reached the point where I start terraforming Mars.

Huh. I started pretty immediately. I started planting lichen before I flew in my first colonists. I don't think my Red Mars fan brain would let me do anything else.

[LibraryOgre]

Huh. I started pretty immediately. I started planting lichen before I flew in my first colonists. I don't think my Red Mars fan brain would let me do anything else.

I didn't get the option to plant lichen.

I'm gonna have to go looking at this.

(It might also be a DLC option, since I don't have those)

[Eldan]

I didn't get the option to plant lichen.

I'm gonna have to go looking at this.

(It might also be a DLC option, since I don't have those)

Ah, yeah, it is. Terraforming is a DLC.

[Anonymouswizard]

Got bored enough of grinding to just start the endgame, even though I've only been doing about an hour a day.

Inquisition is by far the worst of the trilogy, and it's entirely due to the relative lack of story. The gameplay is mostly meh, combat's been dumbed down from II by forcing Mages into the nuker role and needing to hold down LMB to attack is horrible. What was wrong with 'click on enemy, click on new enemy when target is dead'? Character building has been simplified to 'pick one talent per level', and the added platforming and riding just feel janky.

The sad part is that the writing is solid and some of the character stories are good. I want to replay as a human mage after this to see Cullen's romance through to the very end and be on good terms with Cassandra and Vivienne, but I'd have to replay the boring grinding parts. There's too much focus on being Skyrim and not enough on being Dragon Age. The main plot feels about as detailed as a third of Origins, and there just don't seem to be as many meaty sidequests as in II.

[LibraryOgre]

Ah, yeah, it is. Terraforming is a DLC.

There is a certain irony in this confusion happening with this thread title.

[Razade]

Got bored enough of grinding to just start the endgame, even though I've only been doing about an hour a day.

Inquisition is by far the worst of the trilogy, and it's entirely due to the relative lack of story. The gameplay is mostly meh, combat's been dumbed down from II by forcing Mages into the nuker role and needing to hold down LMB to attack is horrible. What was wrong with 'click on enemy, click on new enemy when target is dead'? Character building has been simplified to 'pick one talent per level', and the added platforming and riding just feel janky.

The sad part is that the writing is solid and some of the character stories are good. I want to replay as a human mage after this to see Cullen's romance through to the very end and be on good terms with Cassandra and Vivienne, but I'd have to replay the boring grinding parts. There's too much focus on being Skyrim and not enough on being Dragon Age. The main plot feels about as detailed as a third of Origins, and there just don't seem to be as many meaty sidequests as in II.

They reworked the combat so it could be turned into PvE multiplayer. That's why healing got overhauled and why mages got so dumbed down. EA, after ME3's Multiplayer made them gangbuster money, put out a directive that all games had to have a multiplayer element with loot boxes.

[Cespenar]

They reworked the combat so it could be turned into PvE multiplayer. That's why healing got overhauled and why mages got so dumbed down. EA, after ME3's Multiplayer made them gangbuster money, put out a directive that all games had to have a multiplayer element with loot boxes.

That sounds pretty fitting. I didn't know that and it still had felt like I was playing a WoW knockoff.

[Razade]

EA's earned their negative reputation for being a ghoulish corpse farm for studios. Bioware is one of their larger corpses. All the issues in DA2 and Inquisition can be laid at their feet both in forcing talent from the company through corporate mismanagement and absurd deadlines. Dragon Age 2 was supposed to have four acts, one solely spent in the Deep Roads with a lot more lore for Red Lyium and a whole boss fight that had to get cut. The sole reason the Mages went Blood Mage in every story path is because they wrote a boss fight against Orsino if you went Templar but didn't have a boss fight for the Mage route and EA demanded an equal number of boss fights right before launch so there was no time to make a new one. There was a ton more dedicated to the serial killer plot, which would have taken up a good deal more of Act 1 but EA didn't trust players to remember all the details between Act 1, then a break in the Deep Roads, and then the political struggle against the Qunari. Instead of cutting it ,which would have reduced content, they kept it in as it was. Everyone knows about how the poor dev time led to the game only having like 10 maps to fight in, there was supposed to be triple the number with other areas outside the city. DA2 could have really been something.

Inquisition was originally planned to take on Skyrim's popularity and was intended to be just as open world with all its areas (which is why the first two are stupidly huge with barely anything in them) but Skyrim took 5 years with a few years of development and planning, so closer to 7. Inquisition too 3 years of actual work with 2 years of development for a total of 5. So it's no wonder it didn't come out looking like Skyrim. There was also some regime changes, which led them to decide against going full open world. I know less on the troubles Inquisition had because by the time I finished it I swore I'd never buy another Bioware or EA game but it had to be worse than DA2 considering how many big named people fled the company after it's release. With more fleeing even before Dragon Age 4's release, and the decade it's taken them to actually release it I'm not holding my breath that it will be any better and that's not even taking into account that Dragon Age 4's had two massive rewrites even before the new team they've put to it.

[factotum]

Got to chapter 2 in Elex. Level 26 now, and can actually kill some stuff at last, although there's still some ridiculously powerful mobs around--one of my companions wants me to do a quest where we have to take on a pair of Cyclops along with a few lesser mutants, and I noped out of that one after putting something like fifteen arrows into one of the Cyclops and not being able to see any change whatsoever in its health bar! The difficulty I have now is that my dexterity is 60, to upgrade my bow to do more damage requires it to be 70, and once an attribute passes 60 it takes 5 attribute points to increase it by 1--and when you consider you only get 10 points per level you can see the problem, especially when I don't even have high enough Constitution to wear decent armour (or the 19,000 monies needed to buy it, for that matter!). This game is really aggressively old school and I both sometimes love and sometimes hate that...

[Thomas Cardew]

So, I’m a little surprised no one made a dedicated thread for it but I’ve been playing Total War: Warhammer 3. I know several people have made comments about playing TW:WH2, but if anyone mentioned 3 I missed it. Given that the first major patch is coming out soon, I finally got around to writing this.

Bottom line up front: I wouldn’t really suggest buying this now if you haven’t already.

Spoilered for length and tiny gameplay/story spoilers.

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Just to cover the most obvious thing… the game is buggy. There’s a lot of bugs, a few CTDs, a few armies spawn in unreachable places in battles, and some ‘this-can-not-be-intended’ functioning AI. Everyone has their own tolerance level for this, make your own evaluation.

I’ve played through the prologue Kislev campaign, a Cathay campaign (campaign victory), and Tzeentch (domination victory). The prologue campaign is actually really well done and serves as a great introduction to how the series works. The story is mediocre, with heavy warcraft 3 vibes, which is notable only for the amusing symmetry of a Warhammer ripping off Blizzard after Blizzard ripped off Warhammer to make Warcraft. It is also much better than the story in the main campaign as it actually includes some characterization and development. The tutorial itself is the typical overbearing, you must move this unit here, this army here, and build this building, which while tedious for old players is great for anyone who’s first playing the game. It’s a shame so much of the best production value is hidden here. It may also give you an inflated sense of your units strengths because you can build stacking global bonus to your basic troops in every city but not your more elite ones. To the extent that you’re better off taking a full army of base Kossars than including any of higher tier set piece units.

On to the main game. Or well to the UI. There’s a lot of QoL changes that are very welcome, settlement trade, quick diplomacy options, the ability to salvage or fuse the junk items and followers you collect, a much more legible inventory management system, reinforcement icons show a timer and what units are coming, reinforcement location can be changed at the cost of time, lord/hero campaign map effects show when they change region, etc. These are great. Others are mediocre like unit highlighting, inactivity icons on the cards, and the ability to change unit HP color. Some are janky like the ability force flying units to land. This sounds and generally is great, but it’s extremely buggy with walls. I’ve had multiple flying units get stuck and not be able to take of on the wall. Others in my opinion are just bad. The UI is red. All red. All the time. Everything is Red. Gone are the nice art icons after conquering a city, have some red outlines. Constructing or deconstructing settlement buildings, both red. Technologies? All red. Lord skills? All red. Menu tabs? All red. The magic system is changed in ways I don’t appreciate. You have capped reserved at 100 winds, and a castable pool that fills at a rate determined by your casters and other modifiers. This makes it easier to cast several big spells quickly but results in much less magic overall in a way that makes the game less fun. Certain factions can get around this with a bug to get infinite magic, but that will presumably eventually be fixed. Also, the giant orb magic got replaced with a tiny hourglass that just makes it harder to read how much magic you have available. There’s other issues but I think that gives a pretty representative slice.

On to the main campaign. This is where cracks start to show. The main campaign mechanic is a race to capture a dying god’s soul, each faction wants it for different reasons which barely get mentioned outside of the first and last cutscene. That’s about all the ‘story’ there is. After 30 turns and every 25 turns after, the dying god rips open rifts to the chaos realms. These locations are preset and can be interacted with in 3 ways (1) by your main lord who can travel to any chaos realm, travel to any other rift, or fight a battle to close the rift, (2) by a secondary lord who can fight a battle to close the rift, (3) by an agent who will cost 1500 gold to close the rift. If the rifts are left open, they spread corruption VERY quickly, spawn enemy agents, then a weak enemy army, then a strong enemy army, and close after 15 turns. The chaos realms all have a unique gimmick to them that you have to push through before getting to a quest battle that lets you capture ¼ macguffins which you need to unlock the final quest battle. If the AI beats you in the race, you have to try to manually intercept them before they win the campaign. Spending turns in the realms gives your Lord a debuff (usually very punishing) that can only be removed by sitting in a major settlement. In theory, this all sounds great. You fight through the rifts and the realm, then come back rest and recover in main settlement, recruiting fresh forces and losing the debuff. It practice it just kinda sucks. It really encourages the player to just establish a minimal defensive perimeter and hold the line for 120 turns which is boring.

The AI doesn’t interact with portals and realms in the same way as you. It doesn’t get punished with debuffs. Your lord is typically on the frontiers of your Empire, which isn’t where your good recruitment buildings are. The better you are at the game the more punishing the mechanics are to deal with. You’ll have more lands which means more rifts to close in what should be the heart of your defended empire. You’ll take fewer/no casualties in the realms which just means punishing turns of doing nothing waiting for debuffs to clear or punishing turns of annoying debuffs until you finally happen to get removed by occupying major settlements. Anti-player bias means that enemy rift armies are more of a threat to you than any of the other AI factions. There’s a bones of a good system in here but the current one sucks. The upcoming patch fiddles with some numbers on this but doesn’t address core problems or make the system better, which is a major shame. You also can’t just ignore it, because the rifts always come and the AI is capable of straight up winning the campaign causing you to get a game over.

As for battles: they’re currently borked. Land battles happen less frequently, the majority of your fights are minor settlement battles which are their own thing now. Generally speaking land battle maps are mediocre. They tend to be small without a lot of room for calvary maneuvers, with tiny clumps of trees that annoyingly interrupt missile fire but don’t really provide enough cover for an ambush or major tactics, and weird elevation choices. The big flat empty desert maps for balanced MP fights are gone but these aren’t much better. Mass is currently broken, enemy units push through your lines like it’s nothing while your charges seem to do no damage and just send units flying to stand back up and get in line again. Units are incredibly unresponsive and require constant babysitting to follow orders. It’s impossible to dodge spells because your units literally don’t move for 3 seconds. Meanwhile the AI is incredible at dodging bombardment spells because its units get to react instantly. The stay in formation toggle is so bad that it turns winning 1v1 match ups into losses. The autoresolve is worse than it ever has been, it now scales with difficulty so you will always take more casualties on higher difficulties, there are so many stupid battles you have to manually fight. There’s videos of people looking at 50% autoresolve casualties and full unit losses, then fighting the battle manually by only forming a line and giving a single attack order which results in a win with under 5% casualties. This is beyond absurd and just tedious.

Settlement battles are new and consist of various victory points that have be held. The defender gets supplies to build towers and barricades at certain spots. Capturing points as the attacker reduces the supply gain rate for the defender and gives an army wide buff. Capture all the points as the attacker and win the battle. Or win through standard army losses mechanics. Siege battles work similarly but have massive outer walls, strong permanent outer towers, and you can win by capturing the central plaza alone as the attacker. This allows for a lot of cheese by tricking the AI into standing in one spot while capping points with 1 or 2 fast units. Or in defending by only hold 1-2 points and constantly bombarding the enemy with free towers you construct. Streets are very narrow and barely fit one unit. This benefits the AI since the player’s units are more likely to struggle with pathfinding and responsiveness issues. That said the AI really struggles with pathfinding and can bounce between points not capturing them.

The new factions are generally okay, but I miss the old ones. I was most excited for and enjoyed Cathay the most. The Cathay caravan system is the single best new mechanic in the game and I want it for every order trading faction. If someone makes a mod for that I will totally use it and this is coming from someone who never moded WH2 at all. Meanwhile the Kurgan mechanic is only fun as Cathay and horrible pain for everyone else. Kurgan warbands spawn north of Cathay endlessly. Cathay gets a Threat system and Great Bastion to hold them back. Keeping them down means the armies stay weak and manageable. If you aren’t Cathay or have eliminate Cathay, the armies spawn endless, every turn with minor ones, and a major invasion every third turn. It doesn’t matter if you eliminate the faction, the new armies will remember and hate you. You’re basically forced to keep 1-3 armies there to constantly trim the lawn. The new ally system and ability to gain a few units from other factions is pretty fun. Unfortunately allying with AI nerfs your new ally significantly and is counterproductive to just have a strong friendly neighbor. Some of the rosters are definitely showing their incompleteness. I don’t know enough about tabletop to say what units are missing etc, but a lot of factions just seem to have lack-lustre anti large right now which really shows given how many Large demons and Ogres there are and how much you fight both of those.

I bought the game because I could get for 20% off with the Ogre DLC for free in the first week of release and I know it will eventually be good. I can’t recommend anyone buy it right now at full price and not getting the early adopter ogre bonus. Wait for either the sandbox mode to come out, or a sale much later. Unless of course you really want to play as one of the new faction, but in that case you probably already bought it. Right now playing can feel like a chore, I’ll probably do a Khorne campaign next but I’m too busy to start one. Of course, the upcoming patch in a few days might change things as well.

[MCerberus]

TWW3 has the Destiny 2 problem: You take the completed product polished over years and the new one was made by a different set of devs that weren't on the team that polished the previous game to a mirror shine. It'll catch up, eventually. In the meantime, every fan should have known what to expect from a Total War launch.


My favorite is how in M2 some times the AI wouldn't make armies so you'd have roving stacks of 2-3 covering the map.