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  1. - Top - End - #631
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    Default Re: What Are you Playing 7: Deadly Sims

    I beat Fuga: Melodies of Steel, and ended up not crying, but only because I managed to pull off the best ending by not losing a single character over the course of the game. To put the difficulty of that in perspective, it's the sort of game where the boss theme sounds like this. The game did an amazing job of keeping me on edge about what sort of horrible things would happen to this group of innocent kids stuck in the middle of a major war, gotta say. I never once felt secure that there wasn't some sort of massive tragedy just around the corner, and if I hadn't played so well (and had RNG go my way at times) there certainly would have been.

    Early on, the game was kicking the crap out of me, but once I had a better idea what I was doing and more abilities unlocked, I found out Fuga has many ways to set up the most valuable strategy in a turn-based game: not letting the enemy get turns. Not always possible, but I like when a video game lets me apply the most important lesson I learned early in my TTRPG days. I'm definitely going to be playing the other games in the trilogy once they're out, and I'm interested enough in the setting that I'm looking into the other games in the same world... which led me to the discovery that this setting started with freakin' Tail Concerto, and is directly connected to Solatorobo. I carefully avoided spoilers about Fuga itself when I was playing, but learning about the other games in the setting gave me info on the world that would have left some aspects of Fuga as completely out-of-left-field surprises. The big one is that the setting's landscapes are levitating, something Fuga seemed to either expect you to know, or hit you with once it became plot relevant.

    But honestly, that's the closest thing I have to a complaint about the game. The game mechanics were well-balanced and fun once I stopped sucking, the story grabbed me, and the only hesitation I had was due to getting too attached to the characters. I'm not sure if I'll run a New Game+ since I don't know if I could handle doing worse just to see things turn out differently.
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  2. - Top - End - #632
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    Default Re: What Are you Playing 7: Deadly Sims

    Went back to my Tremere playthrough of Bloodlines, got up to the Sabbat Warehouse mission, and my god is Thaumaturgy amazing. Fortitude might be better than Blood Shield, but it also costs a lot more BP over the course of a map, and Blood Strike keeps the old Blood Pool topped up if you let it. Coupled with Blood Purge and a bit of the old slice and dice for tougher enemies and I left the map with just as much blood as when I entered.

    I have to admit though that the early game really isn't fair to firearms characters. You'll have two guns, but only one that you can actually buy ammunition for, meanwhile melee builds get a free knife in one of the required missions and can pick up a sweet short sword from an optional one. Going firearms in Santa Monica is like using only your fists or the tire iron for melee.

    So now it's onto Downtown, and trying to convince Strauss to let me into the Pyramid...
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    Quote Originally Posted by Zelphas View Post
    So here I am, trapped in my laboratory, trying to create a Mechabeast that's powerful enough to take down the howling horde outside my door, but also won't join them once it realizes what I've done...twentieth time's the charm, right?
    Quote Originally Posted by Lord Raziere View Post
    How about a Jovian Uplift stuck in a Case morph? it makes so little sense.

  3. - Top - End - #633
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    Default Re: What Are you Playing 7: Deadly Sims

    Quote Originally Posted by Anonymouswizard View Post
    The grinding isn't an issue, it's the need to restore MP. Which I've mitigated as much as possible, but it's not like I can just run into battles and spam Attack.
    One thing I tend to forget about is that you can negotiate with demons for macca, but when I don't forget I can rake in macca pretty easily with it. I also tend to not use a lot of items, so I sell them off pretty frequently, particularly early on to get past early game hell. (There's also the option of dipping the difficulty to easy and spamming attack in battles to build up a bank, but that feels a bit cheesy). On the upside, at least your macca isn't being drained every step you take while having demons in your party like in Soul Hackers 1 *shudder*

    The bosses do not pull their punches in this game though, only bosses I didn't have to fight multiple times were in the final stretch, but that's because I'd hit max level from side questing.
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    Quote Originally Posted by kpenguin View Post
    This is an image of Wookietank the Destroyer of Fortresses engraved in sandstone. Wookietank the Destroyer of Fortresses is leaving Trotknives. Trotknives is on fire and full of goblins. This image refers to the destruction of Trotknives in late winter of 109 by Wookietank the Destroyer of Fortresses.

  4. - Top - End - #634
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    Default Re: What Are you Playing 7: Deadly Sims

    Been farting around, avoiding Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous. Played through Quest for Glory 1-3, and most of 4, but then got to a place where I couldn't activate the conversation necessary to turn the vampire into a little girl, and got tired of it. Started to replay a little, going for a straight fighter (who would add skills as he went along... pick up Stealth when going to 2, learn Magic and Climbing from the Djinn, pick up Lock Picking going into 3, acrobatics going into 4), but got tired of it, so I picked up Heroine's Quest: Herald of Ragnarok... and am having a lot more fun than last time I tried it. I've gotten better at the combat (can usually beat a varg or bandit, at least, if I don't start too injured/tired), but am taking my time on Chapter 2.
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  5. - Top - End - #635
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    Default Re: What Are you Playing 7: Deadly Sims

    Bought this blast from the past for an incredibly low price last night: Dead Island.

    It’s a first person beat em up game where you butcher zombies in a luxury resorts in the South Pacific. The graphics seem, of course, dated. The game has bugs everywhere, just as it was on release. But they sure nailed the sound, look and feel of slicing/burning/hammering a zombie to a bloody sun soaked pulp.

  6. - Top - End - #636
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    Default Re: What Are you Playing 7: Deadly Sims

    The Sister of Battle DLC for Wargammer 40000: Inquistor: Martyr: Endless Subtitle dropped yesterday, so I messed around with that a bit.

    It's definitely more Martyr, or more accurately you can now play Martyr as a combat nun with a rocket space machine gun. This is awesome. Amen.

    One thing that struck me is Neocore did something cool with the combat in the game: Its actually fun. Not super deep or complicated tactically, but there's enough stuff going on that it doesn't merge into the numbers catatonia that a lot of Diablo type games do.
    Blood-red were his spurs i' the golden noon; wine-red was his velvet coat,
    When they shot him down on the highway,
    Down like a dog on the highway,
    And he lay in his blood on the highway, with the bunch of lace at his throat.


    Alfred Noyes, The Highwayman, 1906.

  7. - Top - End - #637
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    Default Re: What Are you Playing 7: Deadly Sims

    I might get the Sororita DLC for Inquisitor. At least in the early game the heavy flamer is pretty good, and if the Sisters of Battle like anything it's things being on fire in the name of the Emperor.

  8. - Top - End - #638
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    Default Re: What Are you Playing 7: Deadly Sims

    Quote Originally Posted by warty goblin View Post
    One thing that struck me is Neocore did something cool with the combat in the game: Its actually fun. Not super deep or complicated tactically, but there's enough stuff going on that it doesn't merge into the numbers catatonia that a lot of Diablo type games do.
    Is it even a diablolike if you don't have MS Excel up in the background?

  9. - Top - End - #639
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    Default Re: What Are you Playing 7: Deadly Sims

    I picked up Inquisitor yesterday after reading about it on this thread, going to try it out; I've been really wanting a game to play that doesn't take as much mental commitment (and spreadsheets) as the Paradox games, Satisfactory, or Factorio.
    ithilanor on Steam.

  10. - Top - End - #640
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    Default Re: What Are you Playing 7: Deadly Sims

    Quote Originally Posted by IthilanorStPete View Post
    I picked up Inquisitor yesterday after reading about it on this thread, going to try it out; I've been really wanting a game to play that doesn't take as much mental commitment (and spreadsheets) as the Paradox games, Satisfactory, or Factorio.
    Guess I'm playing Satisfactory and Factorio wrong then XD. Granted I'm usually dealing with a never ending string of shortages where I fix one and another occurs in something else, so there might be something to this spreadsheet business...
    Quote Originally Posted by Rockphed View Post
    Dwarf Fortress would like to have a word with you. The word is decorated with bands of microcline and meanaces with spikes of rose gold. On the word is an image of the word in cinnabar.
    Quote Originally Posted by kpenguin View Post
    This is an image of Wookietank the Destroyer of Fortresses engraved in sandstone. Wookietank the Destroyer of Fortresses is leaving Trotknives. Trotknives is on fire and full of goblins. This image refers to the destruction of Trotknives in late winter of 109 by Wookietank the Destroyer of Fortresses.

  11. - Top - End - #641
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    Default Re: What Are you Playing 7: Deadly Sims

    Quote Originally Posted by Wookieetank View Post
    Guess I'm playing Satisfactory and Factorio wrong then XD. Granted I'm usually dealing with a never ending string of shortages where I fix one and another occurs in something else, so there might be something to this spreadsheet business...
    I was half-joking about the spreadsheets part, though I do usually use pretty extensive notes, and I've used some online calculators for Factorio production ratios before. It's more the mental commitment/energy that matters; after a day of coding for work, I usually like to unwind with something a bit simpler.

    EDIT: I've also had the same experience of jumping between fixing different shortages/bottlenecks. In my longest-lasting Factorio game, that was somewhat smoothed out once I got a decent-sized main bus up and running, but usually it's a balance between proactive improvements and troubleshooting.
    Last edited by IthilanorStPete; 2022-12-01 at 12:34 PM.

  12. - Top - End - #642
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    Default Re: What Are you Playing 7: Deadly Sims

    Quote Originally Posted by IthilanorStPete View Post
    It's more the mental commitment/energy that matters; after a day of coding for work, I usually like to unwind with something a bit simpler.
    I get this, my simple method is: are my conveyor belts full? No = add more production of non-full belt items. Yes = expand base while looking for new resources/clearing out bugs.


    Quote Originally Posted by IthilanorStPete View Post
    EDIT: I've also had the same experience of jumping between fixing different shortages/bottlenecks. In my longest-lasting Factorio game, that was somewhat smoothed out once I got a decent-sized main bus up and running, but usually it's a balance between proactive improvements and troubleshooting.
    I have a love/hate relationship with MBs. They're straightforward, efficient and easy to plan around, but boy are they boring. Much as I'm a big fan of spaghetti factories, all my time in online games has me conditioned for MB as the way to go ><
    Last edited by Wookieetank; 2022-12-01 at 03:13 PM.
    Quote Originally Posted by Rockphed View Post
    Dwarf Fortress would like to have a word with you. The word is decorated with bands of microcline and meanaces with spikes of rose gold. On the word is an image of the word in cinnabar.
    Quote Originally Posted by kpenguin View Post
    This is an image of Wookietank the Destroyer of Fortresses engraved in sandstone. Wookietank the Destroyer of Fortresses is leaving Trotknives. Trotknives is on fire and full of goblins. This image refers to the destruction of Trotknives in late winter of 109 by Wookietank the Destroyer of Fortresses.

  13. - Top - End - #643
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    Default Re: What Are you Playing 7: Deadly Sims

    Recently, having embraced peaceful mode in Minecraft, I've been doing a lot of simple farming, then pumping my local farmers for some reason. Just nice and relaxing.

    The OTHER thing I'll do, since my local fletcher wants flint, is take 3-4 full stacks of gravel, turn them into a single stack 192-256 blocks high, and burn through a couple stone shovels getting to the ground, gathering flint as I go. I no doubt miss some things, but getting up to 256 blocks above village level is really kinda cool.
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  14. - Top - End - #644
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    Default Re: What Are you Playing 7: Deadly Sims

    Quote Originally Posted by IthilanorStPete View Post
    I picked up Inquisitor yesterday after reading about it on this thread, going to try it out; I've been really wanting a game to play that doesn't take as much mental commitment (and spreadsheets) as the Paradox games, Satisfactory, or Factorio.
    Inquisitor is a good time, though you have to have a certain tolerance for jank. It's not bad the game doesn't work jank, more like a lack of total smoothness, and a certain illegibility in some of the mechanics.

    What really works though is the basic combat. My murder-nun is mostly using a bolter, because this game gets bolters super right. Like all weapons, the bolter gets 4 skills:

    1) fairly slow rate of fire high accuracy/damage shots on LMB.

    2) full auto spray and pray on RMB. Less damage per shot, but very nice for target rich environments.

    3) aimed shot on 1. Pressing this pops up a little spinning wheel on the target, release at the right time to you shoot them in the head, torso etc. Headshotting heretics is great.

    4) full auto AoE grenade launcher, effectively. Just grinds hordes into salsa with a very enjoyable WHUMP WHUMP WHUMP sound.

    Truly a rocket machine gun for all seasons.

    If you go with a chainsword, you can just hold a button to continually saw a dude.
    Blood-red were his spurs i' the golden noon; wine-red was his velvet coat,
    When they shot him down on the highway,
    Down like a dog on the highway,
    And he lay in his blood on the highway, with the bunch of lace at his throat.


    Alfred Noyes, The Highwayman, 1906.

  15. - Top - End - #645
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    Default Re: What Are you Playing 7: Deadly Sims

    Stop it, you're making me want to pick up the DLC!

    Maybe next time it's on sale...
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    RIP Laser-Snail, may you live on in our hearts forever.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Zelphas View Post
    So here I am, trapped in my laboratory, trying to create a Mechabeast that's powerful enough to take down the howling horde outside my door, but also won't join them once it realizes what I've done...twentieth time's the charm, right?
    Quote Originally Posted by Lord Raziere View Post
    How about a Jovian Uplift stuck in a Case morph? it makes so little sense.

  16. - Top - End - #646
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    NecromancerGirl

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    Default Re: What Are you Playing 7: Deadly Sims

    Had picked up the first of the Atelier Ryza games on sale a long while back, finally got around to playing it once Azur Lane started its collaboration event to promote the third Atelier Ryza game. Pretty fun so far, but I'm still super early game. The alchemy mechanics are straightforward, once you learn what to read for effects, and the combat is quick, at least early game, finding a nice mix between controlling only one of the party, but being able to switch who you control at will. Having the resource you need to use skills tied to basic attacks means you cant just spam skills, but also never run out of it either, though resetting each battle is tricky, but getting the jump on foes gives you a starting pool. I spend way too much time just running around grabbing every rock and plant I can see, as the core of the game is built on turning those things into useful resources. Still no clue what the overall plot will be, as I'm still on the "small village girl learns alchemy" part, no sign yet of anything bigger. But my time playing it has been eaten by Pokemon. Having multiplayer has been super nice, so I have been playing through the game with my BF, and its a lot more fun having someone beside me helping look for stuff and making the raids so much quicker and easier. Trading our starters also added a nice flare to the game.

  17. - Top - End - #647
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    Default Re: What Are you Playing 7: Deadly Sims

    Well I caved, got the DLC, and rolled up a Sister Dominion. Because who needs melee combat when you can march in with bolter and flamer? Only played the first two missions so far, but...

    **** yeah, I have a sexy RP accent! It's also just great fun to use the Bolter, it has a big clip combined with full auto and grenade skills. It certainly mows through the basic enemies better than my Assassin's shotgun did. As to the flamer it's not as fun, but still incredibly useful when melee enemies try to swarm you. I'm currently putting my skill points into the Ranged Combat tree, but I'm sure I'll branch out to Acts of Faith and Warfare soon

    So yeah, the basic combat is really fun. It honestly helps that because skills are tied to weapons you don't have to go several levels to have more than two. Sure there's a bit of jank, and it suffers from trying to play a comedy setting straight. But it's fun.
    Snazzy avatar (now back! ) by Honest Tiefling.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Zelphas View Post
    So here I am, trapped in my laboratory, trying to create a Mechabeast that's powerful enough to take down the howling horde outside my door, but also won't join them once it realizes what I've done...twentieth time's the charm, right?
    Quote Originally Posted by Lord Raziere View Post
    How about a Jovian Uplift stuck in a Case morph? it makes so little sense.

  18. - Top - End - #648
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    OldWizardGuy

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    Default Re: What Are you Playing 7: Deadly Sims

    Recently got back into Master of Magic.

    I tried Caster of Magic, but I find it less an improvement and more an alteration of the formula to the point of feeling like a different game.

    Everyone on Realms Beyond have tons of strategies and all insist MoM is broken, but I'm finding it pretty tough to actually get any exploits in place. I got absolutely roflstomped by Tauron in my last game 25 urns in.

  19. - Top - End - #649
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    Quote Originally Posted by Anonymouswizard View Post

    So yeah, the basic combat is really fun. It honestly helps that because skills are tied to weapons you don't have to go several levels to have more than two. Sure there's a bit of jank, and it suffers from trying to play a comedy setting straight. But it's fun.
    Isnt half the fun of the setting that its ridiculously over-the-top nature is played dead serious, like any good satire?

  20. - Top - End - #650
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    Quote Originally Posted by Hagashager View Post
    Everyone on Realms Beyond have tons of strategies and all insist MoM is broken, but I'm finding it pretty tough to actually get any exploits in place. I got absolutely roflstomped by Tauron in my last game 25 urns in.
    The hardcore fan base for a game nearly always thinks its broken. At this point I more or less use "every member of the community has played like 5000+ hours and whines constantly about the game" as a decent litmus test for being the hardcore fan base.

    This would be one reason why I try to avoid being a fan of things.

    Quote Originally Posted by The Glyphstone View Post
    Isnt half the fun of the setting that its ridiculously over-the-top nature is played dead serious, like any good satire?
    I mean tongue clearly in cheek can absolutely work too, just see the (good) Saint's Row games. But it really wouldn't work for WH40k stuff in general, still least something as story minimal as a Diablo clone.

    Plus, I kinda like the air of slight menace and creepiness that Martyr manages to cultivate, particularly aboard the the titular ship. It isn't very creepy or menacing because you face-murder everything nasty you meet at a rate of like 5 dudes a second, but for what it is, it's relatively effective.
    Blood-red were his spurs i' the golden noon; wine-red was his velvet coat,
    When they shot him down on the highway,
    Down like a dog on the highway,
    And he lay in his blood on the highway, with the bunch of lace at his throat.


    Alfred Noyes, The Highwayman, 1906.

  21. - Top - End - #651
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    Default Re: What Are you Playing 7: Deadly Sims

    Quote Originally Posted by Hagashager View Post
    Recently got back into Master of Magic.

    I tried Caster of Magic, but I find it less an improvement and more an alteration of the formula to the point of feeling like a different game.

    Everyone on Realms Beyond have tons of strategies and all insist MoM is broken, but I'm finding it pretty tough to actually get any exploits in place. I got absolutely roflstomped by Tauron in my last game 25 urns in.
    There are some of the base modifications in Caster of Magic I prefer (advanced capital start, getting some starting settlers, and making the base move value 2 instead of 1 I consider all generally positive in reducing the tedium of the 'click end turn and wait' period of the start of the game .. although that last causes some issues in devaluing ranged units as well), but yeah, it has a distinct desired gameplay/style; the maintainer of the mod/defacto developer of it seems to believe that the game doesn't really start or isn't fun until you have full stacks of summoned units and/or end-tier recruited units sporting piles of unit buffs, and designed the mod to accelerate and encourage that state. It makes anything short of the halberdier tier of units effectively pointless, especially because the neutral lairs are almost all a lot more dangerous than base game so you -need- that pile of summoned stuff and/or much higher level units just to do the basic clearing.

    The Community Mod is a worthwhile in-between; has a lot of bugfixes for stuff that just flat out doesn't work as intended in the base game and a much lighter hand in balancing or adjusting some items that were pretty broadly agreed on to be either drastically over or under the power curve without completely adjusting the progression of the game.

    ..and yeah, the game is broken in sooooooo many ways, but there's a huge difference between early, mid, and late game exploits. Like one or two squads of Shadow Demons can cheese 80% of fights, but you still have to know how to keep the AI off your back long enough to research + summon them.

  22. - Top - End - #652
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    I just re-played Kena: Bridge of Spirits, because the new God of War kind of reminded me of it - very similar overall gameplay style, except that God of War's combat and puzzles are more fleshed out, while Kena has some light platforming elements that God of War doesn't. Which is not a connection I made at the time Kena came out, honestly. I'm just not used to thinking of God of War as an action-adventure of this sort rather than just an action series, even years after the 2018 game made that shift.

    Anyway, it's also a complement to Kena that while its combat isn't as strong as God of War's, it's not honestly that far off. There's a good variety of options for you, and a good amount of varied enemies (for such a short game, at least). Movement and attacking feels nice and snappy for the most part - although you can't cancel attacks, so they are committal. Light attacks are so fast that that almost doesn't matter though. Enemy designs are quite fun to engage with, including weak points, both obvious and not, on some that you can shoot with her bow to either deal significant damage and earn courage (her special move meter) or stun them. The boss fights in particular are really well done - I remember being surprised at how good they were the first time through, and I'm still very happy with them the second time through.

    They've also added a couple of things to the game (for free!) since I played it last year - alternate costumes for Kena, a new system of "charms" that can grant additional bonuses to her, and a set of challenges called Trials that unlock as she completes each area. All good stuff. The costumes are basically just the outfits that other characters in the game wear re-sized to fit Kena, plus a recolor of them that you unlock for completing all of the bonus objectives in the Trials, but still nice to have. The charms give some interesting new options, although they could have made it clearer that only one of them can be active at a time, I honestly thought each one that I unlocked was active until quite late in the game. And the Trials are pretty fun, with later ones (and even earlier combat ones) being genuinely challenging, and bonus objectives making them more interesting while offering some minor extra rewards (mostly cosmetics, but also some charms). Although the very last Trial is... oof. A fight with three of the late-game bosses - not all at once, but two at a time, with the third spawning in once you kill one of the first two. Each one of which is a not insignificant threat even if you've fought them before and know the basic method of beating them. Not sure if I'm going to beat that one, honestly. Took me quite a few tries just to down one of the first two, and the third one that spawns in when it happens is a summoner on top of his other abilities, so things get even harder once he shows up.

    Even if I don't do that though, I'm glad I revisited it. It's just a good, solid game, and of genre that we don't see too often anymore. Would be nice if God of War's success could help revitalize action-adventures of this sort, though I don't think I'm holding my breath on it.
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  23. - Top - End - #653
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    Default Re: What Are you Playing 7: Deadly Sims

    Finished the Lost Valley campaign of Solasta yesterday.

    Sadly, compared to the main campaign it was a let down. My issues:
    1. Map/level design: for me this was Solastas biggest strength. In Lost Valley however the locations are very horizontal, not very interesting to explore, too "mundane" in feel. This also bleeds into the encounter design:
    2. Combat encounter design: the quality of Solastas combat gameplay heavily depends on the quality of the design of the individual encounter. Most important aspects are the combat arena and then a fitting enemy composition. The main game did a pretty solid job on this. Lost Valley does not. As the level design is lacking so are the combat arenas. The enemy composition is often ill-fitting an boring. A heavy reliance of dumb melee enemies. A novel thing are the "Counterspell Wars" - I don't remember those to be a thing in the main game.
    3. General lack of writing and color: being an RPG the game has a setting, characters, plotlines, quests. The base setup is actually quite interesting. But everything is so underdeveloped in terms of writing and dialogue nothing really takes off. The whole thing comes of as goofy.
    4. The player parties memory loss to their own actions and general incompetence in execution of the "open" narrative: there are two locations on the map that the party had to "discover" multiple times, or uncovering information the party already has. In general the party is completely oblivious to everything that happens in a different questline. My guess is that the dev expected players to pick one faction early and than stick with it exclusively. I must have broken the games flags in the end as I only got three ending slides and all of them were wrong.
    5. Overall way too easy.


    In general there is lack of effort, care and competence permeating through the game.
    ... it may sound odd, but sometimes I got the feeling the Lost Valley was the product of machine learning.

    It's not all bad or mediocre. There are good parts here and there, and it's clear that in order to create the campaign some real work had to be done. It's a shame that this work is being dragged down by the lack of effort in other areas.

    I made use of two of the new classes of the latest DLC.
    The 5e Bard is pretty rubbish at being a bard, but otherwise a good and flexible spellcaster. The ability to pick spells from any list is pretty fun (one of my picks was Bless so that my bard could actually buff...).
    The Warlock turned out without of doubt to be my favorite class. If I ever get forced to play an actual game of 5e (at gunpoint, otherwise I don't see that happening), Warlock will definitely my pick.
    I also had a dragonborn paladin, but the dragonborn breath weapon is so incredibad that you pick the race (oh sorry, I meant ancestry... ) for the aesthetics not the ability.

    I had corona this week so playing a mediocre not too challenging game that still provided some entertainment during my waking hours was not the worst way to pass the time.

    I've pretty much recovered by now and are craving for something more serious, more immersive. But I have no game in mind that would suffice this need
    Last edited by Zombimode; 2022-12-03 at 06:03 AM.

  24. - Top - End - #654
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    Default Re: What Are you Playing 7: Deadly Sims

    Trying to figure out the best approach to dealing with the Ozma fight for FF9 (I completed the Friendly Monsters quest already)...

  25. - Top - End - #655
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    Default Re: What Are you Playing 7: Deadly Sims

    Quote Originally Posted by Cygnia View Post
    Trying to figure out the best approach to dealing with the Ozma fight for FF9 (I completed the Friendly Monsters quest already)...
    The easy answer is that there is no problem in FF9 that cannot be solved by applying Regen to your entire party and then selecting your moves solely by priority of whatever has the longest animation. Because Regen healing is applied in real-time but the effect duration is measured in turns, as long as your animations take long enough to complete you will fully heal all damage dealt by enemy attacks before they're able to launch another one, even Ozma. You'll also want to make sure that at most one character in your active party has a level divisible by 5, that at least one party member has a level divisible by 4, and that your physical attackers are immune to Blind and Mini and your magical attackers are immune to Confuse and Berserk. Stick Reflect on it once it hits half health (otherwise it'll heal itself for ludicrous sums) and you're pretty much good to go (if magic attacks are an important part of your strategy you'll need to have Reflect on at least one of your party members to bounce onto it. This is a good idea anyways, so shouldn't be considered a drawback. Never Reflect the entire party against Ozma, but having it active on one or two members will ease the pressure on you to fix status effects and do a small but steady stream of extra damage to Ozma from reflected spells).

    If the above is all set up correctly, your characters have 9999 HP and your damage output is reasonably high you should have no difficulty winning. Just use items or magic to cure debuffs and/or death as they come, queue up long animations and you're good. There's some other weird quirks to Ozma, like it being preferable to queue up all your characters' actions while it's in the middle of an attack animation, but you don't need to be flawless to win as long as your setup is good... Well, unless you get hideously unlucky. Auto-life is helpful to deal with bad luck, but Ozma is theoretically capable of one-shotting the entire party in back-to-back turns, guaranteeing a loss. The odds are a million to one against, if not worse, but I know at least one poor unfortunate soul it's happened to.

    Frankly, the FF7-9 superbosses are all kind of marked by similar issues, in that they're nearly impossible by playing 'properly' but easily trivialized if you know the minutiae of the game well enough (or, in the case of 7, have figured out how to abuse Counter materia to snap the entire game in half). Ozma is perhaps the worst of the lot, considering how many ways it breaks the established expectations of FF9 (Ozma is an input-reading, ATB-ignoring, clairvoyant cheater), but it's still easy if you do a bit of preparation before going in.
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  26. - Top - End - #656
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    Default Re: What Are you Playing 7: Deadly Sims

    Quote Originally Posted by The Glyphstone View Post
    Isnt half the fun of the setting that its ridiculously over-the-top nature is played dead serious, like any good satire?
    The thing is, Martyr so far doesn't feel that over the top. It's grim,and gritty, but it hasn't quite dived into the parts of the setting that are actually funny.

    Also, I'm struggling to find any weapons that leave me with free slots to equip Acts of Faith. Which are the entire point of playing a SoB. Maybe it was wrong to go with the ranged combat option at the beginning, but considering that the Bolter's aimed shot just isn't working for me I'd love to be able to switch out one of my weapon skills. (Although looking online, apparently equipping a censer will give me a slot?)
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    Quote Originally Posted by Zelphas View Post
    So here I am, trapped in my laboratory, trying to create a Mechabeast that's powerful enough to take down the howling horde outside my door, but also won't join them once it realizes what I've done...twentieth time's the charm, right?
    Quote Originally Posted by Lord Raziere View Post
    How about a Jovian Uplift stuck in a Case morph? it makes so little sense.

  27. - Top - End - #657
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    Default Re: What Are you Playing 7: Deadly Sims

    I played Martyr for a bit, but it didn't quite grab me. Playing on mouse and keyboard, the controls didn't feel great, felt a little too clunky to move around, fight, and use my skills. Added to that, its style of leveling/items adding a bunch of incremental small percentage increases isn't really up my alley.
    ithilanor on Steam.

  28. - Top - End - #658
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    Default Re: What Are you Playing 7: Deadly Sims

    Quote Originally Posted by IthilanorStPete View Post
    I played Martyr for a bit, but it didn't quite grab me. Playing on mouse and keyboard, the controls didn't feel great, felt a little too clunky to move around, fight, and use my skills. Added to that, its style of leveling/items adding a bunch of incremental small percentage increases isn't really up my alley.
    It's a very Diablo setup, which has sadly been ruined recently by live service grindathons. Honestly I could do without the equipment grind, but I can deal with shuffling my stuff every couple of missions if I have to. The worst part is having to sell a ton of junk after every mission, and that's mostly because there's rarely anything worth buying.

    It's true of a lot of RPGs, but the game would probably be better with less equipment slots and fewer loot drops. I'd honest rather just select two weapons and a set of armour before a mission, with levels unlocking more options. Sure, inopportune loot drops could make me switch weapons more than I would otherwise, but I don't think any of the choices are better than just using the highest level Bolter I've picked up. Sure the new SoB specific weapon types let me equip more Acts of Faith, and flamers and plasma guns have their uses, but bolters on full auto chew through crowds and big guys with ease. Plus they just feel statisfying, with their loud fire sounds and good stagger

    Also I've not played with mouse+keyboard, but it feels like the game was designed for a controller. Movement is completely find with analog sticks, and while targeting specific enemies is difficult with the relatively chaotic combat it's never felt important to. Kill whoever I can, stay as far out of melee range as possible, and keep an eye on my health, that's how the game seems to work.

    I was going to say the game felt a bit easy, but getting stuck into the story and turning the difficulty up to Hard solved that. Honestly my biggest complaint is that levels come quick but I still have no idea as to how to earn stat points.
    Snazzy avatar (now back! ) by Honest Tiefling.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Zelphas View Post
    So here I am, trapped in my laboratory, trying to create a Mechabeast that's powerful enough to take down the howling horde outside my door, but also won't join them once it realizes what I've done...twentieth time's the charm, right?
    Quote Originally Posted by Lord Raziere View Post
    How about a Jovian Uplift stuck in a Case morph? it makes so little sense.

  29. - Top - End - #659
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    Default Re: What Are you Playing 7: Deadly Sims

    Picked up Prey. That was a good choice, as far as I can tell (still effing around in the Lobby).

    Strong world design - as expected. Looks like Dishonored - as expected But that is a good thing.

    A strong art direction, attention to detail and a strong vision: this is what creates worlds. This is what Arkane is good at. And this is what I'm mostly searching for in games.


    Previously I had refrained from buying Prey because several reviewers kept mentioning the "endless respawning of enemies". In most cases I really dislike enemy respawn so I decided that Prey wasn't for me.

    Turns out I should be more critical when evaluating information from game reviews. There is no respawing of enemies in Prey. Some people are just unable to differentiate between respawing and new enemies appearing.

    So for people who wonder about that: in Prey if you kill an enemy it will stay dead. It will never return. New enemies might appear in the same general area. They do so independently whether or not the original enemy was killed. They do so on specific instances of story progression. That also means there is a fixed number of enemies in the game.

  30. - Top - End - #660
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    Default Re: What Are you Playing 7: Deadly Sims

    My sister got me the new wow expansion and time as an early birthday gift (yah, I know. but I'm not going to waste it).

    And early on I have never seen a story so at war with its own tone. It wants to be a melancholy thing, looking back at the lore and the last expansions with some sadness for what was lost. There's an old dragon who returning to his childhood home is overcome with grief for someone he had to kill. There's a dragonmaw orc near the end of his life that think's he's past forgiveness. You ask the guards of the pool where they house the black dragon eggs (there are no more black dragons*) why they're there and they answer 'hope'. The first NPC they give a personality to dies in a heroic sacrifice. They're going for a downer here. A low point you have to-

    Oh no they added the comedy bits, put the mechanic that's a direct reference to a book series at just the wrong moment, and the bad guy's a kaiju that screams and says the good guys have to suffer first. They were just reaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaal close to creating a starting point for a good mmo story, but then all the baggage of wow crept in.
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