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  1. - Top - End - #1471
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    Default Re: What Are You Playing 6: DLCs of Kevin Bacon

    Quote Originally Posted by Rynjin View Post
    RP accent?
    Received Pronunciation, basically proper English like what the Queen speaks bruv. Although I think they're using low RP instead of high RP, which means that while the voice could have an upper-class background it's also likely they just had speech therapy as a kid.

    If you think of an 'English' accent it's likely either Cockney, Yorkshire, or RP.
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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.

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    Default Re: What Are You Playing 6: DLCs of Kevin Bacon

    I started a new campaign in XCOM 2 yesterday, and while I'm enjoying the combat I'd forgotten how annoying it is to be constantly interrupted by stuff when you're trying to scan things on the strategic layer. If I could make one change to the game, I'd make time-sensitive missions only spawn when you finish scanning something.
    I made a webcomic, featuring absurdity, terrible art, and alleged morals.

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    Default Re: What Are You Playing 6: DLCs of Kevin Bacon

    I actually usually go for the joke voice in SR, like the toilet, or Nolan North as not Deadpool
    Ask me about our low price vacation plans in the Elemental Plane of Puppies and Pie
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  4. - Top - End - #1474
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    Default Re: What Are You Playing 6: DLCs of Kevin Bacon

    Finally got around to playing Pathfinder Wrath of the Righteous. The stat-inflation on enemies is simply ludicrous, even at Normal/Easy difficulty - ACs regular in mid-thirties to low forties at level 10, with similarly high attack stats. Most stuff can only be effectively killed with touch attack spells...

  5. - Top - End - #1475
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    Default Re: What Are You Playing 6: DLCs of Kevin Bacon

    Quote Originally Posted by Anonymouswizard View Post

    If you think of an 'English' accent it's likely either Cockney, Yorkshire, or RP.
    Or Estuary. That's what Scotsman David Tennant used when he played the Doctor.

  6. - Top - End - #1476
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    Default Re: What Are You Playing 6: DLCs of Kevin Bacon

    Quote Originally Posted by Razade View Post
    You said you've only done one each, so I for sure did. I also had several more chapters than you're going to get to get extra levels. But I was ahead by 2-3 even before Chapter 17. And 12 is the max, you just didn't go the Route that gives those battles.
    I see. And the most recent mock battle I unlocked actually let me deploy 12, interestingly enough, even though I've seen no story missions that do so. At this point, I've narrowed my characters of choice down to 12: the core 8 plus Maxwell, Narve, Julio, and Trish. That's caused me to have everyone at the recommended level for the last mission I did... after completing it, at least.

    Though I see I'll need to add one to that. I've hit what feels like it must be the last decision.
    Spoiler: Chapter 17
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    And it was an easy one. I'd wager you can guess, but I went with Frederica. Roland's way at least comes from a place of wanting to do the right thing, but it's a mistake, given all we know about Hyzante; meanwhile, Benedict's I can't even say that much for, as he seems to have just decided to embrace the dark side, and encourage me to be as ambitious and selfish as Aesfrost's leaders.

    I was surprised that Benedict was the one most opposed to me taking Frederica's path, though. It seemed like Roland's and hers were the two mutually exclusive options, so I was worried I'd lose him, while Benedict would at least accept my decision and continue to work with me. Though I'm happy it turned out this way instead, since I like Roland considerably more than Benedict.

    Oddly enough though, from how the options were described when I was trying to convince the swing votes, it seems like I'd have an easier time convincing people to Benedict's plan than Roland's, had I wanted to do something other than Frederica's. Haven't seen that before.

    Anyway, yeah, with no more Benedict in my squad, I'll bring back one of the others I dropped. Probably either Hossabara or Ezana.
    Last edited by Zevox; 2022-08-21 at 04:53 PM.
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  7. - Top - End - #1477
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    Default Re: What Are You Playing 6: DLCs of Kevin Bacon

    Quote Originally Posted by Zevox View Post
    I see. And the most recent mock battle I unlocked actually let me deploy 12, interestingly enough, even though I've seen no story missions that do so. At this point, I've narrowed my characters of choice down to 12: the core 8 plus Maxwell, Narve, Julio, and Trish. That's caused me to have everyone at the recommended level for the last mission I did... after completing it, at least.

    Though I see I'll need to add one to that. I've hit what feels like it must be the last decision.
    Spoiler: Chapter 17
    Show
    And it was an easy one. I'd wager you can guess, but I went with Frederica. Roland's way at least comes from a place of wanting to do the right thing, but it's a mistake, given all we know about Hyzante; meanwhile, Benedict's I can't even say that much for, as he seems to have just decided to embrace the dark side, and encourage me to be as ambitious and selfish as Aesfrost's leaders.

    I was surprised that Benedict was the one most opposed to me taking Frederica's path, though. It seemed like Roland's and hers were the two mutually exclusive options, so I was worried I'd lose him, while Benedict would at least accept my decision and continue to work with me. Though I'm happy it turned out this way instead, since I like Roland considerably more than Benedict.

    Oddly enough though, from how the options were described when I was trying to convince the swing votes, it seems like I'd have an easier time convincing people to Benedict's plan than Roland's, had I wanted to do something other than Frederica's. Haven't seen that before.

    Anyway, yeah, with no more Benedict in my squad, I'll bring back one of the others I dropped. Probably either Hossabara or Ezana.
    Yeah, that's weird considering

    Spoiler
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    And this isn't spoiler-y now that you're in end game. You can't have more than 600 Utility and Benedict is the Utility ending. You actually have very high Liberty to have got Maxwell so it's really really weird that you had a harder time there.


    I also had to Google Trish. I got the Golden Route on my first try, and you get the Hyzante dancer instead of the other options. I am on my second run, really need to get back to it.

    As you're at the end, and I won't spoil it for you, I will say...the world building is a little weird to me.

    Spoiler: mostly non-story stuff
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    The geography of the world is strange, especially since it was all one giant inland sea. We're told the land is a convenient which means they can't be the only nations. Why do we not hear about people beyond their boarders? To the East and North I get. Giant desert and mountains are a massive barrier to travel but the West and South...you'd think they'd have contact with the peoples living there. I get it doesn't do much for the story but it just seems...an oversight. Even if salt is insanely expensive because of the travel, that doesn't do anything to change the story. The story acting like there are just three countries and it's a shock that there are others outside their boundaries when the truth of the actual history is revealed is weird to me.

    It also really screws with the story in that...Aesfrost isn't really evil. Ambitious, yeah but who can blame them. It makes them right about the Hyzante. Hyzante isn't just evil, they're chess level masterminds who have basically used the knowledge of the true history to control the entire continent. They are, and have been, the big bad the entire time. Which is a little sad, it makes the wider political discussion about the three sides less engaging.


    Overall, I enjoyed Triangle Strategy. I wish I hadn't got the Golden Route on my first try because...I don't really want to do the other endings. It was a fun tactical game, I hope they do more with the system. I could happily drop money on a much larger, more ambitious story. Triangle Strategy never really stepped up to the plate in that it stays very grounded. Up until like...the last two chapters of the Golden Route. Then it's back to silly JRPG shenanigans.

  8. - Top - End - #1478
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    Default Re: What Are You Playing 6: DLCs of Kevin Bacon

    Quote Originally Posted by Anonymouswizard View Post
    Received Pronunciation, basically proper English like what the Queen speaks bruv. Although I think they're using low RP instead of high RP, which means that while the voice could have an upper-class background it's also likely they just had speech therapy as a kid.

    If you think of an 'English' accent it's likely either Cockney, Yorkshire, or RP.
    Ah, interesting. I've always just mentally thought of it as "the posh one". I had no idea it had an official name.
    Last edited by Rynjin; 2022-08-21 at 05:22 PM.

  9. - Top - End - #1479
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    Default Re: What Are You Playing 6: DLCs of Kevin Bacon

    Quote Originally Posted by The Glyphstone View Post
    Finally got around to playing Pathfinder Wrath of the Righteous. The stat-inflation on enemies is simply ludicrous, even at Normal/Easy difficulty - ACs regular in mid-thirties to low forties at level 10, with similarly high attack stats. Most stuff can only be effectively killed with touch attack spells...
    The game definitely expects you to run an optimized party. My first playthrough I made a "normal" group and definitely felt a lot of frustration with the design. Especially the inflated AC stats. On my second playthrough I made sure to actually optimize, and having 40+ AC on my own characters by the end of the tutorial definitely made things much more bearable. I'm tearing through fights that gave me a ton of difficulty on my first playthrough even though I'm playing on a harder difficulty.

    They do give you a magic weapon fairly early on that counters a lot of the AC bloat in the game. It's just a shame you only get the one.

    The game also fully expects you to use every buff you have access to. It's almost unplayable without a mod like Bubble buffs to streamline the buff process. I also use a few other quality of life mods like

    Combat Relief (makes random encounters avoidable. There's seriously thousands of them in this game, and they're not worth a loading screen every time.)
    Fast travel (to make out of combat move speed higher)
    Respec mod (I enjoy building my own characters rather than being confined to what the game gives me, although I do try to keep them within their own themes)
    Toybox (this mod has a ton of cheats which I don't use, but the game itself is so damn buggy that sometimes you need a way to teleport a character or spawn an item that didn't spawn when it was supposed to or something like that)

    I also play with rest heals debuffs enabled, but that's just my personal preference. I find casting restoration constantly otherwise incredibly tedious.
    Last edited by Anteros; 2022-08-21 at 07:51 PM.

  10. - Top - End - #1480
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    Default Re: What Are You Playing 6: DLCs of Kevin Bacon

    I'll probably look into Respec; I'd like to make some of my NPC companions a bit more effective at their intended roles - for example, Nenio should be a Loremaster for certain, and being an illusionist doesn't make sense. She should be an Enchanter if she has a specialist school at all.

  11. - Top - End - #1481
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    Default Re: What Are You Playing 6: DLCs of Kevin Bacon

    Quote Originally Posted by The Glyphstone View Post
    I'll probably look into Respec; I'd like to make some of my NPC companions a bit more effective at their intended roles - for example, Nenio should be a Loremaster for certain, and being an illusionist doesn't make sense. She should be an Enchanter if she has a specialist school at all.
    I really can't recommend bubble buffs enough. It's easy to use and even keeps track of your spell slots so it's not cheaty. In the late game you're literally casting dozens of buffs every time you rest or a character dies. It makes it so much more bearable.

  12. - Top - End - #1482
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    Default Re: What Are You Playing 6: DLCs of Kevin Bacon

    Quote Originally Posted by Anonymouswizard View Post
    Guess it's the DLC next on my list, but I'm not sure how it'll live up to that. Even if I did get a bug where Zinyak's head stayed on my Boss's hand throughout the entire ending.
    Saint's Row 4 is the only sandbox game I've ever really enjoyed, and How the Saints Saved Christmas is one of my favorite DLC storylines ever. The other DLC I don't really remember any longer, which tells you how much of an impression the different DLCs made on me.
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    Default Re: What Are You Playing 6: DLCs of Kevin Bacon

    Quote Originally Posted by The Glyphstone View Post
    I'll probably look into Respec; I'd like to make some of my NPC companions a bit more effective at their intended roles - for example, Nenio should be a Loremaster for certain, and being an illusionist doesn't make sense. She should be an Enchanter if she has a specialist school at all.
    Nenio as illusionist can wreck almost all random encounters solo with Phantasmal killer/Weird in late game, and does excellently with shadow spells as well. Early game.... Yeah.

    And the Bubble Buff is practically required if you don't want 30% of your playtime being buffing as the game progresses. It's really annoying.

    The worst part about the stat inflation in WotR is that unlike Kingmaker, it doesn't even make sense half the time and is just inflation for the sake of inflation: enemies like the late-game Vavakia vanguard have better stats than Demon Lords in the PnP, and they're part of various random encounters at that point. Kingmaker required some optimization, but if your frontline had 50 ac by end of game you'd definitely be able to manage. WotR, you almost have to get at 70+ to get anywhere on "normal". Same with Spell penetration.

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    Quote Originally Posted by InvisibleBison View Post
    I started a new campaign in XCOM 2 yesterday, and while I'm enjoying the combat I'd forgotten how annoying it is to be constantly interrupted by stuff when you're trying to scan things on the strategic layer.
    Yeah, that’s clunky. I’d settle for it keeping track of what I was doing before I detoured to save the Resistance and going back to doing that afterwards. Though letting me queue up whatever I want to follow like the Proving Ground would be great too, the game has been kind of inconsistent on being able to do that.

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    Default Re: What Are You Playing 6: DLCs of Kevin Bacon

    Quote Originally Posted by Taevyr View Post
    Nenio as illusionist can wreck almost all random encounters solo with Phantasmal killer/Weird in late game, and does excellently with shadow spells as well. Early game.... Yeah.

    And the Bubble Buff is practically required if you don't want 30% of your playtime being buffing as the game progresses. It's really annoying.

    The worst part about the stat inflation in WotR is that unlike Kingmaker, it doesn't even make sense half the time and is just inflation for the sake of inflation: enemies like the late-game Vavakia vanguard have better stats than Demon Lords in the PnP, and they're part of various random encounters at that point. Kingmaker required some optimization, but if your frontline had 50 ac by end of game you'd definitely be able to manage. WotR, you almost have to get at 70+ to get anywhere on "normal". Same with Spell penetration.
    I actually made Nen focus on Conjugation, simply because Pit spells don't get blocked by the spell resistance 90% of enemies sport in spades. Considering that their saves are also so high that they avoid everything on a 2+ despite her pumping Int, I'm baffled as to how Phantasmal Killer does anything useful at all, let alone Weird at high levels.

    Bubble buffs does actually look good. My primary is an Oradin Angel with Greater Enduring Spells, so throwing 24 hour buffs across the party is a big help.
    Last edited by The Glyphstone; 2022-08-22 at 07:17 AM.

  16. - Top - End - #1486
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    Default Re: What Are You Playing 6: DLCs of Kevin Bacon

    Quote Originally Posted by Taevyr View Post
    The worst part about the stat inflation in WotR is that unlike Kingmaker, it doesn't even make sense half the time and is just inflation for the sake of inflation: enemies like the late-game Vavakia vanguard have better stats than Demon Lords in the PnP, and they're part of various random encounters at that point. Kingmaker required some optimization, but if your frontline had 50 ac by end of game you'd definitely be able to manage. WotR, you almost have to get at 70+ to get anywhere on "normal". Same with Spell penetration.
    They seem to follow the strategy of "when in doubt, slap on some player classes on top of monsters and call it a day".

  17. - Top - End - #1487
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    Quote Originally Posted by NeoVid View Post
    Saint's Row 4 is the only sandbox game I've ever really enjoyed, and How the Saints Saved Christmas is one of my favorite DLC storylines ever. The other DLC I don't really remember any longer, which tells you how much of an impression the different DLCs made on me.
    I'm not a big fan of sandboxes, but SR4 managed to get me to do most of the activities. I can accept a flimsy reason, but I need a reason.

    And yeah, Enter the Dominatrix is very eh. It's too meta, it really needs an actual story instead of just the implication of one. I'm hoping the Christmas DLC is as good as you say, but I might go back to SR2 for a bit.
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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 - #1488
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    Default Re: What Are You Playing 6: DLCs of Kevin Bacon

    I thought about getting saints row 2 off of Gog, but I have heard that the pc port has some issues. Unless that has been fixed.

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    Default Re: What Are You Playing 6: DLCs of Kevin Bacon

    Quote Originally Posted by WritersBlock View Post
    I thought about getting saints row 2 off of Gog, but I have heard that the pc port has some issues. Unless that has been fixed.
    There's mods that fix the major issues, notably the simulation speed being tied to your CPU speed. Unmodded SR2 runs stupidly fast on my laptop, let alone my desktop. So still not fixed, but it's worth doing so yourself.

    But I feel no need to play unmodded SR2 and if I did I'd plug the Xbox in again and play it on that (which I'd do to play SR1, but the lack of checkpoints makes it much more difficult). I got it on PC mainly so I could mod a bajillion extra clothing items into it,so I've installed Gentlemen of the Row without any of the extra weapons or big gameplay changes.
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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.

  20. - Top - End - #1490
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    Default Re: What Are You Playing 6: DLCs of Kevin Bacon

    I was planning to try getting back into Path of Exile; and I did enjoy the tail end of sentinel league; but this new one they screwed up SOOOOO bad on launch. People have sometimes faced super tough bosses that take 15 mins to kill, and don't even drop a single rare or currency item or anything. There's a long list of complaints; and it's pretty clear they failed to test things much at all; and they completely shredded the loot drops. They also don't seem to be taking the complaints seriously enough; with lots of poor communication by the developer.

    They really need to stop this recent pattern of screwing up releases. It makes me feel quite glad I choose to not play at league start and wait a couple weeks.


    PS it's 50, we really do need to be picking a name for next thread.
    Last edited by zlefin; 2022-08-22 at 02:02 PM.
    A neat custom class for 3.5 system
    http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=94616

    A good set of benchmarks for PF/3.5
    https://rpgwillikers.wordpress.com/2...y-the-numbers/

    An alternate craft point system I made for 3.5
    http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...t-Point-system

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    Default Re: What Are You Playing 6: DLCs of Kevin Bacon

    Quote Originally Posted by The Glyphstone View Post
    I actually made Nen focus on Conjugation, simply because Pit spells don't get blocked by the spell resistance 90% of enemies sport in spades. Considering that their saves are also so high that they avoid everything on a 2+ despite her pumping Int, I'm baffled as to how Phantasmal Killer does anything useful at all, let alone Weird at high levels.

    Bubble buffs does actually look good. My primary is an Oradin Angel with Greater Enduring Spells, so throwing 24 hour buffs across the party is a big help.
    Yeah, it definitely makes enduring spells less valuable. Spell penetration isn't much of an issue past the early game, but it does require you to focus on the spell penetration feats and mythics instead of other things you might want.

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    Default Re: What Are You Playing 6: DLCs of Kevin Bacon

    Quote Originally Posted by The Glyphstone View Post
    I actually made Nen focus on Conjugation, simply because Pit spells don't get blocked by the spell resistance 90% of enemies sport in spades. Considering that their saves are also so high that they avoid everything on a 2+ despite her pumping Int, I'm baffled as to how Phantasmal Killer does anything useful at all, let alone Weird at high levels.
    If you build her entirely around illusions and shadow spells, it works; problem is, it takes the entire game to get there, considering the metamagic, feats and other stuff that goes into launching the DC into the stratosphere. But if the game cheeses its enemies, I can do the same.

    And succesfully pulling off Weird against a Demon Lord is amazing, truly.
    Spoiler: Specifics on the demon lord
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    Particularly considering it was two of Areshkagal's elemental copies she blasted



    Meanwhile, I've been playing "Pokémon Reborn", a romhack that's pretty damn good, if rather edgy at times. Has also been kicking my ass as I get further in, but that's part of the fun. Haven't felt such gratification at beating gyms and rivals since years ago.
    Last edited by Taevyr; 2022-08-22 at 02:12 PM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Taevyr View Post
    Meanwhile, I've been playing "Pokémon Reborn", a romhack that's pretty damn good, if rather edgy at times. Has also been kicking my ass as I get further in, but that's part of the fun. Haven't felt such gratification at beating gyms and rivals since years ago.
    It feels like EVERY Pokemon romhack is needlessly edgy, eg. Pokemon Uranium.

    In semi-related news, I've been co-oping through a Randomizer run of Elden Ring with some friends. Nothing TOO crazy but even a randomizer on the "lowest settings" gets some gut busting laughs every now and then.

    Highlights include:

    -Soldier of Godrick (the tutorial boss) being replaced by the ifnamous Crucible Knight duo, now dubbed by the game "Crucible Knights of Godrick".
    -A Rotted Undulating Tree Spirit guarding the giant-pulled caravan in Limgrave.
    -A random ballista chad in the middle of Lake Agheel that sniped my friend the first time we visited.
    -RED WOLF, THE FELL OMEN
    -Screams of fear as we realized that the randomly placed "Unseen Assassins" note I found earlier was no mere bluff, as an invisible Black Knife Assassin assailed us in the Frenzied Village outskirts. Panic ensues.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Rynjin View Post
    It feels like EVERY Pokemon romhack is needlessly edgy, eg. Pokemon Uranium.
    oh there is a lot of non-edgy ones. they're just not very interesting, because they tend to mostly just be tune ups of old games to be these challenge runs, not completed, or are some weird mechanical idea that doesn't really alter a story at all like pokemon fusion ones, or are just "Pokemon+" where they just have a lot of features.

    like the thing is with pokemon storytelling for fans is that there is not a lot of places to go other than edgy, because chances are either the games or the anime has already covered every possible iteration of a non-edgy story you can think of. eight generations, side games, and like thousand+ pokemon episodes kinda does that. and even then, pokemon has done edgy with pokemon colosseum.

    this tendency is not limited to fan games, as pokemon fanfics tend to either fall into romance or edgy, as either the pokemon world is just treated as a backdrop to that romance or all horrifying implications of the pokemon setting are explored simply by looking at things logically rather than taking them non-seriously. Ashes of the Past, while a great fic that depicts Ash as heroic and setting as optimistic is still a little darker than canon simply because it delves into things like "wait how much force does it actually take to turn a meteor away from Earth and how do we breath air while we do it?" and bringing combining a lot of science with the use of pokemon powers. an exception I guess is a youtube channel that does voiceovers for this comic about Mewtwo and Mew moving in with Ash, which has more of a Stephen Universe kind of feel, being funny sometimes, and sad other times.

    But! I'm getting off-topic. Pokemon Xenoverse is not edgy from what I've played of it so far, as well Pokemon Fusion generation and Pokemon Infinite Fusions though they're both just firered hacks with fusion mechanics, Pokemon Mega Adventure isn't edgy, Pokemon Fireash is for if you want to be crazy like me and play out all seven regions of Ash's pokemon journey from Kanto all the way to Alola, which I have completed, it plays weird because you keep your high level pokemon from Kanto and can just steamroll from then on probably- in fact I'd recommend doing that for Johto because Team Rocket will still show up here and there with their old high level pokemon in that region, and if you start completely over with low level pokemon, their level 42 Arbok and such will destroy you. there is tons of pokemon romhacks and fangames if you know where to look.
    I'm also on discord as "raziere".


  25. - Top - End - #1495
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    Alright, just finished up my first time through Triangle Strategy.

    Gameplay-wise, it's really good. I like what they do with special effects from each of the elemental spells: ice magic freezes terrain and makes it cost more movement to cross; fire magic can set grassy/oily spaces or wooden barriers ablaze, making those spaces do a little damage when characters pass through them, and more significant damage if they start their turn in them (and can melt icy spaces, turning them into watery ones); wind changes the facing of enemies you use it, making it easier to strike from behind for free crits; and lightning carries along water or metallic spaces that are linked to the initial target space, turning from a single-target bolt into a big AoE. On top of that, the follow-up attacks for flanking and aforementioned free crits for attacking from behind is a nice way to make positioning and facing of units significant. There's lots of little interesting mechanics with specific abilities, too, like ones that trigger only after a mounted unit travels a certain number of spaces in a turn, or abilities that let you move further at the cost of TP (the points you spend to do all special moves) but also grant an additional action, so they don't lock you out of attacking that turn. Just generally the game is doing good stuff with tactical RPG gameplay, and I have nothing but good things to say there.

    Story-wise...
    Spoiler: Morality Ending Spoilers
    Show
    Well, I should've seen that coming. This game's setting is so bleak, of course they had to kill Serenoa in the one (non-Golden) ending where he doesn't side with one of the villains. Still, no regrets, this was clearly the best choice for an ending that isn't the Golden one. Aesfrost and Hyzant would both be awful to have controlling all of Norzelia, which are basically the other options, so at least this way the Roselle and House Wolffort get out before the continent tears itself apart. Not that it wasn't doing that already, really.

    At the end of the day, yeah, initial impressions that the game's plot was more interesting than its characters hold. Some of the characters have real depth to them, like Roland, but for the most part, you've got mustache-twirling villains, and your House/party is mostly straightforwardly good and well-meaning people, but are simply unable to do enough to overcome literally everyone in power in the other nations being evil bastards whose sole interest is in ruling all of Norzelia (again, at least barring the Golden ending). Despite the fairly shallow characters, the overall plot remains pretty compelling throughout, as I did want to see these characters find some way out of the hell they found themselves in, and find some way to better this crapsack of a world. But results seem as if they're always going to be limited at best - again, barring this Golden ending I haven't seen.

    I know I saw someone say that the game felt like it was inspired by Fire Emblem: Three Houses earlier, but I have to say, I don't see that at all. The two are both strategy RPGs involving three countries at the center of their stories... and that's about where the similarities end. Three Houses is a complex story that goes out of its way to make everyone (barring the Slitherers) sympathetic, creating conflicts through clashing viewpoints, ideals, and assessments of what is best for the characters' nations and continent as a whole. Triangle Strategy is a much simpler story of a continent consumed by power-hungry rulers who don't care who they hurt or how badly so long as they eventually get to control, directly or indirectly, the entire land for themselves, and one family's struggle to find a way to even survive, much less better the world around them, as all of that is going on. Three Houses emphasizes building up and customizing characters, casting the lead character as a teacher for them; Triangle strategy instead individualizes all of the characters' abilities, so while they get stronger, it's always in the one preset way. In Three Houses, the focus is on making you care about the people involved in the story, while the only choice you get to affect that story is made at the start of the game (except in one route, which gets one additional branching choice in the mid-game); in Triangle Strategy, it's on making you care about the plot itself, particularly by giving you regular input on how it will play out through the Scales of Conviction. Barring genre and the three nations thing, they're almost opposites in a lot of respects.

    Non-spoiler version: plot's good, characters are mostly shallow, but do their jobs well enough. The game's setting is pretty bleak, though.

    Quote Originally Posted by Razade View Post
    As you're at the end, and I won't spoil it for you, I will say...the world building is a little weird to me.

    Spoiler: mostly non-story stuff
    Show
    The geography of the world is strange, especially since it was all one giant inland sea. We're told the land is a convenient which means they can't be the only nations. Why do we not hear about people beyond their boarders? To the East and North I get. Giant desert and mountains are a massive barrier to travel but the West and South...you'd think they'd have contact with the peoples living there. I get it doesn't do much for the story but it just seems...an oversight. Even if salt is insanely expensive because of the travel, that doesn't do anything to change the story. The story acting like there are just three countries and it's a shock that there are others outside their boundaries when the truth of the actual history is revealed is weird to me.

    It also really screws with the story in that...Aesfrost isn't really evil. Ambitious, yeah but who can blame them. It makes them right about the Hyzante. Hyzante isn't just evil, they're chess level masterminds who have basically used the knowledge of the true history to control the entire continent. They are, and have been, the big bad the entire time. Which is a little sad, it makes the wider political discussion about the three sides less engaging.
    Spoiler
    Show
    Eh, the geography of the world is clearly not thought entirely through, that's true, but it doesn't hurt things too much. From Frederica's ending it's implied that the lands immediately south of the Great Falls are barren, and Idore (who chases you to the falls for the final battle) says that no one who has ever gone that way has ever returned. Though of course you do eventually reach Centralia in that ending, so across those barren lands is someplace more worth getting to, so perhaps anyone who did end up surviving the trek just never wanted to return. I couldn't blame them. As far as the west goes though, yeah, no word, and no idea why.

    And I cannot agree about Aesfrost. From every scene we see with them plotting, it's clear that most everyone in charge there is just as evil as Hyzante. The moment they see an opportunity, they're out to conquer the entire continent outright. The fact that they're right to consider Hyzante tyrants doesn't change that they're just as evil and power-hungry themselves.

    I made this comparison with Aesfrost specifically a while back, but having seen at least one complete version of the story, it really does remind me of a Shin Megami Tensei game in how it presents its factions. Aesfrost is Chaos - they believe in "freedom," but in the sense that they're basically ruled by the principle of Might Makes Right (hell, one of them even basically says as much in a late-game scene, remarking about how the Grand Duke's idea of freedom is that the strong are free to trample the weak). Whoever has the power, whether political or personal, can do as they please, and everyone else can try to become powerful, and just hope they don't get killed at the whims of the powerful before they can. Meanwhile, Hyzant is Law - a dictatorship hidden beneath a false religion, creating a rigidly structured society where there's a place for everything, and everything in its place, but no one can ever budge from their proscribed place. And if your proscribed place is slave, well, sucks to be you, but we're going to brainwash you into thinking this is not only necessary, but just. Both are awful extremes of the ideals they embody, equally unappealing for entirely different reasons, so the only way to get a decent ending is to seek a third path. In SMT, that's the neutral endings; in Triangle Strategy, it's Frederica's or the Golden Route. Though they certainly do their damnedest to try and avoid letting Frederica's ending feel like a good one either, between Serenoa's death, the continent descending into multiple bloody civil wars behind you after you leave, and Benedict becoming a tool of Aesfrost's Grand Duke in exchange for the Wolffort demesne.


    Quote Originally Posted by Razade View Post
    Overall, I enjoyed Triangle Strategy. I wish I hadn't got the Golden Route on my first try because...I don't really want to do the other endings.
    I kind of get the feeling. Both of the non-Golden endings I haven't seen feel unappealing. Still, I'm curious enough to kind of want to go through the game again until I've seen them all, and I do have a couple of months until the next new game I'm looking forward to, which ought to be plenty of time.

    Eh, I'll at least do one New Game+ play through, because I certainly want to see this Golden route. Whether I do the other endings, either before or after the Golden one, we'll see.
    Last edited by Zevox; 2022-08-23 at 12:25 AM.
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  26. - Top - End - #1496
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    Quote Originally Posted by zlefin View Post
    PS it's 50, we really do need to be picking a name for next thread.
    What Are You Playing Thread (2022 Reboot)

  27. - Top - End - #1497
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    Quote Originally Posted by Lord Raziere View Post
    oh there is a lot of non-edgy ones. they're just not very interesting, because they tend to mostly just be tune ups of old games to be these challenge runs, not completed, or are some weird mechanical idea that doesn't really alter a story at all like pokemon fusion ones, or are just "Pokemon+" where they just have a lot of features.
    True. Typically when I say "Romhack" I mean the more in-depth ones, not just game edits but that's not really proper wording.

    Quote Originally Posted by Lord Raziere View Post
    like the thing is with pokemon storytelling for fans is that there is not a lot of places to go other than edgy, because chances are either the games or the anime has already covered every possible iteration of a non-edgy story you can think of. eight generations, side games, and like thousand+ pokemon episodes kinda does that. and even then, pokemon has done edgy with pokemon colosseum.
    I feel like Colosseum is exact right amount of edge. Still fits the setting and has a similar tone to one of the darker movie plots. A lot of these fangames tip over the edge (heh) a bit much.

  28. - Top - End - #1498
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    Quote Originally Posted by Zevox View Post
    Alright, just finished up my first time through Triangle Strategy.

    Gameplay-wise, it's really good. I like what they do with special effects from each of the elemental spells: ice magic freezes terrain and makes it cost more movement to cross; fire magic can set grassy/oily spaces or wooden barriers ablaze, making those spaces do a little damage when characters pass through them, and more significant damage if they start their turn in them (and can melt icy spaces, turning them into watery ones); wind changes the facing of enemies you use it, making it easier to strike from behind for free crits; and lightning carries along water or metallic spaces that are linked to the initial target space, turning from a single-target bolt into a big AoE. On top of that, the follow-up attacks for flanking and aforementioned free crits for attacking from behind is a nice way to make positioning and facing of units significant. There's lots of little interesting mechanics with specific abilities, too, like ones that trigger only after a mounted unit travels a certain number of spaces in a turn, or abilities that let you move further at the cost of TP (the points you spend to do all special moves) but also grant an additional action, so they don't lock you out of attacking that turn. Just generally the game is doing good stuff with tactical RPG gameplay, and I have nothing but good things to say there.
    I honestly wish there was more of this. The magic and other stuff was really well done and I loved how characters actually took advantage of spacing, height and distance to effect their abilities. I really wanted more of that. The system could be expanded on and improved/given more depth. I never felt like Lightning really got a lot of use. Fire and Ice were the two big ones, but they were a lot of fun. Narve getting all of them was a nice touch, he was probably my second favorite unit after Hughette. She and Anna were my aces.

    Quote Originally Posted by Zevox View Post
    Story-wise...
    Spoiler: Morality Ending Spoilers
    Show
    Well, I should've seen that coming. This game's setting is so bleak, of course they had to kill Serenoa in the one (non-Golden) ending where he doesn't side with one of the villains. Still, no regrets, this was clearly the best choice for an ending that isn't the Golden one. Aesfrost and Hyzant would both be awful to have controlling all of Norzelia, which are basically the other options, so at least this way the Roselle and House Wolffort get out before the continent tears itself apart. Not that it wasn't doing that already, really.

    At the end of the day, yeah, initial impressions that the game's plot was more interesting than its characters hold. Some of the characters have real depth to them, like Roland, but for the most part, you've got mustache-twirling villains, and your House/party is mostly straightforwardly good and well-meaning people, but are simply unable to do enough to overcome literally everyone in power in the other nations being evil bastards whose sole interest is in ruling all of Norzelia (again, at least barring the Golden ending). Despite the fairly shallow characters, the overall plot remains pretty compelling throughout, as I did want to see these characters find some way out of the hell they found themselves in, and find some way to better this crapsack of a world. But results seem as if they're always going to be limited at best - again, barring this Golden ending I haven't seen.

    I know I saw someone say that the game felt like it was inspired by Fire Emblem: Three Houses earlier, but I have to say, I don't see that at all. The two are both strategy RPGs involving three countries at the center of their stories... and that's about where the similarities end. Three Houses is a complex story that goes out of its way to make everyone (barring the Slitherers) sympathetic, creating conflicts through clashing viewpoints, ideals, and assessments of what is best for the characters' nations and continent as a whole. Triangle Strategy is a much simpler story of a continent consumed by power-hungry rulers who don't care who they hurt or how badly so long as they eventually get to control, directly or indirectly, the entire land for themselves, and one family's struggle to find a way to even survive, much less better the world around them, as all of that is going on. Three Houses emphasizes building up and customizing characters, casting the lead character as a teacher for them; Triangle strategy instead individualizes all of the characters' abilities, so while they get stronger, it's always in the one preset way. In Three Houses, the focus is on making you care about the people involved in the story, while the only choice you get to affect that story is made at the start of the game (except in one route, which gets one additional branching choice in the mid-game); in Triangle Strategy, it's on making you care about the plot itself, particularly by giving you regular input on how it will play out through the Scales of Conviction. Barring genre and the three nations thing, they're almost opposites in a lot of respects.

    Non-spoiler version: plot's good, characters are mostly shallow, but do their jobs well enough. The game's setting is pretty bleak, though.
    Yeah, I was disappointed with that ending as well when I read it. It's also the only one that

    Spoiler
    Show
    Shows you that the quest for land beyond their boarders isn't folly. Not even the Golden Route does that.


    Whoever said that Triangle Strategy was inspired by Three Houses hasn't played one, the other, or really both. Outside of "three competing factions" there's nothing linking them together in the slightest storywise and sure they're both TRPGs but just...not even close to the same vein.

    Quote Originally Posted by Zevox View Post
    Spoiler
    Show
    Eh, the geography of the world is clearly not thought entirely through, that's true, but it doesn't hurt things too much. From Frederica's ending it's implied that the lands immediately south of the Great Falls are barren, and Idore (who chases you to the falls for the final battle) says that no one who has ever gone that way has ever returned. Though of course you do eventually reach Centralia in that ending, so across those barren lands is someplace more worth getting to, so perhaps anyone who did end up surviving the trek just never wanted to return. I couldn't blame them. As far as the west goes though, yeah, no word, and no idea why.

    And I cannot agree about Aesfrost. From every scene we see with them plotting, it's clear that most everyone in charge there is just as evil as Hyzante. The moment they see an opportunity, they're out to conquer the entire continent outright. The fact that they're right to consider Hyzante tyrants doesn't change that they're just as evil and power-hungry themselves.

    I made this comparison with Aesfrost specifically a while back, but having seen at least one complete version of the story, it really does remind me of a Shin Megami Tensei game in how it presents its factions. Aesfrost is Chaos - they believe in "freedom," but in the sense that they're basically ruled by the principle of Might Makes Right (hell, one of them even basically says as much in a late-game scene, remarking about how the Grand Duke's idea of freedom is that the strong are free to trample the weak). Whoever has the power, whether political or personal, can do as they please, and everyone else can try to become powerful, and just hope they don't get killed at the whims of the powerful before they can. Meanwhile, Hyzant is Law - a dictatorship hidden beneath a false religion, creating a rigidly structured society where there's a place for everything, and everything in its place, but no one can ever budge from their proscribed place. And if your proscribed place is slave, well, sucks to be you, but we're going to brainwash you into thinking this is not only necessary, but just. Both are awful extremes of the ideals they embody, equally unappealing for entirely different reasons, so the only way to get a decent ending is to seek a third path. In SMT, that's the neutral endings; in Triangle Strategy, it's Frederica's or the Golden Route. Though they certainly do their damnedest to try and avoid letting Frederica's ending feel like a good one either, between Serenoa's death, the continent descending into multiple bloody civil wars behind you after you leave, and Benedict becoming a tool of Aesfrost's Grand Duke in exchange for the Wolffort demesne.
    Spoiler
    Show
    It's not too important re: the geography but...it's small stuff like that that bugs me as far as world building is concerned. Just give me some details in the books I have to read to get the rest of the lore or something. That's not too much to ask.

    There are good people in Aesfrost however. There are good people in Hyzante too but they can't do a whole lot. Unlike the good people in Aesfrost however, the good people in Hyzant are knowingly upholding a racist slave practice while basically keeping the other two powers at one another's throats for personal protection and gain and have been doing so from the outset. The trend of jerkhole leaders in Aesfrost is a recent one from the lore. They also aren't keeping an entire culture enslaved to keep a contenint wide conspiracy from blowing open. Their evil is lesser just by merit that they're not racist, slave protecting monsters and aren't using the dead bodies of those slaves to create mindless robot drones among other things. The Golden Route shows you...just how not that bad Aesfrost is without Fredrica's brother and how utterly irredeemable Hyzant is.



    Quote Originally Posted by Zevox View Post
    Eh, I'll at least do one New Game+ play through, because I certainly want to see this Golden route. Whether I do the other endings, either before or after the Golden one, we'll see.
    It's hard but it's worth it. You'll be prepared with NG+ though.
    Last edited by Razade; 2022-08-23 at 01:37 AM.

  29. - Top - End - #1499
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