[Rictus]

I see I'm not the only one excited about Eternity. I'll start playing in a few hours or maybe tomorrow. Considering rolling a spellcaster of some sort (as always), we'll see

[Primateus]

Primateus, on 27 March 2015 - 10:39 AM, said:

I've begun playing Arkham Origins again, this will be my second playthrough.

So, late last night I finished Arkham Origins, and I must say the second time around, I rather thought it was a hell of a lot better. Sure, it had the same annoying bugs as the first time around, but I think it's really grown on me.
First time around I liked it, sure, but I didn't think it came anywhere near Asylum or City, which it still doesn't, but I'm thinking that Asylum is only slightly better now.

Origins has a lot of small little sidecontent which I also enjoyed, the small crimes and such. It was rather enjoyable.

So now I'm going to start Arkham City again, for gob knows how many times I've played it.

Eventually, I think, I'll play Origins again on New Game Plus mode, which will let me unlock the "I am the Night" hardcore mode, that should be fun.

[Rictus]

Damn, but this game is great fun! The music, the art, the text adventure sequences -- PoE has soul.
First thing I noticed was the Baldur's Gate vibes, like the prologue text, etc. I started (but not finished) BG2 a few months ago, and the combat music in PoE's prologue is so strikingly similar . . . oh yeah, and the miniature giant piglet. However, I'm now torn between a Wizard and Cypher. Guess I'll just replay the prologue until I am satisfied.

[Primateus]

Rictus, on 28 March 2015 - 12:15 PM, said:

Damn, but this game is great fun! The music, the art, the text adventure sequences -- PoE has soul.
First thing I noticed was the Baldur's Gate vibes, like the prologue text, etc. I started (but not finished) BG2 a few months ago, and the combat music in PoE's prologue is so strikingly similar . . . oh yeah, and the miniature giant piglet. However, I'm now torn between a Wizard and Cypher. Guess I'll just replay the prologue until I am satisfied.

I s good, yes? I was going to buy it regardless of people's reviews because I'm a huge BG fan, but it's nice to hear that people are enjoying Pillars of Eternity.

[Tapper]

I "restarted" with a Cipher instead of a rogue and I must say: way better, at the least for me. Way less bland stabby stabby as well.

[Serenity]

Yeah, my character's a Cipher, too I like that he can do both ranged and melee combat as well as casting some pretty powerful spells. I'm glad I stuck with him rather than the Chanter - it seems to take forever for the Chanter's abilities to 'activate'. I suspect they might come into their own later on when the fights last longer cos, at the moment, by the time they're available the battles are over Re the other party members you pick up along the way: Durance, the priest, is awesome!




Totally loving this game!

[Defiance]

Been playing Pillars of Eternity. Really enjoying it so far, but still not sure how I feel about the combat. It feels clunky a lot of the time.

[TheRetiredBridgeburner]

Tapper, on 27 March 2015 - 03:16 PM, said:

TheRetiredBridgeburner, on 27 March 2015 - 02:38 PM, said:

Rogue for now, because I was warned you can't pick one up as an NPC (clearly the BG2 "no pure thief" thing has stuck around) but I am considering starting a Chanter - how are you finding it?

Likewise, but I might start over with a slightly more interesting playstyle.
And I have a sneaking suspicion that my graphic card is close to being fried


edit: not by this game, but in general.

Both of the above for me too. My computer is my other half's old one - two computers ago. It's doing pretty well considering, but it needs to last until the end of the year before I can afford a new one!

Restarted PoE on a Chanter - much more interesting. Still having to play about with the difficulty settings quite a lot. In the first couple of areas on my own I was pretty squishy, but the minute I had a full party I could just pile in with no tactics and things fell over.

Overall though, I'm having much more fun with Chanter than with Rogue. Having played more of the game, because anyone can build the Mechanics and Stealth skills I'm not convinced you actually need a Rogue at all.

Although on the topic of Baldur's Gate vibes - did anyone else spot that one of the battle themes is the BG2 battle theme?

This post has been edited by TheRetiredBridgeburner: 29 March 2015 - 09:31 PM

[Gothos]

Re-played Mass Effect 1 over the last week. Ah, the good ol' Mako days!
Unfortunately, seems like for some dumb reason Kirrahee is dead in this save, even though I did everythign required for him to survive. Maybe the order of reaching certain points matters.
My previous save before post-Virmire is.... before Feros. Dammit.
I'll have to cool down a bit and do it over. Sigh.

[Serenity]

TheRetiredBridgeburner, on 29 March 2015 - 09:29 PM, said:

Restarted PoE on a Chanter - much more interesting. Still having to play about with the difficulty settings quite a lot. In the first couple of areas on my own I was pretty squishy, but the minute I had a full party I could just pile in with no tactics and things fell over.

I wish they'd just fall over for me Had a couple of really hairy moments yesterday, one where all my party was wiped out apart from my main character, who just managed to finish the last couple of enemies off on his own. Phew! Making much use of the slo-mo function during combat (and then forgetting to turn it off back in normal play, and wondering why it's taking everyone so long to get anywhere ). The tactical side of the combat is brilliant, I'm finding. Getting the tank to hold aggro and then flanking with the Cipher and Wizard is almost essential at times.

TheRetiredBridgeburner, on 29 March 2015 - 09:29 PM, said:

Overall though, I'm having much more fun with Chanter than with Rogue. Having played more of the game, because anyone can build the Mechanics and Stealth skills I'm not convinced you actually need a Rogue at all.

Any tips on the Chanter? Even now that I have the Chanter companion in my party, I'm finding his invocations take forever to activate. Maybe there's a particular sequence of chants I need to use to get there faster? Really needed those skeleton fighters a couple of times last night

TheRetiredBridgeburner, on 29 March 2015 - 09:29 PM, said:

Although on the topic of Baldur's Gate vibes - did anyone else spot that one of the battle themes is the BG2 battle theme?

I hadn't noticed that!

I was talking a a friend about playing the BG games in co-op, or Divinity: Original Sin. Question is, how much cRPGing is too much cRPGing?




ETA: just in case - don't double-click on items in the inventory - if you do, there's currently a bug that wipes out your character's buffs and abilities (patch coming this week, apparently). I always drag and drop but apparently others don't, the crazy people!

http://kotaku.com/pi...us-i-1694367618


http://www.pcgamer.c...ming-next-week/

This post has been edited by Serenity: 30 March 2015 - 08:35 AM

[Tapper]

Serenity, on 30 March 2015 - 08:25 AM, said:

TheRetiredBridgeburner, on 29 March 2015 - 09:29 PM, said:

Restarted PoE on a Chanter - much more interesting. Still having to play about with the difficulty settings quite a lot. In the first couple of areas on my own I was pretty squishy, but the minute I had a full party I could just pile in with no tactics and things fell over.

I wish they'd just fall over for me Had a couple of really hairy moments yesterday, one where all my party was wiped out apart from my main character, who just managed to finish the last couple of enemies off on his own. Phew! Making much use of the slo-mo function during combat (and then forgetting to turn it off back in normal play, and wondering why it's taking everyone so long to get anywhere ).

Try the Options menu. It contains tons of settings for pausing, including activating slow mode when you enter combat, and exiting it automatically when you leave combat.
It also contains options to pause combat once one of your characters has completed an ability, which is useful if you wish to switch your priest from casting a spell on your tank to auto-attacking an enemy, for example, instead of leaving him targeting no-one.

Quote

The tactical side of the combat is brilliant, I'm finding. Getting the tank to hold aggro and then flanking with the Cipher and Wizard is almost essential at times.


Any tips on the Chanter? Even now that I have the Chanter companion in my party, I'm finding his invocations take forever to activate. Maybe there's a particular sequence of chants I need to use to get there faster? Really needed those skeleton fighters a couple of times last night

The chants all need a set amount of seconds, don't think they can be sped up (a high Int stat makes sure the duration lasts longer so you have the overlap in which you can have triple buffs).
Later Invocations need more chants before they activate, and later Chants last a longer per rank, so the key for getting invocations quickly seems to be chaining level 1 chants only in order to get quick Invocations as well - missing out on the better effects of the higher level chants, of course.

This post has been edited by Tapper: 30 March 2015 - 10:18 AM

[Serenity]

Tapper, on 30 March 2015 - 10:17 AM, said:

Serenity, on 30 March 2015 - 08:25 AM, said:

TheRetiredBridgeburner, on 29 March 2015 - 09:29 PM, said:

Restarted PoE on a Chanter - much more interesting. Still having to play about with the difficulty settings quite a lot. In the first couple of areas on my own I was pretty squishy, but the minute I had a full party I could just pile in with no tactics and things fell over.

I wish they'd just fall over for me Had a couple of really hairy moments yesterday, one where all my party was wiped out apart from my main character, who just managed to finish the last couple of enemies off on his own. Phew! Making much use of the slo-mo function during combat (and then forgetting to turn it off back in normal play, and wondering why it's taking everyone so long to get anywhere ).

Try the Options menu. It contains tons of settings for pausing, including activating slow mode when you enter combat, and exiting it automatically when you leave combat.
It also contains options to pause combat once one of your characters has completed an ability, which is useful if you wish to switch your priest from casting a spell on your tank to auto-attacking an enemy, for example, instead of leaving him targeting no-one.

Ah right, that you be the sensible thing to do, wouldn't it? D'oh! Thanks

Tapper, on 30 March 2015 - 10:17 AM, said:

Quote

The tactical side of the combat is brilliant, I'm finding. Getting the tank to hold aggro and then flanking with the Cipher and Wizard is almost essential at times.


Any tips on the Chanter? Even now that I have the Chanter companion in my party, I'm finding his invocations take forever to activate. Maybe there's a particular sequence of chants I need to use to get there faster? Really needed those skeleton fighters a couple of times last night

The chants all need a set amount of seconds, don't think they can be sped up (a high Int stat makes sure the duration lasts longer so you have the overlap in which you can have triple buffs).
Later Invocations need more chants before they activate, and later Chants last a longer per rank, so the key for getting invocations quickly seems to be chaining level 1 chants only in order to get quick Invocations as well - missing out on the better effects of the higher level chants, of course.

Okay, thanks I'm thinking of turning him into a second tank at the moment, rather than having him as ranged, cos he's not doing enough damage for my liking.

[Mentalist]

It took me 3 re-downloads to get PoE installed,

Not gonna start till thur now, I don't think.

This weekend's been busy--as pretty much every weekend since my grandparents came to live with us. As such only had time for some very casual gaming. Beat the Eldar stronghold in my attempt to play thru Dawn of War Soulstorm as Orks with the some-what functioning "permanent bases" mod. Also finally finished the last 2 maps of Spellforce 2: Dragon Storm. Started the second addon "faith in Destiny"--looks pretty, as it's been modified for high resolutions. Story so far's less than stellar--and given the world map's only got 3 islands (as opposed to 12 in Dragon Storm), it'll probably be short.

My mindless timesink of choice right now is Freelancer, modded with Discovery mod. It just about doubles the Universe, and gives lots of stuff to explore. My problem right now is lack of money--as i'm not big on flying a trader, I'm stuck with an awesomely souped up "last-gen" fighter, with super-powerful antique weapons. The catch is, when said weapon gets damaged, repairing it costs more than my entire net worth.
Ah well, i'm having fun anyhow.

[Maark Abbott]

Gothos, on 29 March 2015 - 09:52 PM, said:

Re-played Mass Effect 1 over the last week. Ah, the good ol' Mako days!
Unfortunately, seems like for some dumb reason Kirrahee is dead in this save, even though I did everythign required for him to survive. Maybe the order of reaching certain points matters.
My previous save before post-Virmire is.... before Feros. Dammit.
I'll have to cool down a bit and do it over. Sigh.

As far as I know, the order isn't important, so long as you don't cross the point where his squad move up and he gets killed before completing any of them.

[Mentalist]

Started Pillars of Eternity. Rolling as an Orlan Cypher.

my char is great in group fights, not so stellar on his own, unless it's one on one.

Barely started (not even out of the woods yet), though I did clean out the first ruins nicely.

Sure feels like it'll be a nice timesink.

[Traveller]

Anyone want to start a Pillars of Eternity thread?

[Serenity]

Done

[Gothos]

Maark, on 31 March 2015 - 12:07 PM, said:

Gothos, on 29 March 2015 - 09:52 PM, said:

Re-played Mass Effect 1 over the last week. Ah, the good ol' Mako days!
Unfortunately, seems like for some dumb reason Kirrahee is dead in this save, even though I did everythign required for him to survive. Maybe the order of reaching certain points matters.
My previous save before post-Virmire is.... before Feros. Dammit.
I'll have to cool down a bit and do it over. Sigh.

As far as I know, the order isn't important, so long as you don't cross the point where his squad move up and he gets killed before completing any of them.

Well, by what I can tell now... you have to disable comms, destroy the uplink and kill flyers before you trigger anything related to the entrance to the facility. What I did is I forgot about the flyers and went in, then remembered and went back to clear - still he died.
Bonus: you can divert guards to them and he won't die as long as those 3 things are done. Kinda counter-intuitive but wth.

Finishing up my 3-playthrough femshep now, not spending a single point on charm or intimidate... just taking the free levels for renegade points and spectre promotion. Whee!
Wish I still had my old saves tho.

[Aptorian]

I finished Dying Light a couple days ago. Absolutely phenomenal game. All though I doubt it will get as much attention at the end of the year as Shadow of Morder did, I suspect this one will make it on to a lot of sites top 10. According to steam I put 70 hours into it and honestly I could have kept playing if I hadn't run out of side content to play.

If this game had featured some conversation options that affected the game world and characters, I'd call this game Fallout with Parkour. It's amazing how enjoyable they made the game world and the story.

Afterwards I downloaded The Vanishing of Ethan Carter. I thought this was a much bigger game than it turned out to be. I finished it in under 4 hours. It's sort of Walking Simulator with a really pretty environment and a strange story. Not really sure I liked that game.

I am currently alternating between playing Ori and the Blind Forest and The Talos Principle The Talos Principles serves as a calming refuge from the bouts of rage I feel at Ori's game mechanics.

Ori is a really beutiful, very atmospheric, well scored game. I am less enthusiastic about the actual game play. While the controls are responsive and the mechanics are transparent enough the environment has a tendency of fucking you over. That coupled with a save point system you have to manually activate makes for some very frustrating deaths that repeat themselves over and over.

The Talos Principle on the other hand is fantastic. I'd say it was the "The Portal" of 2014 but it feels like so much more than just another first person puzzle game. I am absolutely enthralled with the mix of robot philosophy versus Old Testament themes in ancient greek ruins. I've been accessing a library interface and to gain an admin password it just did a psycho analysis of me based on a questionnaire, that is probably run of the mill/pop psychology but it fit me perfectly.

I am really curious where this game is going to take me.

This post has been edited by Apt: 04 April 2015 - 02:27 PM

[Aptorian]

All this talk of Bloodborne had me reconsidering my opinion of the sub-genre. I've been watching a playthrough of Demon's Souls on Giant Bomb and I sort of got the urge to give the games another try.

Which reminded me that I bough Lords of the Fallen last year. It was described as "Souls light" at the time. A competent and more forgiving but not very creative imitation of the souls games. I played it for about 10 minutes and promptly rage quit because fuuuck that shit! Seeing the discussions of timing and paying attention to animations and learning the enemies behavior gave me the incentive to go back.

So I started the game up this afternoon and oh boy that was an uphill battle. Lords of the Fallen starts you out with a boss fight within the first 10-15 minutes. Holy Shit did that boss kick my ass. I took my time and studied his movement patterns and practiced ducking and rolling, etc. but the guy just kept fucking me up. I never could dodge his strongest attack and I ran out of potions before the boss was half way dead. Then I tried switching between the starting armors and the starting weapons and found that the knife allowed for quicker attacks.

I decided to restart with a rogue build instead and discovered that 20 minutes of wrestling with the boss had completely changed my fighting behavior and speed. The lighter build allowed for quicker movement and now the stances and speed of the normal mobs were much easier to predict. Chewed my way through the tutorial area in less than 5 minutes.

Then came the boss battle. Now the combat had changed. I was much faster. I could "easily" dodge the heavy killing blow and I could get 3-4 light jabs in where I could get maybe 2 if I was lucky before. On the other hand the lighter armor changed the distances you roll and now when I got graced by the edge of the boss' sword it took out a serious chunk of my health bar. I eventually got the strategy down and my last attempt against the boss actually made it look easy.

I can't recall when I last felt that happy about defeating a boss in a game. Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of bullshit in the way the combat works when you're low level, but holy shit did it feel good. Played another hour, leveling up the character and testing out the various weapon types.

Unless I don't burn out too quickly I think I might end up actually trying Dark Souls or Bloodborne one of these days.