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Following giving up on DA:I, I decided I needed to return to a good, old, classic cRPG. So I've started a replay of Pillars of Eternity 1. After playing PoE2, I thought I wouldn't ever want to go back to PoE1. But after one day, things are looking great. Playing a talky wood elf paladin.

Awesome, thanks y'all! I think I've got it where I want it to be

Finished Kathy Rain 2, good game the ending is a bit abrupt but so was the first one. But ties in nicely with the first game. Bored so went back to GTA V, never did the Epsilon missions - having to wear the robes for 10 days and walk the 5 miles : good trolling of players a bit.

This would make sense according to standard stacking rules - all of these are active effects that affect the same thing, so only the highest is used (takedown combo's +100%)

Well, to my surprise Kazuwari's Call does not seem to stack and I'm getting bored for fishing a higher roll. Edit: for some strange reason neither Inspiring Beacon, nor Razorgill Dust seam to stack with Takedown Combo. Could someone please verify?

Tainted Grail - ok, I officially like this game. I don't think I'd say I love the game, but I sure do enjoy it. My description of overall gameplay/feel, from my game-life experiences, might go something like this: Elder Scrolls+Might and Magic 7 (or similar)+Diablo (the darker themes). --There's this weird charm, and old-school crpg flavor/nostalgia (including the jank and cheese here and there) that I'm getting while playing and exploring. I can't explain it. --I was in a tavern and some drunk side npc's at a table started debating to each other whether if you removed Excalibur but damaged it slightly, but then repaired it, was it still Excalibur (in the sense you could still become King for removing it). Their convo went on and on and I just stood on the stairs listening to it. It was pretty funny. --dual wielding two different spells, baby --initial slow rate of progression or good gear finds feel satisfying That said, there's still my personal "too many quests, bah!" irritation. More than half the NPC's I talk to want to give me little side quests and my log gets bigger and bigger. . I so have issues re: "I'll head off in that direction for that" but then totally sidetracked by finding an underground huge water cave/secret and forget. Temper expectations (it's not a polished AAA/uber graphic game) and for the $45, it's a pretty fun time. I'll be very interested in what this dev team comes up with next.

Well, I liked the prologue demo (it was still .9 vs. 1.0) enough to buy Tainted Grail. It is sometimes a bit janky/unpolished, combat is ok and so far straightforward, although for those that like "hit impact impression" or smarter AI - probably not going to find it here. Easy difficulty for me is almost too easy, Normal sponged it up more than I like. Wish there was an inbetween but oh well. It has the learn by using/doing, which led me to crouch-walk into a wall for 10 minutes just to see if that worked, and it did. Haha. The wandering around picking up everything, cooking, alchemy, swimming out to see if a boat was lootable, copious lore notes everywhere, satisfies the exploration/looter in me - that aspect doesn't feel "empty" and the pacing/design of exploration is quick/good, at least so far. I haven't yet had any major performance issues or trouble finding decent settings vs. 60ish fps, but there is occasional (shader loading?) singular hitching sometimes, like on a first spell cast. It wasn't in the demo, so perhaps a patch will come along. Dunno if I'll like it to the end, but it certainly has that early "lI'll just look around one more corner" vibe down pretty well.

Monk is the overall strongest martial class in PoE imo. Def. works as tank, too.

"Whooha look mom! That's also me!"

I remember ranting to a friend who had played through each game on Path of the Damned about how frustrating this bug was. Expecting him to know what I was talking about. His response "I never saw that". Turns out the mad man didn't use any AI behaviours and just micro manages every attack his party makes...

Kathy Rain 2 released, so going through that. First hour is pretty good, just doing basic investigations, took me a while to notice I can ask people about things on screen, hah. Eileen's VA needs a better mic

made second character to play Fighters guild and Knights of the nine

Yes, some significant improvements over P:Km. And it's a very long game. So take your time and enjoy the ride. Relatedly but separately, have any of you done Owlcat's community survey? I think it is a very useful exercise: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/P9XHP2L

I've been jumping around games a lot lately. 1. Hollywood Animal - This game lets you build a movie studio from the ground up. It is still early in development, but it is very well done. 2. Space Haven - You manage a spaceship and crew. The game just entered beta, I bought it like 2 years ago. It is pretty polished at this point. The way you build your ship reminds me of the spaceships I used to make with legos as a kid. I'm having fun with it and plan on continuing my playthrough. 3. Dune: Awakening beta weekend - If you like Conan Exiles, this fits the mold and gives you a brand new setting to explore. I'll be playing it on release in June. I am concerned about no single player option. I don't want to worry about other people, or worry about my stuff eroding when I take an extended break. I have a feeling Funcom will change their mind about that down the road. 4. Those Who Rule - Pretty nice Tactics type game. The story and characters are better written than a lot of the jrpg tactics games.

Ok, I've got a pretty solid bit of time into Dune, and as I said, very much Conan Exiles in a new setting. I explored a research station and that was super creepy. My character has some cool equipment at this point. I haven't really struggled with the survival aspects. I mean, it's pretty self explanatory. Don't stand in the sun, drink water, don't spend 5 minutes in the desert. I've seen a few sandworms are they are suitably scary. I might play a bit more, but I don't want to spoil too much before release in June.

I made my bald albino Harkonnen and crafted my first shack, but I haven't gotten too far in it yet. It plays exactly like Conan Exiles, but since I have about a 1000 hours in that game, that is hardly a bad thing. I don't really like playing on public servers, but it will be fine for the weekend. I've yet to tempt any sandworms, but I will report back when I try to cross some desert.

Yes, limit break is necessary at that point. Enemies get so much hp, if you are capped at 9999, you'll die of old age before the fight ends. The story path is probably still ez, dunno (didn't progress much there since). But everything related to side content has sharply increased in difficulty.

Ah, I wouldn't say that I played the game wrong. It's just that the parrying mechanic is extremely important and up until the very late game you can easily ignore it. Technically I can still mostly ignore it and just dodge, but then a majority of the late game fights will become extremely tedious and long. You need to parry to break enemies faster and deal extra damage.

Sounds like it is holding true to the jRPG tradition of making you feel safe until the final boss gauntlet where you will figure out you played the game wrong and need to start over

Still playing Expedition 33. I'm in - probably - the last chapter now and oh boy, suddenly everything is ganking me. Thought I was strong now, but nope.

That's why I mentioned that you should also make them a big deal, instead of just...uh, a few creatures hanging out and wandering outside them. In my mind, the game world would've been a lot better off if it were shrunk down and condensed a bit while eliminating a bunch of the copy and paste fluff (be it Oblivion gates or random caves/ruins...), and from there, you could ideally overhaul the whole idea of Oblivion gates and integrate them more meaningfully, maybe even have quests tailored to specific gates depending on where you decided to put them. The cost of a massive game world where 75-90% of it is pointless is just not a bargain I'm ever willing to make, and it's why I don't hardly ever play or stick with open world games. New Vegas is probably the best out of what I've played in having both a good-sized world, solid content density, and the content actually generally being worth your time to find and explore. That was a pretty good balance, but it's not how most open world games are built...even Game of the Year-winning ones, like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Can you imagine how Obsidian of the mid-to-late 2000s might've tackled making Oblivion instead of Bethesda? That really could've been something...

If there were only 15 gates in total, you'd have complaints that it doesn't "feel" much like an invasion. As a mage you can close a gate in two minutes without needing to fight. A rogue type with high sneak acrobatics can literally roll through it quickly too, I guess. As a fighter type, though, it's a boring slog.

I really liked the idea of the Oblivion gates - in theory. It's one of those things that big open world-making devs like Bethesda seem to always mess up: instead of spending dev time making a smaller amount of higher quality and preferably unique content, what do we do? Copy and paste, boys...copy and paste. According to Google, there are 20 permanent gates that always open throughout the course of the game, but there are another 80 "possible" gates, of which 40 will open. It would've been nice if instead of 20 fixed gates and 40 possible gates, we just have like...10, maybe 15 total, all of which would hopefully be a big deal and be specifically tailored in design.

The Oblivion gates were the lowest point of the original game, and a game filled with low points, to boot. Are they less terrible in the remaster? Recently I've been playing Blue Prince, which is loads of fun.

Elder Scrolls: Obsidian? Hey, I might even play that one.

Hey, I need you people to dreamlist The Black Cauldron. It's worth it, trust me. https://www.gog.com/dreamlist/game/the-black-cauldron-1986

Closed my first Obsidian Gate. It was still pretty epic. It has aged well. Now my opinion might change after I close a dozen or so, but for now, I'm enjoying the trip down memory lane.

tbh I wouldn't even call it an RPG, since there is no choice and consequences, which is the bare minimum requirement an RPG needs to have for me. But this is more like a general definition issue, I guess, since for some reason people call anything an RPG as long as there are some attribute points to spend.

Yeah, I started looking into that Clair/Exped. 33 game because of all the mega positive reviews. My reaction so far goes: ---"Turn based, urgh, not my thing. But it has some real time aspect or something? Maybe that'd be all right?" --"oh, qte's and dark-souls/sekiro parry timings." Then I also saw a long thread in Steam fora from people who thought they were getting just good ol' turn based and not qte semi-dark souls with precise timing. Where half the replies are "git gud" of course, but others gave me a better understand what to expect and some weaknesses of the system etc. Which is a shame (for me). The story sounds actually interesting, the visuals look fantastic, the VA sounds great. I thought it might be an RPG that might make me like an RPG again. I still put it in my wishlist tho - maybe a year from now when it's done patching and with mods. I was definitely interested in the world building/story, for once.

It's quick time events in combat. To increase your damage, you have to hit the attack button at the right time (not that hard to do). On enemy attack, you either dodge, parry, or jump to avoid, mitigate damage, or counter attack. This is the part that feels kinda Dark Souls-ish, but so far it's not *that* hard. Also you can change the difficulty settings at any time to "story mode", which makes it a lot easier as well. Personally I'm playing on default. Some fights have been harder and I had to repeat them a couple times, but it feels quite rewarding once you memorize attack pattern and get through it on your own. I am in act 2 now with approx 16 hours played. Needed a break right now, but will continue later today. The characters are very likeable and it's generally a quite addictive game. The only thing that kinda bothers me is the lack of a map and directional guidance at times. You need to watch your surroundings closely, or you can end up running in circles a lot.

Played a bit of the fancy new Oblivion. I forgot how much I prefer the levelling and character system in this game compared to Skyrim. So far I'm having fun with it. I don't remember much of anything from playing it like 20 years ago, so it's fresh.

Played some Expedition 33 on game pass. 3 hours so far and I'll continue for sure. I like how very french it feels. Also has that classic jrpg thing going on, which I didn't thought would still be a thing today. In some way it has vibes of a game from 15 or 20 years ago.

Which is better: mental decline or mental derangement? I'm not sure either is useful in a leader.

Every single time (mind you, haven't yet tried Rogue Trader). You could cut like 40% of both Pathfinder games -- and they'd be improved 400%. Finished Kingdom Come 2 yesterday. Noticed a few Owlcats when the credits rolled. Seems they didn't leave a sour aftertaste on this one -- the latter chapters actually offer some of the highlights of the game. Not wanna spoil, but in every other AAAA RPG, "mundane" stuff that occurs here would have been a two minutes cutscene. And that would have been a loss, as turning it all into a bit of questing and interacting with characters makes the final all the more emotionally engaging.

People will rightfully mention their favourite comics by Peter David, but the thing about him is that he wrote comics on a monthly basis for over 40 years at a level of quality that even other acclaimed writers can only dream of. Just for Marvel he wrote over 800 comics, quite a few of which were all time classics, and almost all of them were quality, well done comics. Plenty of rightly acclaimed writers struggle to put out consistently good scripts for even two or three years. He did it from the 80s until he passed away. That he had to die in medical debt is a disgrace and Marvel/Disney can go and

Prolific comic writer and novelist Peter David.

After giving it almost two months, I've decided to quit my replay of DA:I. As much of a slog as the game has been, surprisingly it was dealing with the main quest in the Winter Palace that finally did me in. Trying to get the final quest outcome I wanted was just too painful a chore because the game requires you to have everything work out perfectly a certain way through a very long quest. One little misstep or oversight and you're locked out of the preferred outcome. That's just way too much pressure and stress I don't need in my life right now. So, DA:I is done, very likely never to be revisted again.

6x8 hour seasons should have been enough; there's a lot of condensation of storylines that could be done after book 6; plus New Spring could be entirely ignored. And a decent amount before that, no need to have the three functionally identical fights against the same guy that ended the first three books. Rafe Judkins was not the guy to do that successfully though*. Not entirely his fault though, he was definitely told he had to have a 'mystery' element as to who the Dragon was per Amazon's Metrics and in some ways having Rosamund Pike was unfortunate since she had to be kept front and center even when it made no sense narratively. *Indeed, for anyone wondering how badly it was run: they accidentally brought back a character in S2E1 who had literally literally died died in the S1 finale, without even a 'somehow Palpatine returned'. The real world reason? Two different writing teams. Not only did writing team 1 not tell writing team 2 that they'd killed Loial off, writing team 2 didn't know because, uh, they hadn't watched the previous season finale. Can't blame that on executive meddling or covid, that's just gross incompetence.