LadyCrimson

I have yet to play an aRPG that didn't have this mechanic in some form or another. Sure Diablo was his own guy, but to get to him you had to break those seals and fight all those minions first. Same thing with Baal. It was the minions that were a pain sometimes, not the boss himself. Darkstone, Torchlight, original DS's games...they all have some variation of huge mobs + boss. So claiming Obsidian "resorting" to this tactic is somehow uncommon or a poor design on their part feels a bit silly to me. I did find Normal too easy in general however. But then I also found FNV too easy even on the hardest difficulty, and that was only after a few hours of playing that game...luckily that game has mods. Companies aren't going to design difficulty around what the hardcore/obsessive/experienced gamer thinks should be really hard for fear of alienating potential masses. I think it's time they did, however, start offering more difficulty level options than "Easy/Normal/Hard". The game player is becoming more savvy and more experienced as a whole (perhaps) and in order to keep replayability the difficulty should be more scalable & customizable. imo.

Except for the first few bosses (the first time I played) I haven't found HC terribly difficult. Which isn't to say I don't sometimes take a lot of damage, or never ever die, and it's not to say I'm personally really fast. Still takes me a long time on boss fights because I must spend more than half the fight-time teleporting/dodging instead of attacking. Average time tends to be 5-6 mins. for me on HC (2nd playthrough, it was longer on the 1st). I find it interesting that there aren't more boss-fight videos of DS on YT. Hardly any. Which is either a bad sign re: interest, or a sign that it's difficult to get a video where you look cool/uber/fast. I actually agree with Greylord w/the notion that it's likely many players who buy the game may find the boss fights (first playthru) pretty difficult on Normal. Especially if they were hoping for a click-Diablo type combat game (the dodging etc. on PC can have a bad adjustment period). One has to remember that a lot of people who like to come on gaming forums to discuss the ins and outs and stats of games tend to be ... more hardcore, or more experienced w/difficulty mechanics/varied controls, or just plain stubborn, etc ... than the average, perhaps. Maybe. At any rate, imo games are generally designed to be difficult the first time or two through it. I rarely encounter a game that remains combat-difficult with several replays. By then you're yawning & if combat is the only feature you like about a game, you tend to move on. I didn't stick w/Diablo2 for 4 years because of combat (it was item hunting). And yeah, I've been finding it fun to just kill stuff in one area until they give hardly any exp. before moving on. My pocketbook is a lot fatter & it's been nice to experiment w/some things because of it. I even found one regenerating chest (it respawns upon save reload). Which is probably a mistake, but I'm exploiting it while it's there. haha

This reminds me of Diablo1, where certain ppl spent a long time figuring out all the math for the spell & attribute effects....good times. I'd guess Sannom is probably closest....judging from the numbers on the items anyway. I rarely (yet) see Ice as a very high stat (2,3,6, etc) per individual item, while Doom can be very high (I've seen 127 at least). Lightning seems to have moderately high possible number, Fire maybe a little less so...not sure about Poison, haven't paid much attention to that, but seems like it's usually lower Fire/Lightning. Bloodletting is typically fairly low too - not as low as Ice but pretty low stat.

-Rajani was free to go -left Heart of N alone but destroyed it/freed the ghost after the fight. -Kept mansion for Legion -Left the Krug in jail -Sided with the Baron in the land dispute -Helped Cyclops -Dapper Gent w/the Legion -Spared Jane/she had to make amends (not w/the Queen) -Sided w/the Queen morally that the trap in the mines seemed dishonorable. (but in RL sometimes ya gotta do what ya gotta do) ....I'm sure there were at least a few other minor influence/mini-decisions made but can't think of them offhand.

One of the few times I've seen attacks from a different level "plane". (Reinhart on bridge & goblin on ground below - poor giant had to take the stairs) I like the cutscene art. Especially with subtitles off. My personal fave shot of the cutscene confronting Mr. God.

I don't have an answer, but semi-related, I was playing a couple days ago and found myself idly wondering if there were any resistance factors in the game. If there are, they must be hidden, because none of the skills/items seem to reference any. Anyway, outside of a resistance concept, the only thing I can think of offhand as a possible answer to your question is...that it might be that poison as a whole does less damage per second than the others, so heavy damage over 9 seconds is actually about an equal total damage as, say, moderate lightning over 6 seconds. Meaning they'd be about the same. Dunno tho...just a guess possibility.

My brain can't focus today. Rubber ball in a rubber room. As a consequence, I got zero done - and that includes the gameplaying. It was a gorgeous day tho! A nice temp for me...not too hot, not at all chilly. Laid out in the yard staring at the blue sky and wondering if somewhere out there, a being on another planet was watching back. Figuratively speaking. Then I said ... "nah" and went back inside.

.... I'd agree with that. When I say I'm not interested in Facebook, I mean exactly that. I'm not interested in Facebook. I have nothing against online "social mediums". I've been using them forever, from IRC to BB's to the current forum stages and Twitter and yakking to ppl in online games. Facebook just has nothing I want or would use. Not my kind of social medium...no need for it and I'm not going to sign up for it just to try and cultivate a need for it.

I don't get the new game+ thing. Or rather, I do, but then they'd have to make another difficulty for people who started on HC, or force people to start on Normal first (like Diablo does). Not that I'd mind another difficulty. Or perhaps I'm misunderstanding what people want new game+ for? ....anyway, the keybinding thing, I'm stoked for that, thanks much.

Oh, that's right...prairie dogs. I did do that too. It's been a long time. DS1 was the game, I think, that started me on the habit of never selling/tossing starting gear, because you never know when it might have a use. haha

I've bought two games on Steam. That's it. I'm still an old fogey who forgets I not only have to download the game, I have to download the manual. Not that most manuals are very good to begin with most of the time these days. (edit: and I've bought PC games on disc that come with no manual at all, eg, you have to go download it...sigh). So yeah, I just forget and then I get into the game and never think "gee I'm missing a function, wonder what it is", I just keep playing. Besides, most times I get the control functions by going into the key-rebinding screen and seeing what they all do that way...but, ooops.

Hehe...haven't played him but when I got him as companion late game, where you could use all the points at once, I gave him all the awesome gear I'd been saving and took him with me for a short while. I barely had to do anything, even as AI he killed everything for me. It was actually kinda boring, so I switched back to Lucas as comp.. He's definitely the chr. I'm using for my 3rd run.

You can turn the mini-map off (on PC anyway) by hitting the Tab key a couple times. And the bread crumb trail is only there if you press a certain key, so I never saw it. Didn't even know it existed until I read it here.

Re:armor looks - imagine how I feel, when playing Fire Anjali. She never changes. Except if you zoom in close, sometimes you can see that the arm band she wore on one hand was different. Human Anjali, armor didn't change constantly, but I still think it changes a lot more than, say, Lucas. But some of the differences are very subtle. The overall armor look may not change, but if you zoom in tiny details might alter. I like Anjali's final armor, except for the helmet. I didn't buy one because ... well, I don't like helmets.

No and no. Not interested.

@hopfrog - yeah, I remember the chicken levels & stuff. And DS2 had that "developer level", I don't remember what they called it, where you fought boss simulacrums of your own chrs & then went into a developer npc area or something. Pillow fighting, the bucket helmet, heh. I was actually wondering if there might be a "chicken" level in this game too...or if they'd planned on one but never put it in. And yes, it would be awesome if there was, and someone finally found it.

It'd be easy to test. Look at a wall clock, write down a start time, fire up the game, start a new character and play through to Vera, perhaps. Save the game, note what time it is in real life and see if the save game time matches the real time. At any rate...I don't think anyone's trying to say they don't specifically believe your time. At least I'm not. Some people are very fast at finishing games even when they "do everything." But just because it took you only 10-12 hours, doesn't mean it's not true that others took 15-17 hrs, even if they aren't as extremely slow as someone like myself. Also, what difficulty were you playing? Hardcore can slow things down quite a bit for some, especially the first run/when you're unfamiliar, because you tend to die a lot at the bosses & can take multiple times to do each one.

If you're playing as one of the mages, you can teleport instead of block/dodge, which may be easier for some people to deal with (me). If you're playing melee...I've seen people in vids play the bosses as a button masher, so you can do it...especially on a lower difficulty, but you're going to take a lot of damage/will probably die a lot, so if you play that way, focus on a lot of stamina. In terms of grinding levels, yes you can. The key there is that once you finish a main-plot questline for a certain area, the enemies for an area disappear (or you can't go back). So if you want to grind, you need to do it before finishing certain aspects of the game. Like, in the first town (the one where there are npc's giving quests), you can save your game at the save point in town, leave town & go outside to kill the clusters of bandits out there, go back to town, save game, leave town again, etc. They respawn each time you leave (especially the uh...southern? gate). However, once you've finished a certain main quest/boss, the bandits go away. Health wise, the characters are built to have/use healing skills. It's not just about the orbs that fall. When you reach level 2, put your first point into the healing skill. It's a heal-over-time thing, but it works fine. By later game it works so well you may not even need the green orbs at all. Oh and also, normal enemies, if you run away far enough, they'll stop following you. That's how you divide & conquer if you're having some trouble w/a group (won't work on bosses, tho, of course).

@Tigranes - you are awesome. I really have to install xml on this PC. @C2B - There's actual chicken island level files? I know there are sound files with that title, but they are all very much lip test readings or something, with very distorted/cadenced vocalizations and the same 'testing 1-2-3' sort of line. I figured they were left over tests that were left in like they often are. I doubt they'd have anything to do with an actual game level. I've only looked at the sound files tho, not all the other types. There are .dds files too, which means it might (emphasis on might) be possible to mod armor textures & stuff. But not me unfortunately. Not my forte.

I've had that happen too, but only in the Causeway. And only about 1/3 of the time I go in there. It's strange. Dragging their feet and stuttering jerikly along.

Hehe. From reading around I have the sensation that maybe 15-16 hrs. might be a decent average number for normal people. Give or take a few hours either way I guess.

To be honest, I'm not always sure exactly where the time went/how it went myself. Sometimes it's because I'm trying to get video so I might re-do something. Or other times it's because I'm just having too much fun beating up on things w/a chr. or companion and stop caring about moving the game forward much. I doubt you missed much. I was pretty sure I hadn't missed anything - even one quest I thought I couldn't finish, when I went back much later I discovered I could - altho some of the voice files make me wonder if I did miss a little somewhere, but perhaps it's because I haven't played using the other chrs. as the "main" yet.

Oh, I'm notoriously slow when it comes to going thru any game the 1st time, sometimes even the 2nd time. It's just my nature. I don't mean to imply that the game can't be completed in 10-15 hrs or whatever, if you just go from point A to point B as the plot/quests dictate, using what you pick up. It most certainly can. I spend a fair bit of time testing things out when I level up, or get a new item I'm curious about, so I'll stay in one area and beat up on respawning monsters for a bit to check numbers/effects with various gear set-ups (for both me & the companion) before I continue following the plot. A lot of time spent in the gear menus, or the skill menus, thinking about those percentages etc. and what path I want to take with those. That sort of thing. I'm a number cruncher. Well, sort of. Used to be more of one, not so much these days. (edit for more clarity)

The save game timer (on PC anyway) doesn't seem to take into account all the times you're in your inventory/menu screens (paused). For me save game said 18hrs but I know I was "playing" for closer to 25 total. But if you don't spend lots of time staring at item menus etc. doesn't add too much I'd think. I agree with a lot of your general assessments, except I think the replay value is a bit higher. I'm playing Anjali a 2nd time and it's actually been more fun than the 1st. But that's subjective....also, for me, the original games didn't have tons of replay either (the campaigns that is, DS1 had a separate multiplayer world that I did play in a lot for a while). To me campaign-replay feels about the same for all three. I'll play it 2-3 times, maybe test a few things to the half-way point in the game a couple times, and that's about it until I have an urge to replay it a year from now, perhaps. Which doesn't mean I don't like them. I like all three very much.

Woke up early. Did stuff. Did different stuff. Now it's time for a nap, and then I'll do yet more stuff. The Voice finale was pretty decent, too. Dia's solo and her duet with Blake was the awesome/adorable. Cee Lo & Vicci's duet was a cheesy 80's blast. Beverly is cool and because she's an older lady who American Idol would never even let audition, I almost wish she'd win...but my gut says Dia. And Dia would deserve it I think.