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Zorfab

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Posts posted by Zorfab

  1. Actually, I'm not sure if 'the quest order' is the right nomenclature because I'm not a native speaker.

     

    Of course there's no rule about the quest order, but for the beginners like me, it would be much better if there are some guide lines about where I have to start first and finish later.

     

    As far as I know, these are the contents that I can access now.

     

    1. Act1

    2. Act2

    3. Act3

    4. The White March

    5. Endless Path

    6. Cragholdt

     

    I know The White March / Act3 scale up the enemy level so I could face some tough fights, but still some of the fights in the end game don't seem to scale up enough. After level 12~13, it becomes too easy because the enemies become too weak for my level even in the hard mod, even with level scaling. I was expecting to enjoy Act3 with new gears and companions, but slashing lower level enemies with Mig+4 Dex+4 gears is not fun at all. I didn't even touch the Endless Path this time. Am I doing something wrong?

     

    If you want to maintain modicum of challenge everywhere? That´s hard. You could try what I did my recent PotD game:

     

    1. Act1

    >1. Endless Path (1)

    2. Act2

    >2. Endless Path (2-8 )

    3. Act3, including clearing Burial Isle (scale up if Act 2 just felt too easy)

    >3. Endless Path (9-11)

    4. White March 1 (scaled up)

    >4. Endless Path (12-15)

    >4. You can also finish with the final Caed Nua stronghold mission with two allies, no need to get third through WM2.

    5. White March 2 (scaled up)

    >5. Cragholdt

    >5. The Bog (after Cragholdt)

    6. Court of the Penitents

     

    Throw in bounties somewhere if you like, but remember that those give a lot of exp which will then make the main experience of the game easier. I usually just do bounties that give equipment pieces that I really want and ignore the rest. And play in PotD, of course... :cat:

    • Like 1
  2. Both are from smaller studios and use style of much older games, but otherwise the games are vastly different.

     

    I´d say both are worth playing and good specimens of their own genre. People who like puzzles should go with Grimrock 2 and anyone who does not like a little bit twitchy combat should get PoE. Grimrock 2 has plenty of encounters where proper timing will save you a lot of trouble.

    • Like 2
  3. balance > fun

     

    2XHUSXA.jpg

    Actually chess games can be quite exciting for people who are well versed with the game. Seeing a brilliant move that you did not notice is always a nice experience and an eye opener. Although these days with all the computer data base analysis Go is probably a better choice for surprises.

     

    And besides that, Chess is actually an unbalanced game that can only be balanced over a series of matches, since white has the advantage when both sides play properly and first mover guides the game down to lines that give him preferential winning chances.

    • Like 1
  4. Wasn't there another thead about this?

     

    In any case, I'm opposed to immunities. Even a fire elemental, in my opinion, could be killed with fire. You'd just need some to turn up the heat so high in blows right past the elemental's comfort zone and goes into what it considers unbearably hot.

     

    This isn't to say that I don't think monsters should have powerful resistances. In the case of a fire elemental, I'd probably go with 40 DR vs Burn AND an ability of "whenever this takes Burn damage, this heals 10 Endurance." Could you damage it with a crit Fan of Flames? Sure; a base 100 Burn crit would still go through for 50 (hot!). But if you graze you're just healing it, and a standard hit would do mediocre damage.

     

    The reason I'm against immunities is because I don't like invalidating builds in an absolute sense. If a player designs his whole party around Burn damage, a fight against fire elementals should be a nightmare... but not impossible. In particular, forcing such a party to rely on an improbable string of crit RNG seems like a good way to say "you might want to change strategy instead of grinding this out." They could still grind it out, though.

     

    Same thing with status ailments. I feel a level 1 Wood Elf Rogue using a Hunting Bow at a distance should have about a 20% chance of grazing a Lesser Black Ooze with the status portion of Blinding Strike, and a 80% chance of miss. No chance of a full-duration hit at all. Immune? Not quite. But close.

    I don´t think this game lets you do that in any case. As far as I can see, it is very very hard to make a one trick pony type character. Weapon specs always include multiple different weapons with different damage types and rest of the feats are quite generic, applicable in just about any situation.

     

    If you have wizards, priests or druids in your party you can always fall back to other elements and they are enough to deal with the enemies even if you lack the spec feats that give you extra damage. At worst you´d have to reload once and swap few spells on your grimoire if you run three wizards with same spec or something. :huh:

  5. False choices are pretty common in games. Designers ought to keep that in mind when creating their game. Choice between good and better or bad and good is not much of a choice at all.

     

    How about the spell combos or something similar? Potentially good, but only if the option of not using the combo is better in some cases as well. If you get something that just gives extra damage when you do this + that... Looks like a no-brainer to me.

  6. Deflection is the god defense here and lowering it by dumping Resolve and Perception creates a punching bag and not a tank or someone who can wade into melee and survive. Dexterity and might are DPS stats, Int is buff duration and AoE stat and Con is... punching bag stat. :no:

     

    Does the stat system make sense? Not in a simulationist sense. It´s a gamist construct and exist outside conventional wisdom in some respects. Trying to apply realism or vision to such a thing is going to result in failure. Sorry you had to experience it first hand.

  7. I`m hoping someone ends up making a good SciFi RPG game someday soon. It´s been ages since we got anything from that front (Mass Effect franchise ended up as a space soap opera shooters).

     

    XCom revival and Xenonauts at least brought tactical scifi games back, but where is the RPG part and why nobody is taking on it? It´s been mostly procedural games these days... I do like them, but it would be nice to have a story to go with all that content too once in a while. :no:

  8.  

    Angry Joe has an absurdly huge following and can have a big influence on sales of smaller and/or indie titles. I doubt it's a coincidence Pillars is now number 5 in Steam sales when it wasn't even on the list yesterday. For that reason alone I like him for making that review more than for a game that already had tons of buzz around it (Bloodborne). 

    But, the video posted in the OP is from February. And PoE has been number 1 on Steam sales since it was released. I'm not sure how you figure Angry Joe is responsible for PoE becoming number 5 in the last day.

     

    I think people are talking about the actual review video that just came out and not the teaser interview stuff in the OP. This is a pretty old thread in forum standards.

  9. Honestly, Bioware is not known for mis-management of that type. DA2 is pretty much the only game to display those symptoms to such degree. We will never know the specifics (those pesky NDA:s), but looking that BW track record nothing else seems to make sense.

     

    Inon Zur (composer for that game) did give out a small comment: http://kotaku.com/5780870/ever-wonder-why-dragon-age-ii-came-out-so-soon

     

    As to how accurate that is, your guess is as good as mine. But knowing how EA had conducted their business in the past... I would not be surprised.

     

    That´s also why it is pleasing to know that Obsidian is likely to avoid full entanglement with major studios for their next game too. At least I hope so. Partnering with someone is ok, but letting them dictate everything is a road to ruin. :getlost:

  10.  

    Soundtrack is good, but I`m actually bothered by the BG2 style throwback music/sounds you occasionally hear. They should have just made everything unique for this game and not do that.

     

    Hm, it's really just one track (at least in my ears) and for throwback purposes I adore it. Otherwise PoE has pretty much its own musical style.

     

    It could just be that I heard that particular track too much. Maybe I spend too much time in that location or something. This is a purely subjective thing, after all.

     

    I enjoy soundtracks that are unique and recognizable in some form the most, even if it is not the most pleasant listening all the time. Something like Remember Me soundtrack for example.

  11. This is of course a missed opportunity in many games. Overland travel is treated at most as a super simple minigame. Recent example is Wasteland 2. It has a water meter (completely trivial since refills are everywhere) and handful of random encounters, almost all of which are of low in quality (much worse than in some older games like Fallout 2). And radiation which is actually just a plot barrier you need to collects items for to bypass it eventually.

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