bugarup

Thanks for the tip, I completely ignored riposte in favour of roll/dash. I noticed how OP guns are, armour-eating stasis + guns trivializes everything and I even stunlocked one boss this way. I'm just bit stingy with ammo, because even stunlocked the boss needed, like, 100 bullets with maxed out guns. I also got a very cool bishop for a companion, he's ranged and I'll see how he fares against bosses.

Sigh. I think I just got spoilered about the ending of the game I currently play. Couldn't have picked different screenshot, could ya, Hoonding.

Greedfall. I expected Eurojank, and Eurojank I got. Which is fine by me as I am not that bothered by less than perfect graphhix and other shiny bells and whistles, but one can expect those games to be less tropey than focus group tailored, risk averse multiple A's of yonder. So far I find it indeed much more interesting than Inquisition, starting with the fact that the PC is just some minor royalty sent overseas with specific purpose to kiss ass of potential allies and not some useless schmuck suddenly slapped with the Chosen One title out of the blue. Setting mayhaps not that original (Renaissance + Age of sail, science/technologies vs religious zealots vs noble savages vs merchant princes), but is more interesting just because these are much rarer in RPGs than bog-standard high fantasy schlock. Love little tidbits of lore like tattoos of the Nauts signifying experience of sailors and then seeing few wiggly lines on cabin boys against full face paint of admirals. I like the quests, their writing might be not as professional as, say, Bioware's, but they often make more sense in the context of the world if you can behind not so stellar wording. All in all, love the world a lot so far. Now things I don't love. Backtracking. I realized pretty early there's no point of exploring things before the story sends you that way so it's not as bad as it could be, but it's not fun all the same. Fortunately, areas aren't as vast and empty as in DA:I Fighting. Hate fighting that's obviously meant for console controller. Made myself a pretty decent crowd control/support build that works well enough on trash, but bosses are pain in the arse. Dying a couple of times to figure out their pattern and then applying "roll roll roll roll shoot roll roll, repeat" 300 times is not my idea of fun (could be a good practice for "Witcher 2", though). Companions being uncontrollable isn't helping any, since their AI sends them to headbutt everything and that strat works predictably poorly on bosses. Oh well, I could always drop difficulty and respec into "cheese the bosses" build if the game starts throwing them my way on regular basis. Still, both fighting and backtracking aren't so bad that they'd ruin good things like setting and atmosphere and quests. Here's hoping it stays that way.

Whole two lesser Lennons but not their old man?

Like the statchoo said, it is a DND clone and that's why it's so loved (think BG1 setting with even less cities and more meadows and temperate broadleaf forests a la continental Europe), only with extra owlbears. Great many owlbears. Like, you'll have to dodge like 5 of those googly-eyed goofy schmucks every time you have to go to the outhouse.

Ooooh, someone else who's irritated by PoE's combat muzik and loves Deadfire's. It's really so annoying I want to have a mute toggle on my headset just for it. ...and it just dawned on my why I loathed BG2's intro music since very first accord on my recent playthrough. I also agree with Mr Red Riding Hood on most things except for the setting. Deadfire rules!

Old classic series or that new one? (Only important if you care whether you're my bestest brosephski for lyfe or just a decent dude of culture)

How's Greedfall, by the way? The reviews I've seen around are basically "Like Dragon Age Inquisition but boring", and since I found DA:I boring...

*sigh* Me: OMG how big and scary is my GOG library! I should play this, and that, and this too, and oh this one, I need 10 more lifetimes to play them all! Also me: seems like I haven't visited New Vegas lately, time for moar 100 hours! P.S.: finished that one Baldur's Gate 2 playthrough (ToB was waaaaaayy more boring than I remember, literally had to force myself through) and I'm confused -- Charname can become a god, alright, but...of what exactly? Murder's still in Cyric's portfolio, right, so what are we? Some sort of abstract divine material? Biff the Undergody?

I, too, have a Du Hast cover to share

200% agree. Cities are where's fun at, down with pastoral Ruritanias! My absolute favourite would be Arcanum's Tarant. When I start the game I might wince a little at UI, at scrolling, speed, turn based vs real time shenanigans etc, but as soon as I arrive in Tarant, every nuisance fades away, imagination takes over and I find myself immersed in the living, breathing, 3D city with sounds and smells and people and everything...it's magical. Other favourites would be Fallout 2's New Reno (so! many! things! to! do!!!) and hub of Bloodlines (ambience, atmo, muzik...mmm)

I'd prefer something less EPIC, but hey. Better than nothing at all.

These have their own name, you know -- arrpg.

Bah, they could fleece and flay those multiplayahs for all I care; it's because of them we cannot have good things (aka normal single player games without motherloving multiplayer component tacked on) anymore.

Amen, bruh! City bird here too and lack (or even total absence. Looking at you, Kingmaker, or should I call you "Village Elder Maker"?)of cities is detrimental to any RPG.

Yeah, we seem to come from different schools of RPG Enjoyment, don't we. For me, going back to the initial state after the fight is a huge pro. Veni, vidi, vici, ite domum, that's my motto. Lingering annoyances only mean I will have to make time for something I don't want to do in the middle of my game session and that means "There goes muh immersion". Clearing vampirey debuff (aka hauling your ass to a temple through locations and loading screens if you didn't fork over for scrolls and then forced rest because this one scroll is very tiring to cast? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ) is as scary as, say, the cat barfing on the bed while I play. Not anything serious, still I have to drop the game for a couple of minutes of something vaguely unpleasant. There's this other thing -- as most things in Baldur's Gate, vampires have something that trivializes them. Give the mace of disruption to Beefcake A, amulet of level drain immunity to Beefcake B, plug the corridor with them, summon a skellie or two between them and your ranged line if you want to be better safe than sorry, park a Sanctuaried cleric nearby to spook them if your rangeds shoot fast -- voila, you just defanged those suckers. Now those Deadire's toothy schmucks on the reef and in the cave, they don't have a "Lolcurbstomp or trip to a cleric" situation. They're nasty and wiped the floor with me more than once. So I was rather happy when I finally did them in and was psyched to push on, but had I trek all the way back to the boat, sail across half the world to cough up some hard earned cash to some priest -- that would absolutely have killed the momentum for me.

...wow. And here I thought those screaming goats in Wasteland 2 was an Easter Egg, like, some dude just screaming and not even pretending he's a goat. Anyway. Prebuffing. Am I so glad this ghastly thing ain't present in PoE series and I'm with Algroth re: Kingmaker. The game before I got informed that "Protection from poison" , a) has a really long duration, b) has a mass version, c) protects from a wide array of extremely annoying grievances (like attribute drain. F†ck drain!!!!!!!!! ) and after that was almost like two different games, and that's just one case. The good thing about those buffs is that they last longer and are measured in real time instead of something like turns or rounds or some other nonsense, the bad thing -- you still have to put them all on when you enter the location or thing a fight is about to happen, and its a chore. They might be less annoying in BG series, where you put on a few long lasting ones and then if situation demands cast those things that last rounds, but by ToB they also pretty much become a necessity. Anyway², playing BG series made me appreciate even more just how many grievances (prebuffing, slow movement, inventory limit, nonsensical alignments, F†CKING LEVEL DRAIN!!!!! ) PoE series got rid of. Really thankful here, me.

I'm still loitering about Baldur's Gate 2, making new parties just to abandon them in a short while. Surprisingly enough, Chateau Irenicus does not annoy me enough to get Dungeon-be-gone, but I'm in dire need for a "Quaffs a couple of thievery potions and steals all the scrolls in Waukeen promenade" mod.

Feeling kinda cthulhy today.

You know, this is exactly why CA's recent grog icon status baffles me. I mean, his Opus Magnum Planescape Torment is famous for being "That game with fantastic story and crap combat". Grogs don't give a toss about stories, but combat is god (only if exactly like in BG2, but still). Why then? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Fallout 2. Great game. Also, stylized pulpy sci-fi with its own turn=based system that looks and feels exactly like BG2 not. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ KOTOR2. Great game, combat isn't very BG2, plus it was released on those filthy consoles for filthy casuals. All the other stuff is very much products of collaboration. Right now, the only plausible hypothesis I have is that Avellone's friction with Obsidian made public approximately around the same time codex types faced dawning realization that Obsidian, in fact, does not exactly strive to cater to their tastes up to tiniest details; ol' Chris just got picked up as a flag...in which case, dude gotta beware, because grogs are fickle mistresses -- like, weren't they praying at Sawyer's altar once too?

"Dude argues numbers and calculations with Thelee and Boeroer, congratulates himself for winning all the arguments"

Yeah, that. The subset of grogs with BG2 as their supreme deity who also are eager to blow Avellone in the narrow alley next to the dumpster anytime cannot be that big. Contrary to what the codex might think, game devs <> Hollywood A listers and their names aren't a bankable asset. ...well, save for some of guys from Japan, I guess, who do stuff like "So and so's The Game: the Electric Hullabaloo". But Japan is weird like that.

I'm playing "Return of the Obra Dinn", multiple murder mystery in the ever delightful ghost ship setting. it makes me feel blind, unobservant, mentally deficient and very invested. I even willingly make scribbles in actual paper notebook! Which is funny because I resent when RPGs want me to do that (I be like, "C'mon computer, if you can throw dice and do other math for me, you can bloody well keep geography pointers and quest giver locations too, you daft thing "), but Obra Dinn is willing to meet me halfway there by also having its own in-game book to fill and somehow it makes keeping paper notes fun instead of annoying.

I don't normally play RPGs fresh out of the oven either, but I keep hearing how initial sales is Very Important Thing, and this is new independent studio that went for something more original than high fantasy cliche salad with mild Tolkien dressing No 112, so I made an informed decision to give them my money and then wait.