What Are You Playing Now: The meaning of life

[melkathi]

I haven't tried out all the options, but there is an option to set non-ally or ally unit speeds from Normal to Fast, Very Fast, Super Fast or Absolutely Fast.

[Sarex]

Still grinding away at Kingmaker Pathfinder. Somehow I missed two whole companions, the gnome and the ranger.... On a more positive note, managed to kill Spawn of Rovagug with a lvl 15 party (on normal difficulty) without any cheese. The deciding factor was spacing out the party so when they get confused they don't attack my other party members, seems basic but that is what was giving me trouble. All in all it didn't take me that many tries. Now moving on to Pitax to hopefully finish out the game soon.

Oh yeah, I also installed the Kingdom Management mod as that whole part of the game was kind of tiring me out (mostly due to my need to savescum).

[bringingyouthefuture]

Just finished Phoenix Point Year One Edition, liked it a ton, reminded me of the game Warlords for some reason - but pretty sure I never need to be brutalized by it again.  Messing around with Solasta Early Access too.  And @melkathi just picked up Troubleshooters, your posts convinced me.

[melkathi]

It is my superpower

 

Just note, Troubleshooter needs a bit of patience for the first 10 hours as you slowly unlock access to the basics. I saw some negative reviews on Steam, and having played the game a lot now, my first reaction was "Did you even finish the tutorial? You only played 10 hours..." Then I took a step back and realized that reaction may be a bit unfair.

Edited January 24, 2021 by melkathi

[majestic]

17 hours ago, Sarex said:

Somehow I missed two whole companions, the gnome and the ranger....

You managed to miss the only two competent companions then. Heh.

Okay, that's a gross oversimplification, but Alchemists are broken OP and Ekun had a ton of bugs that made him one-shot trolls in my game. I'm kind of guessing that no longer works.

[Mamoulian War]

I have finished yesterday Shadowrun Hong Kong - Extended Edition Deluxe – Bonus Campaign. The bonus campaign was little bit more fight ready than the main one and less to talk. Despite me being more the guy who like to solve the things the peaceful way, I think the main campaign was to much verbose even for my playstyle So I've enjoyed this campaign more.

[majestic]

2 hours ago, Mamoulian War said:

I have finished yesterday Shadowrun Hong Kong - Extended Edition Deluxe – Bonus Campaign. The bonus campaign was little bit more fight ready than the main one and less to talk. Despite me being more the guy who like to solve the things the peaceful way, I think the main campaign was to much verbose even for my playstyle So I've enjoyed this campaign more.

At the end of the day the reason why I liked Dragonfall more than Hong Kong was the real time stealh matrix weirdness in HK, but you're right. HK would have been improved by an editing pass or two to  reduce the word count. That was verbose for the sake of having a lot of text at times.

[Wormerine]

3 hours ago, Mamoulian War said:

I think the main campaign was to much verbose even for my playstyle So I've enjoyed this campaign more.

Yeah, I didn't have a great time with Hong Kong - definitely not as good as with Dragonfall. I appreciate they tried to go for more sabdued and talky mission design, but I don't think Shadownruns systems were deep enough to support so much non-lethal gameplay. So much of Hong Kong consists of running from one barely interactable conversation tree to another. Also really cute touches from Shadowrun (like reading forums and such) really overstayed their welcome in HK. I thought Dragonfall pushed Shadowruns systems as far as they can go. They would really need to build a deeper engine to beat it. 

[Sarex]

5 hours ago, majestic said:

You managed to miss the only two competent companions then. Heh.

Okay, that's a gross oversimplification, but Alchemists are broken OP and Ekun had a ton of bugs that made him one-shot trolls in my game. I'm kind of guessing that no longer works.

Luckily I don't need them for the true ending so there is that. Still bummed I missed them...I kind of wanted to 100% the game. As for the dmg, the Inquisitor, Barbarian, Rouge deal obscene amounts, not to mention that my MC Paladin is not that bad either. So on that front I doubt I would have used them much.

Although I'm still unsure how I missed them...

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

5 hours ago, majestic said:

You managed to miss the only two competent companions then. Heh.

Okay, that's a gross oversimplification, but Alchemists are broken OP and Ekun had a ton of bugs that made him one-shot trolls in my game. I'm kind of guessing that no longer works.

Ranged Combat in Pathfinder 1st edition is very powerful and in PnP Alchemist is considered the strongest class outside of 9th level casters. Even without bugs it'd be surprising if those two didn't hit big numbers. I'd say the Tiefling twins can outdamge then once they get composite blasts, but Kineticst is a headache to play.

Kingmaker is easy enough that you should be able to clear it with most of the companions. Off the top of my head Valerie is the only exception and she's just awful in the vanilla game.

[Sarex]

2 hours ago, KaineParker said:

Kingmaker is easy enough that you should be able to clear it with most of the companions. Off the top of my head Valerie is the only exception and she's just awful in the vanilla game.

I like my tank, she has a big shield and all.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

2 hours ago, Sarex said:

I like my tank, she has a big shield and all.

She can't lift the shield and is too dumb for combat expertise. If it wasn't for the respec mod I probably wouldn't use her.

[Sarex]

Respec mod you say...Hmmm.

[the_dog_days]

3 hours ago, Sarex said:

Respec mod you say...Hmmm.

I'll caution you: when used on a companion the respec doesn't give you back the exact amount of attribute points. There's a slider to determine how many attribute points you get on a reset, but some companions start with more than the respec on highest setting allows for.

[melkathi]

So I said to myself yesternight, Let's do one quick rescue mission before going to bed. You'll sleep better knowing you haven't left these NPCs in a state of terror. It will be quick. You have a strong team.

 

Started the mission with my team of 6 and was joined by the VCPD Inspector and SWAT. Loads of SWAT. Rushed the first terrace easily enough and took out the villains there. Was thinking how controlling 13 units in turn based combat was a bit of a drag as I made to rush the next group. One of them was a boss. Hand't encountered him before. Took out my main ranged damage dealer and my backup healer in the first 5 minutes of the mission.

Oops.

Decided to be more careful.

Ambushed a two man patrol.

Snipers on the roof noticed. And while the majority of the snipers ran up to the edge of the roof to line up targets, one ran to the opposite side to shout at the people gathered there.

Within a few minutes my squad was bogged down on a street corner, hiding behind a truck and a van, while 40 or so gangsters came at them from two directions. The third was were we had come from. The fourth was the building with the snipers. Some villains tried to circle around from there, but the Hero Irene and one VCPD Stryker rushed them, and while the Stryker kept them occupied, the Hero Irene dashed up the stairs, past more villains, took out half the snipers, dashed past the other half, turned around and dashed back taking down everyone she had passed.

Meanwhile, the main squad was fighting desperately, with smoke grenades tossed about by both sides. It looked really grim when two villainous swordmen broke through and took out the healer. Who then came back as a spirit to haunt them and possessed the swordman who had taken her out. That bought us some time.

 

In the end it was past 4AM, 3 heroes and 3 SWAT officers down (miraculously not the Stryker who had accompanied Irene) but all objectives completed.

 

Quick mission he said. It will be easy he said...

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

7 hours ago, Sarex said:

Respec mod you say...Hmmm.

Yeah, and you can do it with original attributes, 20, or 25 point buy. It can break Reg's portrait (Call of the Wild fixes this) and the ranger's quest line if he doesn't have an animal companion, but otherwise it's stable.

Call of the Wild also changes companions, but it's a lot more expansive than respec. For instance Valerie is a Vindictive Bastard (ex-Paladin archetype) built to use combat expertise to pump AC instead of tower shields while Harrim is a Sacred Fist (monk/warpriest combo) instead of a Cleric trying to be a Fighter. If you're far in I wouldn't use it though because it changes a lot of stuff.

[kanisatha]

17 hours ago, KaineParker said:

She can't lift the shield and is too dumb for combat expertise. If it wasn't for the respec mod I probably wouldn't use her.

I love her as my tank - no mods. You have to give her a good strength item and then she's great. But unlike what many people suggest, I did not use her with a tower shield and only the regular shield plus bastard sword. Her eventual AC was very close to if not over 50.

[Malcador]

Secret Files 3 gets marks for a creative set piece, Nina has some Esper like dream of the past where she is to find information to solve the mystery, can rewind time and not be seen. 

[Keyrock]

I finished Yakuza: Like a Dragon NG+ Hard. I think I got a little carried away grinding in the battle arena because the last 3 chapters were quite easy. I should be well prepared for my Legend run.

I wonder if I'll get any new outfits during the Legend run. I got a couple during the Hard run, not sure if it was for reaching a certain chapter on Hard or reaching a certsin level or what, but one of them is an outfit for Saeko so awesome that she's forever wearing it from now on. I only wish the outfits were always visible and not just during combat.

[melkathi]

Bah,

can finally buy a troubleshooter license to get jurisdiction for a third district and can't decide which.

Make an RP choice or make a gameplay choice...

[Lexx]

I have returned to my old Morrowind savegame (playing with latest OpenMW).

Savegame said I have played for 2 days and 15 hours.

Finished Tribunal and barely half of the main games story. Thanks to the absolute garbage quest tracking, it took me a couple hours to retrace my last steps and figure out where exactly in the main story I am. Man, if we wouldn't have wikis with all that detailed info, it would have been impossible to figure out what to do next.

Honestly, Morrowind is still a great game. It feels good, looks reasonably good (especially with latest OpenMW features for distant land, etc) and even the writing is good.

HOWEVER, as in typical Bethsoft tradition, the quest design is just pure garbage. Everything is sending you from the left side of the worldmap to the right side of the worldmap. There is rarely anything that takes place in the same location. And Bethsoft just doesn't learn from it. They do the same mistake over and over and over again. I'm 100% sure if TES6 is out, it will have exactly the same crappy quest design.

[melkathi]

Why should they learn? 

People have gone more crazy over Skyrim than they had Oblivion. Other companies are learning from Bethesda that this is the way to go.

[uuuhhii]

10 minutes ago, melkathi said:

Why should they learn? 

People have gone more crazy over Skyrim than they had Oblivion. Other companies are learning from Bethesda that this is the way to go.

player been drowning in question mark filled open world nonsense for years

endless waste of time and resource for player and developer both

cyberpunk 2077 seems to indicate this will not change anytime soon

[Lexx]

It's just such a pain. This is where FNV really shines, imo. The quests are most of the time limited to a small area and if they send you somewhere else, then always with logic behind it. TES games (edit: and Bethsoft games in general) in contrast will send you to a stupid cave at the end of the world "just because".

An example from house Hlaalu in Morrowind:

Talk to quest giver in Vivec, he sends me to Caldera. The dude in Caldera will send me to Vivec. Once I am in Vivec, the guy will seriously send me back to Caldera. AND WHEN I AM BACK IN CALDERA, THIS GOD DAMN **** SENDS BE BACK TO VIVEC. And all I did in this questline was to click through dialog. Nothing else.

It goes on like that ... Stupid quest design like this is the reason why we need god damn fast travel in every open world game now... because designers can't be arsed to come up with ideas that don't waste your time.

Edited January 27, 2021 by Lexx

[Mamoulian War]

12 hours ago, melkathi said:

Bah,

can finally buy a troubleshooter license to get jurisdiction for a third district and can't decide which.

Make an RP choice or make a gameplay choice...

If you expect an advice from the community, I would say go for RP choice