What are you Playing Now? Whatever happens, at least we're out of that mudhole, Gilded Vale.

[Sven_]

3 hours ago, MrBrown said:

It's really not that stripped down. They're missing some specializations from some classes, mainly because those are not in the open license format, but other than that it's almost all there.

Some of the specializations they added are pretty boring, but I like their character backgrounds.

Oh, I meant "stripped down D&D 5" as in "stripped down from previous D&D editions (and inherently so, Pathfinder). 

@Wormerine: That's well put. I think prior the only game that did this somewhat (albeit with a much more busy interface) was Temple Of Elemental Evil. Purely in terms of mechancis and engine, is was ace. Never liked the latter part of its campaign though (endless hordes of bug bears and the like).   Plus the combat log was mandatory reading.

Also, the main campaign is a fairly affair, but I have visited one location where you had two choices to tackle it (storm the front gates vs. find another way). Plus later on I could try via CHA skill check to persuate the Big Bad to just give me the quest item I was looking for.

Didn't expect either. What's even more interesting is that the UI and stuff is also very robust already, and that they even implemented co-op as well as a campaign editor (Neverwinter Nights I hear ye calling). Mind you, these guys aren't industry n00bs. But still.

Edited November 26, 2022 by Sven_

[Sven_]

Doublepost, because on a different note:

I hugely enjoyed playing Grimrock 2 a couple years back (puzzles, combat, atmospherics and all). Hadn't played it in years and re-installed. And was shocked to find that a) the download was but ~800MB and b) the installed game takes but 2 GB. Despite the game's textures still not looking that low-res at all. Nowadays even small indie games oft take 5-10 gigs, that's miracle work to me.

Unsure whether there will ever be a Grimrock 3 (there was Druidstone after that, but one of the Fins seems to be working on Alam Wake 2 next). There are a couple similar games coming out in the upcoming months still. Such as Dungeons of the Amber Griffin, Fallen Dungeons and Skull Stone. Plus there seem to be a couple neat games since.

Just about ten years ago, I was concerned that the type of RPGish games I enjoyed were all going to go away. And nowadays you have to consider which ones to pick up and which ones to shelf for later joy. (Solasta I only picked up recently also because I wasn't even halfway finished with Pathfinder WOTR -- a bit of Owlcat trash mob fatigue).

Good times! In terms of gaming, at least.  

Edited November 26, 2022 by Sven_

[Mamoulian War]

Storyline of Final Fantasy XV – Comrades DLC on my PS4 is behind me. After more than 18 hours of grinding, I have defeated Bahamut. I had a decent amount of fun, but Square Enix pretty much killed it with endless grinding. Especially if you want decent weapons. Which is shame, because I liked the combat system more than in the base game.

[uuuhhii]

5 hours ago, Sven_ said:

Oh, I meant "stripped down D&D 5" as in "stripped down from previous D&D editions (and inherently so, Pathfinder). 

@Wormerine: That's well put. I think prior the only game that did this somewhat (albeit with a much more busy interface) was Temple Of Elemental Evil. Purely in terms of mechancis and engine, is was ace. Never liked the latter part of its campaign though (endless hordes of bug bears and the like).   Plus the combat log was mandatory reading.

Also, the main campaign is a fairly affair, but I have visited one location where you had two choices to tackle it (storm the front gates vs. find another way). Plus later on I could try via CHA skill check to persuate the Big Bad to just give me the quest item I was looking for.

Didn't expect either. What's even more interesting is that the UI and stuff is also very robust already, and that they even implemented co-op as well as a campaign editor (Neverwinter Nights I hear ye calling). Mind you, these guys aren't industry n00bs. But still.

there is no untangle the ball of electric cable mess of previous edition

if new edition are not more simple and functional it would have no market

the whole one dnd thing trying to hold on to the overwhelming popularity of 5e are concerning

[marelooke]

Well, did my yearly "let's see what's up with Star Citizen", and it kinda went like this:

Followed YouTuber recommendations, tried some mission, bugged, only 2 of the 3 things i had to destroy spawned. Tried twice, same thing both times, giving up.

Fly back to station, land in assigned bay, for some reason get ship impounded because blocking bay(?!). Lost another 5000 or so money getting it back.

Then decided to try and loot stuff in a location that got recommended,  firstchange my respawn point to nearby station, then fly over there. Server crashes when trying to enter airlock. *sigh* Right, getting late, better go to bed.

Another day, let's try that again. Fly over to same place, loot stuff, backpack full, empty on ship. Disconnect. Lost everything in ship inventory. Great.

Let's try that again. Fly over again, loot stuff.  Don't put stuff in ship inventory because of last time. Try to fly back to station. Get arms stuck in front of face so have to fly using 3rd person camera. Game crashes on landing. Log back in. Am in New Babbage (my initial starting location) instead of the station I set my respawn point at. Lost everything. Loot. Gear. The whole shebang.

Give up. Alt + F4.

So yeah, "unplayable" about sums it up.

Edited November 27, 2022 by marelooke

[Hawke64]

Are Legend of Grimrock 1/2 good in terms of story when compared to Icewind Dale (a reasonably good and slightly interactive story) or Baldur's Gate (even more interactive story)? Same question about Lionheart: Legacy of the Crusader and Lords of Xulima.

[Humanoid]

I really don't like the 5E mechanics pushing rogues even more into dual-wielding. With the class only getting a single attack per round, and sneak attack only applying once per round, it means if you do anything but dual-wield, if you whiff your one attack, you're doing zero damage that round.

You might be able to get past that by putting five levels into a class that does get an extra attack, but that's still a frustrating design, and that's before even taking into account that Solasta doesn't support multi-classing.

[uuuhhii]

4 minutes ago, Humanoid said:

I really don't like the 5E mechanics pushing rogues even more into dual-wielding. With the class only getting a single attack per round, and sneak attack only applying once per round, it means if you do anything but dual-wield, if you whiff your one attack, you're doing zero damage that round.

You might be able to get past that by putting five levels into a class that does get an extra attack, but that's still a frustrating design, and that's before even taking into account that Solasta doesn't support multi-classing.

this seems to be a nice opportunity to sell pathfinder 2e

nice three action system let any martial attack multiple times per round

str based dex based two weapon two handed weapon all work very well

rogue also get some really nice reaction and one of the best feat pool

[Tale]

Finished the last two Dark Pictures

Overall I'd give season 1 a solid 4 stars. I've got my quibbles with it, but the sheer fact that I plowed through over 30 hours of the damned thing and my following thought is "I want to play Quarry and then maybe come back to these" says a lot about how I feel. They're not going to be my favorite games of all time, but they still leave me wanting more.

House of Ashes was unquestionably my favorite. It felt like blockbuster installment of the season. And I just like the kind of story it is more. Being trapped in ruins, uncovering ancient mysteries.

[Humanoid]

7 minutes ago, uuuhhii said:

this seems to be a nice opportunity to sell pathfinder 2e

nice three action system let any martial attack multiple times per round

str based dex based two weapon two handed weapon all work very well

rogue also get some really nice reaction and one of the best feat pool

Hopefully it's implemented into a CRPG soon then. I've never actually played proper PnP outside of Lord of Bones' campaigns he used to run on previous versions of this forum (BIS/Interplay). I think I rolled up my first rogue for one of these forum games, and for almost 20 years since I've defaulted to rogues when playing literally any RPG. Which makes it all the more sad that I wouldn't do so in a 5E game if I ever played one again.

[BruceVC]

4 hours ago, Hawke64 said:

Are Legend of Grimrock 1/2 good in terms of story when compared to Icewind Dale (a reasonably good and slightly interactive story) or Baldur's Gate (even more interactive story)? Same question about Lionheart: Legacy of the Crusader and Lords of Xulima.

I find Grimrock to be  completely different and more simplistic compared to the IE games around narrative, its not even a fair comparison because the mechanics are so different which influences the narrative 

Grimrock is more  like older RPG like Eye of the Beholder and  Bard Tale 4 

Edited November 27, 2022 by BruceVC

[Sven_]

4 hours ago, BruceVC said:

I find Grimrock to be  completely different and more simplistic compared to the IE games around narrative, its not even a fair comparison because the mechanics are so different which influences the narrative 

Grimrock is more  like older RPG like Eye of the Beholder and  Bard Tale 4 

Yes, it's not a narrative game, just as EoB. There's no dialogue (options) to speak of too. The game has nice ambience, a great theme music, a premise in the form of a render intro, a pretty cohesive world for a dungeon crawl -- all setting the mood nicely. And then it's largely a Game Of Dungeons. Er, and Puzzles, actually. Real ones, unlike the focus group tested to auto-solve stuff in Skyrim et all.  

There is a narrative framework, and it works pretty well. Your party in Grimrock 2 is for some yet unknown reason ship-wrecking on an island -- and there's  seems a purpose for that which is up to you to discover (a lot is told through documents/letters you find). Also, the atmosphere is excellent throughout with day/night-cycles, good ambience sound (some of those shuffling sounds of creepy crawlies in the dungeons made my skin crawl), and a big variety of different locales (swamps, crypts, forests, overland, castles,..)

Here's a bit of early gameplay. 
 

Oh, and let me add another bonus point for Solasta. Making the light (you can also cast) influence fights against vampirish characters is just awesome -- e.g. they get -10 hp on each turn if they are in the light. Even though they can be lured out of the dark and into the sun during daytime a bit too easily. Thinking about it, that mechanic could make an awesome vampire / ghoul themed CRPG in an on itself.

Edited November 27, 2022 by Sven_

[Hurlshort]

12 hours ago, Hawke64 said:

Are Legend of Grimrock 1/2 good in terms of story when compared to Icewind Dale (a reasonably good and slightly interactive story) or Baldur's Gate (even more interactive story)? Same question about Lionheart: Legacy of the Crusader and Lords of Xulima.

I enjoyed the first Grimrock, but it is more about puzzles than story or characters. I'd say they are still not even Icewind Dale level when it comes to story. You are pretty much alone.

Lords of Xulima was pretty good and had a better quest/story progression. It was a bit cheesy. 

I own Grimrock 2 and never seem to be in the mood for it, so take that for what you will. 

edit: oh, I am hooked on New Vegas still. I am in the middle of the Old World Blues DLC. I had played the Sierra Madre (Dead Money?) DLC back in the day, so I skipped that one. But the rest of the DLC is new to me.

Edited November 27, 2022 by Hurlshort

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

11 hours ago, Humanoid said:

I really don't like the 5E mechanics pushing rogues even more into dual-wielding. With the class only getting a single attack per round, and sneak attack only applying once per round, it means if you do anything but dual-wield, if you whiff your one attack, you're doing zero damage that round.

You might be able to get past that by putting five levels into a class that does get an extra attack, but that's still a frustrating design, and that's before even taking into account that Solasta doesn't support multi-classing.

Iirc, the ways for melee 5e Rogues to not rely on dual wielding without multi-classing don't come online until around level 13....and only with some subclasses to boot. But it's been a long time and I have no experience with Solasta, so those options may not even be possible.

Rogues being not quite a full martial character is a frustrating design in general, for 5e specifically not getting the extra attack is really dumb. To add insult to injury, most of the gish full caster subclasses can pick up an extra attack by level 6, which really leaves the 5e Rogue as the odd man out.

[Humanoid]

1 minute ago, Make a contract with KP said:

But it's been a long time and I have no experience with Solasta, so those options may not even be possible.

The Solasta level cap is 12, and even that was an increase from a patch as it was originally 10.

[Sven_]

22 minutes ago, Humanoid said:

The Solasta level cap is 12, and even that was an increase from a patch as it was originally 10.

Actually, at least campaign-wise, that is what I like as well. This goes back to BG2 too, but the rampant rise from poor boy to God-like has grown a little tired. Nowadays everbody is doing it, and BG3 had initially received flame for not going as far (IIRC they decided to make their campaign go a little higher level after that). To be fair, the level progression is just as quick, as the campaign isn't that long. Still, at least in D&D 5e you don't get all that many new abilities from one level to the next. But in PoE, you've barely shipped past Tutorial Island™ and have already leveld up a fistful of times -- new abilites included.

It's all fine mimicing P&P-like mechanics. But those pen&paper campaigns can go over weeks, months or even longer. In computer adaptations you're barely getting used to all your new stuff and then it's another level-up. Compared to BG1 (or the Realms Of Arkania trilogy based on The Dark Eye most popular German P&P system), you barely gain a few levels. Actually at the end of the entire RoA trilogy your party is maybe level 7 or 8 (starting out at level 1 in the first game).

Sometimes this rampant leveling (combined with lots of magic loot) feels a tad cheap and instant-gratificationish . Like a slot machine where you put in the coin, and soon enough you'lll get another reward. Back in the 1990s, this was the action RPG Diablo kind of gameplay loop. It's influnced many more games since.

Edited November 27, 2022 by Sven_

[Humanoid]

13 minutes ago, Sven_ said:

Actually, at least campaign-wise, that is what I like as well.

Sure, that's absolutely fair and in isolation I tend to agree. But the focus here is on the supposed mechanical "fix" to the highlighted rogue class issue offered by the base 5E mechanics - if the powers that be want to encourage lower level campaigns then "either multiclass or level to 13" is hardly a satisfactory solution.

[Mamoulian War]

13 hours ago, Hawke64 said:

Are Legend of Grimrock 1/2 good in terms of story when compared to Icewind Dale (a reasonably good and slightly interactive story) or Baldur's Gate (even more interactive story)? Same question about Lionheart: Legacy of the Crusader and Lords of Xulima.

LoG 1/2 definitely not, they are just what they are, fun dungeon crawler with simple story. No interactive story at all in LoG 1. LoG 2 is still on my backlog, so I cannot comment on that yet, but probably closer to LoG1 than to IwD.

Lionheart is a mixed bag. It is IMHO pretty close to IwD and BG, but unfortunately, after leaving New Barcelona, you had just left the best, what the game has to offer

And LoX, hmm I had my share of fun, despite not being able to finish it yet. It is little bit simpler story than IwD, and if I remember correctly, it has interactive elements in it, which are at least on par with it. And If I can give you an advice, if you give it a chance, unless you are very experienced person with TB combat, and you know exactly what you are doing during level ups, play this game on Easy difficulty. I started it on normal, and the game beat the **** out of me on numerous occasions. Even if you want to continue in the main quest, you have to go through every quest and encounter, which is available to you on the map.

 

and to stay on thread topic, I have started to encounter first content from free DLC update in the Final Fantasy XV paid DLC Comrades   Namely my first Chocobo According to FAQs, Bahamut was the the final boss of the 1.0 version of DLC, so it looks like, I am still somewhere in the middle of the simple story of the whole DLC. I am missing only one trophy from the original DLC, but there are still three new trophies from the free DLC DLC  

 

Edited November 27, 2022 by Mamoulian War

[the_dog_days]

Just finished Horizon Zero Dawn on PC. That came with the base game and the DLC. Steam shows my playing time to be 80 hours but I know for a fact about 10 of those I was alt-tabbed out.

Pros: Robot dinosaurs. Fun combat. You can purchase maps that show you were collectables are. Fun game world.

Cons: The whole premise is built on a whole bunch of plot holes. First time, experimental tech doesn't work exactly as expected right out of the box but apparently in HZD all experimental tech does. But whatever.

It was fun. I could see myself replaying it a bit for the gameplay or buying the sequel if it comes to PC. 7/10

[uuuhhii]

1 hour ago, the_dog_days said:

Just finished Horizon Zero Dawn on PC. That came with the base game and the DLC. Steam shows my playing time to be 80 hours but I know for a fact about 10 of those I was alt-tabbed out.

Pros: Robot dinosaurs. Fun combat. You can purchase maps that show you were collectables are. Fun game world.

Cons: The whole premise is built on a whole bunch of plot holes. First time, experimental tech doesn't work exactly as expected right out of the box but apparently in HZD all experimental tech does. But whatever.

It was fun. I could see myself replaying it a bit for the gameplay or buying the sequel if it comes to PC. 7/10

how well are the control on keyboard and mouse

[the_dog_days]

9 minutes ago, uuuhhii said:

how well are the control on keyboard and mouse

Pretty good. I don't think it controlled better with a controller (I did test it). Melee sucked but the game wasn't designed for you to really focus on a melee build.

[Lexx]

I'm so confused, why do people here compare Legends of Grimrock with Icewind Dale? Those games are nothing alike.

6 hours ago, Hurlshort said:

I own Grimrock 2 and never seem to be in the mood for it, so take that for what you will. 

Funny, same here. I bought it back on release day but have not played for more than half an hour. Wasn't really in the mood then, and for some reason have never been in the mood ever since. Played the first game a lot, though.

[Mamoulian War]

2 hours ago, Lexx said:

I'm so confused, why do people here compare Legends of Grimrock with Icewind Dale? Those games are nothing alike.

It was a genuine question of Hawke64, who is searching for similar experience like he had with IwD. 

[Humanoid]

Didn't play Grimrock but I had a decent time with the similar Might and Magic 10. I think the large amount of outdoor levels appeals to me more.

[Hawke64]

Icewind Dale is the closest thing to a dungeon crawler I've played from start to finish/the middle of the second expansion. I can see the difference in combat (TB and RtwP) and camera perspective (FP and isometric), but not the underlying systems, progression, and story.
I thank everyone for the input. Wishlisted both at the moment.

Completed Ender Lilies. The game is amazing - from the combat to the graphics to the story. I've defeated the final boss #1, collected the McGuffins required to face the final boss #2, and on the second attempt was able to hold it stunned almost the whole last phase. For some reason, reaching the last ending unlocked the difficulty options and I was able to turn off the collision damage, which had annoyed me quite a lot. Though, the only things left to do are collecting lore items, some upgrades, and leveling the character to the max. Granted, the first two things require quite high platforming skills and good reaction time, which I don't think I possess, so might return to it later.

Edited November 28, 2022 by Hawke64
For some reason, quoting removes my own replies.