What are you Playing Now? - Games don't make you violent, lag does

[kanisatha]

1 hour ago, xzar_monty said:

Thanks! Yeah, my question was poorly phrased; what I meant to ask was whether turn-based mode was the only option for combat. I was pretty certain of the answer, but I'm still a bit disappointed. I would've liked to play the game, but there's no way I'm going for anything exclusively turn-based.

And very clunky TB combat at that, in my opinion (from what I've seen in streams). And there's zero chance of anything changing in this regard in BG3.

TB combat just really sucks. In WotR that one battle that you are forced to fight TB is easily the most annoying and frustrating part of that game for me.

[xzar_monty]

1 hour ago, kanisatha said:

TB combat just really sucks. In WotR that one battle that you are forced to fight TB is easily the most annoying and frustrating part of that game for me.

I fully agree. It's awful. If I want to play (any derivative of) chess, I'll just do that, I don't want any of it in my cRPGs.

But apparently we're both on the "losing side" when it comes to real-time vs. turn-based approach in games like these. Nothing we can do about it, I suppose.

[Chilloutman]

I on other hand welcome TB over real time. I enjoy it a lot if its there is not 10000 filler battles

[xzar_monty]

Yeah, as I said, we're on the "losing side" and TB seems to be the way forward for games like this. It's yet another example of how the selection of games I'm playing continues to dwindle until there's essentially nothing left -- and indeed, in the past five years I have acquired less than five games. It may well be that in the next ten, I won't acquire any at all.

[Sarex]

1 hour ago, Chilloutman said:

I on other hand welcome TB over real time. I enjoy it a lot if its there is not 10000 filler battles

There is TB and than there is Larian's TB. I don't mind TB combat, but I really dislike his approach to it.

[Chilloutman]

i really don't know whats up with this dissatisfaction. I played EA long time ago and I felt it was fine. I was more annoyed with actual DnD rules than their implementation. I guess you can't make happy everyone. If anything Larian does not do well in previous games it was humor and dialog which felt too cheesy for me. But again, I am edgelord so there is that....

[Keyrock]

1 hour ago, Chilloutman said:

I on other hand welcome TB over real time. I enjoy it a lot if its there is not 10000 filler battles

I am also firmly in the TB > RTwP camp, even Larian's TB implementation. When I played Divinity: Original Sin, I thought the combat was far and away the best part of the game, even if a single battle could take an hour. It was everything else that I didn't like about the game.

[InsaneCommander]

3 hours ago, xzar_monty said:

I fully agree. It's awful. If I want to play (any derivative of) chess, I'll just do that, I don't want any of it in my cRPGs.

But apparently we're both on the "losing side" when it comes to real-time vs. turn-based approach in games like these. Nothing we can do about it, I suppose.

I can play TB with no problem, but I prefer RTwP. When I tried TB in Deadfire, even the first battle looked like it took ages and I decided never to select that option again.

[MrBrown]

Solasta's version of turn-based 5th ed D&D seemed to work well, in my opinion. Hoping BG3 is similar.

[Keyrock]

The story mode in AEW Fight Forever is so incredibly cheesy that I kind of love it. I wound up losing my women's world championship in a 4-way match. The brass in AEW clearly knew no one could beat me fair and square in a 1 on 1 match, so they put in the fix by forcing me to defend my belt in a match where I didn't have to be pinned to lose the title, which is exactly what happened. Later on John Silver tried to recruit me into the Dark Order, but it was a ruse and Mr. Brodie Lee (R.I.P.) jumped me after a match. I wound up systematically defeating all his cronies then I took the TNT championship from him at the Full Gear PPV. Now I'm building toward an Exploding Barbed Wire Deathmatch at the Revolution PPV. Hopefully the pyro works better this time around.

[melkathi]

That sounds exactly like real wrestling

[Gfted1]

That was an awesome recap.

[Wormerine]

10 hours ago, xzar_monty said:

I would've liked to play the game, but there's no way I'm going for anything exclusively turn-based.

As everyone has thrown their 2 cents I suppose I will add mine. 

Production wise it is an excellent turn based combat - they did a lot of work to make animations snappy, turns flexible, and the whole thing feels pretty good to play. They pace their game around turn based - so it’s not as boring as Turn Based Pathfinder or PoE2. As usually with Larian I have some misgivings about individual rules, and some major concerns about a feature or two. Still, hope for the best and reserve my full judgement until 1.0.

As far as 5e goes, I can’t see it not being turn-based - they would need to make up a completely new system. And I am also in the camp who think that D&D RTwP combat is pretty crap - it combines worst part of the both systems. So either created system E signed with RTwP in mind (PoE1&2) or make turn-based system a turn-based one. 

But I also really like turn-based games, so that’s definitely one change in BG3 I don’t mind.

[Mamoulian War]

More Tales of Arise post game. Defeated “Night Blossom of Nevira” and Ultimate Zeugle super bosses. Built “ultimate” accessories for most of the party and cleared little bit of Training Grounds. I am missing last Super Boss (the wind spirit) and then I will unlock some new quests and grinding to max level We’ll see how “enjoyable” it will be in this game.

[the_dog_days]

2 hours ago, Keyrock said:

women's

2 hours ago, Keyrock said:

4-way

[Zoraptor]

You'd be taking your life into your hands since it would be a Fatal 4-Way.

Though maybe that term is TM'ed by the other lot.

5 hours ago, Keyrock said:

The story mode in AEW Fight Forever is so incredibly cheesy that I kind of love it. I wound up losing my women's world championship in a 4-way match. The brass in AEW clearly knew no one could beat me fair and square in a 1 on 1 match, so they put in the fix by forcing me to defend my belt in a match where I didn't have to be pinned to lose the title, which is exactly what happened. Later on John Silver tried to recruit me into the Dark Order, but it was a ruse and Mr. Brodie Lee (R.I.P.) jumped me after a match. I wound up systematically defeating all his cronies then I took the TNT championship from him at the Full Gear PPV. Now I'm building toward an Exploding Barbed Wire Deathmatch at the Revolution PPV. Hopefully the pyro works better this time around.

Wait, so you were women's champ then became men's champ?

[InsaneCommander]

Gedonia. Joined the Mage Academy, where using dark magic is punishable by death, never mind the four skeletons that follow me everywhere. Also, finally built my house, complete with my own bar. As for the main plot, I'll let Wyanna says what she thinks about it (I'm not joking, this is her reaction to the next step):

To be fair, the game was developed by a single person and the result is pretty good. Nice of him to make this joke though.

[Hawke64]

I generally prefer RTwP to TB and TB to the weird thing in Final Fantasy VII/7 (probably 7, the one with "select the menu option while on timer because hotkeys are hard").
My issue with D:OS was that the animations were unskippable (in WotR it was possible to triple the speed and, as painful as that one battle was, at least it was faster) and that only the combat area was entering the TB mode, so everyone else could randomly wander into it. In terms of encounter design, often something was appearing out of nowhere (e.g. the second wave of slimes in the oil pits) and there was no way to prepare except for the meta knowledge. Then all surfaces were lava (sometimes literally) and just finding a safe spot to stand was a problem.
Though, I think, Larian has lowered the number of environmental hazards in their D&D game. Going to play it at some point, but likely in co-op. On a related note, Wasteland 3 had this amazing feature of switching between the players in dialogues (providing that the other player was in range) with 1 button. I strongly doubt that Larian will add it, so triggering dialogues with the rogue/fighter then reloading and putting the bard in front is going to be a thing.

Elden Ring. Defeated a dog/cat statue boss, then went to another dungeon and died to 2 dog/cat statue bosses, then went to the main story castle and died to some guy with magic hammer. Then defeated a skeleton boss with a boat and ran away from a dragon boss. The two positive things I can say so far are there is a horned horse called Torrent and Torrent can double jump. Considering just modding the game and running the critical path. Overall, the open-world in Dragon's Dogma and Shattered: The Forgotten Subtitle was more enjoyable and engaging. They also were smaller and the PCs were less flinch-y.

[Keyrock]

8 hours ago, Zoraptor said:

Wait, so you were women's champ then became men's champ?

If Chyna can win the Intercontinental Championship (twice), I can win the TNT Championship with Suzu Suzuki.

Edited July 6, 2023 by Keyrock

[kanisatha]

22 hours ago, xzar_monty said:

Yeah, as I said, we're on the "losing side" and TB seems to be the way forward for games like this. It's yet another example of how the selection of games I'm playing continues to dwindle until there's essentially nothing left -- and indeed, in the past five years I have acquired less than five games. It may well be that in the next ten, I won't acquire any at all.

It's like we're twins here. I'm in exactly the same situation. The game I want to play, in terms of their genre, I can't stand their TB combat; the games that have a combat system I would enjoy are games I'm not too interested in playing, genre-wise.

21 hours ago, Sarex said:

There is TB and than there is Larian's TB. I don't mind TB combat, but I really dislike his approach to it.

Yes, this^. I've been able to stomach TB in Solasta, for example, but Larian's approach (to many aspects of RPG design) really, really grate on my nerves.

[Mamoulian War]

And I was able to defeat last of the 4 big Spirits who came with light from Lenegis in Tales of Arise! The Sylph was the hardest of them all, and I have spent loads of items to stay alive. The reward was my 20th artifact, and the trademark Hot Spring Event .

[Humanoid]

I'm sort of trapped in the middle of the RTwP debate because I want my party members to behave autonomously, but I also want to play in turn-based mode. Yet for some reason I can't have that blend of the two features.

I avoid parties in general (in games and in real life), so generally speaking two units is the most I'm willing to micromanage. It's fortunate then that the likes of Larian games, Solasta, and For the King have co-op functionality that reduce the commitment for each player down to that level. Alas, that seems a bridge to far for the children of the Infinity Engine, so I haven't been able to get into the likes of PoE and Pathfinder.

[melkathi]

Chilloutman and I need two lancemates for MechWarrior. You'd have to manage just one single mech

[BruceVC]

I completed DFU last night, it was an excellent RPG experience with the mods I used and the game scores an 80/100 on the globally respected " BruceVC game rating system". I will summarize some of the shortfalls around the game at the end. I spent about 260-280 hours to complete it

Its the largest RPG I have ever played, I must have completed about 25-30 dungeons outside the main quest dungeons. I joined various guilds that included the fighters, mages, knights of the dragon, dark brotherhood and temple of Kynareth. But I spend most my time doing quests of the Mages Guild and I got to rank 7 and even summoned a Daedra

DFU is the quintessential open world and sandbox RPG, I have never played a game quite like it and I doubt I ever will. I also enjoyed learning about the various factions and history of the Iliac Bay and I ended up deciding to align with the Empire and the Emperor and gave the totem to him (King of Worms actually wanted it, imagine giving such a powerful artifact to a stinking, foul undead ). The Empire has the best overall approach to maintaining peace and stability in Tamriel so I decided to support them

This game requires an understanding of the dungeon design and dungeon clearing strategy, I included my tips for this is a previous post but the 3D map also helps when you tracking where you have been and where you need to still go. Using the 3D map is essential actually

And then some negatives about the game which dont detract from the overall positive experience but they include
 

• it has some bugs like invisible walls in main mission dungeons like the Direnni Tower and your quest to find Medora. There is a lever puzzle with 4 x levers and you need to only lower the Direnni levers and then a wall opens and you can proceed but in my game there was still an invisible wall. So I just used Console and the teleport command when this happened. I had to do this maybe 6-7 times in total so its not a big problem but its real
• even with mods there are limited monsters that spawn so you end up facing the same enemies in most dungeons
• the combat becomes very easy, I got to level 11 and I had an enchanted weapon and I was able to kill most enemies in 2-3 swings or kill them with 1-3 fireball or lighting based spells. There are some mods that address this but I dont think they change the fundamental combat design

But in closing, a fantastic RPG and well worth playing. Now I have played ES 2,3 and 4 its time to play Skyrim AE. I have never played Skyrim 

[melkathi]

Best thing in Skyrim is adopting children, have the AI pathfinding mess up so the child walks outside town and, being set to immortal in the game code for being a child, killing any monster it encounters.

 

When I found where my daughter had ran off to, she had slain a dragon.