What are you Playing Now? - Video games are bad for you? That's what they said about rock-n-roll

[Mamoulian War]

Now, when I am getting to the hardest part of the DS2 DLCs, I needed a little bit more relax in-between bosses, so in addition to MK11, I have went back after few years into the post game of Tales of Vesperia Definitive Edition. So far, I got new swimsuits for the whole team and defeated first boss in the first post-game dungeon Labyrinth of Memories.

[Malcador]

Well party got wiped out in the Uralon fight, obviously I need to L2P.  Maybe I should have brought an officer, well, or built my characters better.  Not enough damage and flame resistant gear, perhaps, the Word Bearer with the flamethrower wrecks me.

Guess I'll just knock the difficulty down from Normal. 

[majestic]

Guess the nerfs killed the ludicrous damage numbers you could put out with flat bonus damage stacking on Arch-Militants and all the extra turns. By the time it was Argenta's proper turn, she could one-shot all mook level enemies (which was pretty good with the Blessed Bolter Casing and feeding into AP resurgence through kills on her Ultimate) and kill bosses with a single burst.

42 minutes ago, Malcador said:

Maybe I should have brought an officer, well, or built my characters better. 

You're not supposed to leave home without your mutant waifu.

[Malcador]

No, as I wrote, I'm pretty sure I just suck at the game

[melkathi]

Uralon's room has two entrances. The main elevator takes you into a bad starting position. If you sneak in through the back, you have better cover.

 

For what it's worth, my party lineup was me (Officer->Master Tactician), Hendrix (Assassin) because we were going to fight heretics so it made thematic sense, Ulfar because he can keep enemies busy and has mobility and for his personal mission, Pascal (Bounty Hunter) because we would fight hereteks and it is a mechanicus world, the Senechal dude who is so bland I forget his name to facetank the enemies, and Argenta because you should never leave home without an Argenta.

 

Tried the front door and had one down in round one.

Tried the back door and wiped the floor with them. 

Edited November 5 by melkathi

[Malcador]

7 minutes ago, melkathi said:

Uralon's room has two entrances. The main elevator takes you into a bad starting position. If you sneak in through the back, you have better cover.

I went in after killing the dude for Ulfar, flame thrower guy was still close and then cover all got blasted.   I am probably running a crap party, Yrilet, Heinrix, Abelard, Ulfar, Argenta and my sniper RT.  Maybe will try to primary that flamethrower guy again and see if that works.  Other than that maybe redo the siege (the defiler fight, argh) with Cassia or something. 

Really wonder what I did wrong here when I see everyone doing like 2k damage with characters.

[melkathi]

6 minutes ago, Malcador said:

Abelard

 

Oooh,

so THAT's his name.

[melkathi]

Some of the extreme damage from old posts is due to an Argenta bug, where a certain ability would not raise damage according to the modifier provided by the stat (+1, +2, +5 etc) but by the stat itself. An Argenta with (I think Perception) 95 would multiply damage by 95 instead of times 5.

It is  still strange though how for a game with surprisingly few actual worthwhile choices when leveling up, it is easy to make all the wrong ones. And not getting the exact weapon you need at the exact time you need it makes a lot of difference as well - there just isn't a lot of worthwhile loot. The vast majority of weapons you just trade for reputation. Argenta progresses between something like 3 boltguns throughout the whole game, and only her alt weapon slot makes any difference between builds. Again though, there may be just two heavy bolters and two flamers worth equipping.

 

Most likely, if you messed up anything it is colony projects, locking you out of two or three items worth buying. Again, most items you get from the factions are again just bloat.

[Also gorgon]

Stalker 2 is two weeks away.

I want it to be awesome. 

 

[marelooke]

More Baldur's Gate 3. Getting to the end of Act 2.

Combat generally isn't a problem anymore, and with the higher levels, better gear, and after turning karmic dice off I can get through a couple of encounters at least without everyone being near death and/or "long rest"-spamming. Thankfully, as there is a lot of combat given how persuasive my Wizard is...

Some thoughts:

• Build suggestions for the builds the companions start out with would have been nice for those of us that want to stick with these thematic builds.
• Someone at Larian has a hard-on for chaining increasingly difficult dialogue checks, either just harder and harder ones (usually Persuasion) or ones relying on totally different attributes. Bonus points for the only significant outcome being achieved by passing all of them, and failing any of them leading to combat.
• Dialogue/storytelling in Act 2 is kinda...disappointing in a few places. Major Act 2 spoilers:
  Spoiler

  Like I found out who Isobel's father was (and that she's supposed to be kinda dead). Talked to Jaheira about it, who straight up confirmed what I suspected. Talked to Isobel, had to pass a perception check for something I already knew, or I couldn't even get *anything* from that interaction, and then she just denies it in a very dismissive manner, and there's no further interaction possible at that point... Errr, sure.

• The two last "Origin story" companions you can pick up feel severely undercooked as companions, at least so far in Act 2.
• Spoiler

  By which I mean Halsin and Minthara

  They often don't have dialogue for significant events other companions do comment on, and seem to not react in any way to many actions you can take during the Act (meaning no comments, nor approval/disapproval).
• Why does the druid just chill in camp for half the act before becoming an actual companion?
• The above two companions also make going back to Act 1 areas annoying as hell as they will just drop most of their inventory in a bag on your player character, even when they're not in your active party at the time, as if they are permanently leaving the party. Thankfully when going back to Act 2 areas they're still just in camp, but you get to re-equip all of their stuff. Annoying.
• That "other skill tree". Bringing the Paladin into the party...
  Spoiler

  ...makes the game act as if you've used tadpoles, which none of my party so far had, well, not willingly anyway. But Minthara came "pre-tadpoled" and now the game seems to assume my player character is cool with those things. They also randomly stopped popping up as inventory items for the same reason, which was confusing as hell and I had to search the interwebz to figure out what was going on there.

  Game really tries to pressure you into using those things, and I'm starting to have this sinking feeling it may not handle characters that choose to avoid them in any significant way.

• Really liked the interaction between Withers and that one NPC. Do wish we'd have more conversation options with the guy chilling in our camp though.

 

Edited November 6 by marelooke

[Wormerine]

42 minutes ago, marelooke said:

The two last "Origin story" companions you can pick up feel severely undercooked as companions, at least so far in Act 2.

•  

They are not “Origin story” companions, as you can’t play as them. There are also two more potential companions to come

Minsc and Jaheira

.

yes, there is a gulf of content between Origins and Joinable NPCs, especially H and M. According to what Larian said early on there was supposed to be far more Origins than the game shipped with. The suspicion is that they proved to work intensive and they padded out the roster with joinable NPC with lesser interactivity past recruitment. I don’t think it is a terrible idea, but stitches are a bit too visible me for my taste (at least in H’s case - when I played BG3 it was impossible to have Minthara and Halsin in the same playthrough). 

[marelooke]

8 hours ago, Wormerine said:

They are not “Origin story” companions, as you can’t play as them. There are also two more potential companions to come

  Reveal hidden contents

Minsc and Jaheira

.

yes, there is a gulf of content between Origins and Joinable NPCs, especially H and M. According to what Larian said early on there was supposed to be far more Origins than the game shipped with. The suspicion is that they proved to work intensive and they padded out the roster with joinable NPC with lesser interactivity past recruitment. I don’t think it is a terrible idea, but stitches are a bit too visible me for my taste (at least in H’s case - when I played BG3 it was impossible to have Minthara and Halsin in the same playthrough). 

Right, I'm aware of those last two as they were all over the net, was bit hard to miss, even though I tried () as I don't tend to follow games I intend to play at a later date very much until I do actually get to them (Avoiding hype saves on disappointment. Which is likely why I didn't mind CP2077 as much as most seemed to)

Personally I wasn't a terribly big fan of how the origins worked in D:OS2 so I kinda skipped over them, creating my own character in BG3 and I just assumed M&H were origins as well... Mea culpa. In retrospect I guess that'd have been quite the feat to pull off storytelling-wise so I probably should've figured that one out...

It does really seem M&H weren't intended to be in the party together, it is rather noticeable in Act 2 as Minthara takes Halsin's spot in the camp, displaying him, which sticks out as a sore thumb because...

Spoiler

...that's where Thaniel stands once you heal him...really not sure why they didn't just swap them, to be honest.

There's at least one camp site where she's just standing inside a table too, so yeah...

Honestly, from a story pacing perspective Halsin doesn't really make much sense to begin with, most of the Act 2 he's just chilling in camp, and by the time he decides to get off his arse and join you Jaheira is basically right around the corner. If they wanted a druid companion I feel they could've potentially done something interesting with Kagha, depending on how that got resolved.

Edited November 6 by marelooke

[majestic]

On 11/5/2024 at 7:04 PM, melkathi said:

Some of the extreme damage from old posts is due to an Argenta bug, where a certain ability would not raise damage according to the modifier provided by the stat (+1, +2, +5 etc) but by the stat itself. An Argenta with (I think Perception) 95 would multiply damage by 95 instead of times 5.

's not just that, the Arch-Militant's Versatility should only have stacked up when switching between different attacks, but it did for every attack after using Wildfire. Combine that with stacking extra turns through multiple Officers and the busted damage bonus from being adjacent to your characters, and enemies would be in a world of pain really quickly. Every stack of Versatility improved damage and your weapon skill, which in turn made hitting enemies with bursts from across the screen viable.

It was so silly that Argenta's best weapon was the autogun with its insane burst attack - but I kept on using the bolter because it was more appropriate.

[melkathi]

Not playing DA Inquisition.

After spending several minutes staring at this, I Alt+F4ed out of it.

 

[Hurlshort]

Enshrouded added a big update, with a snowy biome, rainy weather, and a ton of new NPC's. NPC's actually wander around your base and need beds now, so it has a lot more personality.

[melkathi]

Fired up Vambrace: Cold Soul

Got an achievement for Starting the game

The members of my tutorial team are Biggs and Wedge...

Edited November 7 by melkathi

[MrBrown]

3 hours ago, melkathi said:

Not playing DA Inquisition.

After spending several minutes staring at this, I Alt+F4ed out of it.

I think DA:I still lets you play without connecting to the servers.

Once you manage to start it once, anyway.

[Wormerine]

17 hours ago, marelooke said:

There's at least one camp site where she's just standing inside a table too, so yeah...

Honestly, from a story pacing perspective Halsin doesn't really make much sense to begin with, most of the Act 2 he's just chilling in camp, and by the time he decides to get off his arse and join you Jaheira is basically right around the corner. If they wanted a druid companion I feel they could've potentially done something interesting with Kagha, depending on how that got resolved.

Ouch. And I hoped the game became less buggy since I played it :-). The drop in polish after Early Access area is unfortunate.

Yeah, there was a vocal audience asking for Minthara (and especially Halsin) to become companions and be romancable, so I suppose Larian listened to the fans. Personally, I found Halsin's shift from camp follower to horny companion rather jarring. I didn't appreciate him harassing my halfing and not taking no for an answer. I feel like BG3 camp could use HR.

[Mamoulian War]

10 hours ago, melkathi said:

Not playing DA Inquisition.

After spending several minutes staring at this, I Alt+F4ed out of it.

 

It's so lovely to have always online for single player games, isn't it?

[melkathi]

Yeah, I boycott every company that doesn't force me to be online for my single player experience.

[Gorth]

8 hours ago, melkathi said:

Yeah, I boycott every company that doesn't force me to be online for my single player experience.

Man, you’re so negative it ended up double negative

[BruceVC]

8 hours ago, melkathi said:

Yeah, I boycott every company that doesn't force me to be online for my single player experience.

Why is that? What is the main issue you have with an online gaming connection to play any game?

 

 

[melkathi]

My problem is twofold:

1) if for whatever reason my internet is dead, I can't game.

2) if for whatever reason they kill the server (EA with Darkspore), I can't game.

[Lexx]

I noticed the new MechWarrior is out. Did anyone play it already? Not sure if I should go into it, since MW5 couldn't hold me that long, and the new one is almost 60 bucks on Steam..

[melkathi]

I first thought "Cool!" then remembered that I can't stand the Clans - eugenic, fascist clone experiments they are - so decided against trying it.