What are you playing now?

[Humanoid]

There was that one patch that turned them from easily the worst group healer to the absolute clear best. Yeah, their development path somewhat lacked direction there.

[Malcador]

 

Still the best WoW Paladin video

[Rance]

I'm playing Sengoku Rance waiting for the backer beta. I'm thinking of installing my early access version of Wasteland 2 but haven't got around to it since I'm pretty lazy 

[Keyrock]

I've moved on to the druid enclave in Neverwinter Woods, gonna help my fellow druids cure the critters gone crazy, right after I whoop up on my fellow druids in the arena.

[Labadal]

Feels weird saying it, but I am playing Pillars of Eternity. 

[ManifestedISO]

Holy moly it's backer bedlam at the beta bus stop for PoE. I hope Obsidian issues hazardous duty pay for the forum developers.

[Hurlshort]

Played a bit of PoE, it's pretty cool.

 

I spent a lot of time on the character creation.  Wowzers.

[Leferd]

Eternity. The music is impressive.

[CoM_Solaufein]

Testing a mod on Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition. Sure would like to get it done finally.

[Majek]

Tried som PoE, it was fun and deadly . :D Will come back to it next week again. Don't want to play it too much.

[Malcador]

Time to see if my money was well spent.

[Mamoulian War]

Your first impressions? I have access to Beta, but I really do not want to infest my PC with Steam

[sorophx]

Your first impressions? I have access to Beta, but I really do not want to infest my PC with Steam

I'll provide you with impressions gladly in exchange for your key 

[Mamoulian War]

Will think about that One of my RL friends does not have access to beta, and he does not mind Steam, if he would not want the game, I might consider about offering you the key

[Labadal]

Your first impressions? I have access to Beta, but I really do not want to infest my PC with Steam

It's buggy.  Very buggy, some amusing, others not so much. The good thing is that the most glaring bugs are already known to the team and worked on. When everything works, it is great and I do not regret my pledge.

 

I have spent 3 hours with the beta, and I am having a lot of fun when everything works. The rtwp combat is really fun. I feel that everything is easy to understand, with good descriptions on abilities, spells and stats. Background look great, even if I was hoping for less static ones.

 

The combat felt a bit hectic at first, as it felt that it was going way faster than it should. After a few encounters, I do feel at home though.

I'm only playing on normal and that is how I intend to play the btea until the end. I have been wiped once by some specters, but I don't think i was supposed to go in there yet. So far, it has felt to me that all characters have been useful in combat. The rogue is the one that loses stamina the fastest if you are not careful.

 

I have been playing a monk and created a custom chanter at the inn. The monk and the fighter go in for melee combat, the rogue comes in afterwards. I found ranged weapons for my chanter and priest, so the buff, debuff and attack from afar. The mage unleashes spells like a madman. There is no room for complacency, one wrong move and you can expect a party wipe. Comat is still an area that needs improvement, like better pathing and auto-attack. Both known issues.

 

Writing is good, but it's mostly just side content, so one can't really comment on story. The companions don't speak, as they are just randoms.

 

Spell effects look nice, and music is decent.

[sorophx]

fair enough. I'll just sit here and send mind waves to your friend, "you don't want to play Pillars of Eternity beta" 

[Leferd]

Quick summary for PoE:

 

+writing is top notch

+music is impressive

+art is excellent

+scripted interactions. Major points!

-Combat is too frenetic.

-monk and ciphers classes = Micromanagement.

[Guest Slinky]

Quick summary for PoE:

 

-Combat is too frenetic.

 

 

How so? Too fast or what? If it plays like infinity games you are supposed to pause the game much and often and issue commands then.

[Leferd]

They need to adjust the pace of combat. Movement is too fast and it's difficult to keep up with who is doing what as the status effects and feedback is not very informative.

 

There is essentially more tactile feedback in the IE games. Think of this analogy: Drive by Wire system as opposed to direct steering.

[sorophx]

you can slow the game down, reportedly it helps a lot. 

[Leferd]

you can slow the game down, reportedly it helps a lot.

I'll try that!

[Nepenthe]

I got more sick leave, so I might have to finish Dishonored. I had to abandon it when I moved here.

[sorophx]

in the meantime, finished Shadowrun: Dragonfall. and I have mixed feeling about it. I've come to realize I don't like it all that much. and here's why.

 

it's hard on the eyes. its visuals are of the kind that either pleases your sense of aesthetics of repulses you - a hit-or-miss, as they say. and in my case it makes me want to close my eyes. too cartoon-y, too flat, too boring.

 

it's small-scale. it feels more like an adventure game than a full-fledged RPG. there are two sides to this argument. first, its missions are very short (areas are very small, save for the last mission). funnily enough, while playing through it I actually enjoyed that side of Dragonfall: the fact that I could go complete a job inside 30 minutes - it's as if this game was designed with portable devices in mind, jobs are small episodes you can complete while on a train to work/school, or on your lunch break. 

 

but, unfortunately, it has very few of these episodes. it felt like the game should've been at least twice as long. I managed to beat it in one day, which would be normal for a Lucas Arts game of the past. but for a PCRPG it feels inadequate.

 

the combat... oh boy, where do I begin. first of all, the way combat begins drives me crazy. there are very few instances where you can get a jump on the enemy, most of the time they get to initiate combat forcing me to spend the first round or two positioning my team.

 

then there's the overall simplicity. I am spoiled by games like Frozen Synapse, but turn-based combat that's less complex than that of Jagged Alliance 2 makes me very sad. no called shots (yes, there are abilities that do that, but for some reason I have to wait two turns to use it again), no stances to increase accuracy, sniper rifles are very funky (can't hit a person at point blank range with it, what the hell?), the game consistently rolls against me in most tries where there's a less-than-90% chance to hit (seriously, I tested it once, and at 80% chance-to-hit my character missed 5 times in a row (I reloaded after every miss), which leads me to believe it's something to do with how the game calculates chances).

 

and it is getting more and more difficult to enjoy turn-based combat as I get older and more experienced. it's hard to abstract so much from how ranged combat should really look like, especially when it comes to AoE abilities. this is where I realize how good combat in Fallout Tactics really was.

 

the AI is beyond stupid, skipping their turns or spending them changing from a good position to a bad one (probably just running out of action points mid-way), not picking targets properly each turn (they probably get locked on a target they pick first and stick with it until it disappears).

 

The plot is terribad. So full of tropes, sci-fi and otherwise. I stopped caring about the story when The Puppeteer from Ghost in the Shell made its appearance. The plot twist was somewhat unexpected, so they get brownie points for that. And the writing is good.

 

That's the part I enjoyed. I'm not an expert on the English language, but the quality of writing seemed really good. I also liked the main characters, they were distinct enough from one another to care about them. 

 

In the end, though, I felt like the game missed its chance. It could've been so much better with more effort.

 

I like the whole Karma thing, how your parameters determine your skills and such. It makes advancing my character fun, because I get to decide at all times with even the smallest details how it progresses.

 

I like the setting. There aren't many cyberpunk games for PC, and even fewer worthwhile cyberpunk games exist (did I mention I liked Ghost in the Shell? I wanted that feeling from a game, Shadowrun gives me that feeling). 

 

In conclusion: Dragonfall feels like a game for tablets, that is afraid of its own potential, so it limits itself in all aspects to be more accessible. Such a shame. 

[HoonDing]

 

Your first impressions? I have access to Beta, but I really do not want to infest my PC with Steam

It's buggy.  Very buggy, some amusing, others not so much. The good thing is that the most glaring bugs are already known to the team and worked on. When everything works, it is great and I do not regret my pledge.

 

I have spent 3 hours with the beta, and I am having a lot of fun when everything works. The rtwp combat is really fun. I feel that everything is easy to understand, with good descriptions on abilities, spells and stats. Background look great, even if I was hoping for less static ones.

 

The combat felt a bit hectic at first, as it felt that it was going way faster than it should. After a few encounters, I do feel at home though.

I'm only playing on normal and that is how I intend to play the btea until the end. I have been wiped once by some specters, but I don't think i was supposed to go in there yet. So far, it has felt to me that all characters have been useful in combat. The rogue is the one that loses stamina the fastest if you are not careful.

 

I have been playing a monk and created a custom chanter at the inn. The monk and the fighter go in for melee combat, the rogue comes in afterwards. I found ranged weapons for my chanter and priest, so the buff, debuff and attack from afar. The mage unleashes spells like a madman. There is no room for complacency, one wrong move and you can expect a party wipe. Comat is still an area that needs improvement, like better pathing and auto-attack. Both known issues.

 

Writing is good, but it's mostly just side content, so one can't really comment on story. The companions don't speak, as they are just randoms.

 

Spell effects look nice, and music is decent.

 

[pmp10]

the game consistently rolls against me in most tries where there's a less-than-90% chance to hit (seriously, I tested it once, and at 80% chance-to-hit my character missed 5 times in a row (I reloaded after every miss), which leads me to believe it's something to do with how the game calculates chances).

The game most likely doesn't regenerate random seed at reload.

You could load a 1000 times and that shot would always be a miss.