What are you playing now?

[Zorfab]

balance > fun

 

Actually chess games can be quite exciting for people who are well versed with the game. Seeing a brilliant move that you did not notice is always a nice experience and an eye opener. Although these days with all the computer data base analysis Go is probably a better choice for surprises.

 

And besides that, Chess is actually an unbalanced game that can only be balanced over a series of matches, since white has the advantage when both sides play properly and first mover guides the game down to lines that give him preferential winning chances.

Edited April 13, 2015 by Zorfab

[Gfted1]

...since white has the advantage when both sides play properly and first mover guides the game down to lines that give him preferential winning chances.

I didn't know that. Very interesting.

[WDeranged]

My energy for getting to the end of PoE is flagging. Not because I'm not enjoying it, it's just because ... that's I how I roll these days.

...even 7 Days to Die is going to morph into Alpha 12 before I get back around to it. Heh.

 

You're not alone, as much as I enjoy the game there's only so many times you can queue up the same actions before fatigue sets in.  I'll have put about 60 hours in by the end though, not to be sniffed at considering I don't find the combat very thrilling.

[Nonek]

Off to play some more Poe now, I do believe that matters are coming to a head, and ones choices in Defiance Bay are going to bear fruit. I'm excited to see what passes.

[LadyCrimson]

You're not alone, as much as I enjoy the game there's only so many times you can queue up the same actions before fatigue sets in.  I'll have put about 60 hours in by the end though, not to be sniffed at considering I don't find the combat very thrilling.

I miss enemy wizards that actually "scared" me. They are largely just squishy sword-bait in PoE. Not counting Ogre-Druids.

 

I haven't done anything much in Twin Elms yet, just got there, picked up the quests, left for the Paths. Did some of that and haven't really touched it since. Did get to clvl 10, maybe I'll go check out a certain major sidequest tonight.

[Agiel]

I find that much like the old Infinity Engine games, the two Chaos spells (one for the Wizard, the other for the Cipher which is trickier to use since she has to have unobstructed LOS on the target) is your friend. The name of the game is "Crowd Control".

 

Unfortunately Fireball is nowhere near as impressive in PoE as it was in DnD or even Dragon Age: Origins for that matter.

[Hurlshort]

Got an itch for an MMO, so I'm trying Archeage.  Very much has the Eastern vibe, but it's beautiful and has some pretty awesome crafting.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

I find that much like the old Infinity Engine games, the two Chaos spells (one for the Wizard, the other for the Cipher which is trickier to use since she has to have unobstructed LOS on the target) is your friend. The name of the game is "Crowd Control".

 

Unfortunately Fireball is nowhere near as impressive in PoE as it was in DnD or even Dragon Age: Origins for that matter.

For the most part, I find Wizards are best off using debuffs rather than direct damage in PoE. Not sure what the rest of you have experienced, but for the most part I ind Wizard spells to be underwhelming in terms of damage.

[LadyCrimson]

^ I meant enemy wizards, not ones in your party. I have not met a single caster-mage sort of enemy in the game that did anything but die in a few hits, except the Ogre Druids. Occasionally one has charmed/confused one of my party, but (with a full party) the change that does to my ability to smoosh the wizard is like lolwut.

 

The lesser Drakes do more damage. The fire spirit thingies that fire-poof on death do more.

 

Edit: in BG1 and BG2, a battle with a group of mages could be grueling, depending. Nothing like that here.

[Humanoid]

My memory of enemy mages in BG2 is largely of Valygar one-shot backstabbing them with that silly katana before starting each fight.

[LadyCrimson]

Yeah, they were still squishy hp wise. But if you weren't into stealth etc. the first 10-15 seconds could mean a lot. And what was that in BG2 with the early town's mage-police or something...you'd start the encounter after dialogue with them all in their bubble shields or something. I had one of those go on "forever" felt like. It was a long time ago tho...

 

In PoE my fighters could sip tea and exchange stock tips while walking backward towards the mage and the mages would still be doing nothing of note.

[Humanoid]

I used to be an powergamer who optimised everything to the n-th degree, savescummed, and generally exploited the game engine for all it was worth; and those were the conditions I played BG2 under (having only played it once, back in the year of its release). I was pretty much the complete opposite of me nowadays, and I wonder how I would have tackled BG2 if it were a current game. Probably by enabling cheat mode and skipping all the combat.... I tend to pick and choose what areas of a game I care about, and ignore what I see as irrelevant.

 

The discussion about PoE's economy somewhere around here for example meant absolutely nothing to me. People talk about optimising carry weights and calculating value-per-weight of loot in that game. Me, I hit loot-all on every container, and the first time I became encumbered, early on in the tutorial dungeon, I opened up the console and multiplied my carry weight by 100.

[marelooke]

The biggest advantage BG2 mages had were spell triggers and suchlike. Encounter starts and *boom* mage fully shielded, so you already had to have your counters ready. In PoE you can just zerg them and be done with them before they can do anything of note, something that usually didn't work in BG2. And yeah, PoE mages feel particularly underwhelming in the damage department. I'm not big on CC, just nuke stuff to hell please. So I'm kinda disappointed in them really.

 

That said I find PoE compares more with BG1 than BG2: combat starts out hit and miss and annoying until you get a decent size party and mange to fill out all your gear slots with *something*. Mechanics wise I'd rate them BG1 < PoE < BG2 right now, but that might change once I get further in (I'm somewhere in Chapter 2 right now).

[Gorth]

And besides that, Chess is actually an unbalanced game that can only be balanced over a series of matches, since white has the advantage when both sides play properly and first mover guides the game down to lines that give him preferential winning chances.

Waiting for the J.E. Sawyer version of chess where the black pawns gets more aoe damage.

 

Of course, they could also decide that the best way to play chess would as a real time with pause game, no unfair advantages and no discrimination of board pieces just based on their colours

 

On topic... finally got around to start a few games of Pillars of Eternity this weekend, now in that painful stage of trying to make up my mind regarding class and build before progressing too much (which means, create character, play a bit, delete, start over... repeat a lot)

[Malcador]

Mucking around with D3 for a bit as killing things en masse is always a fun thing to do. Waiting for guinea pig early buyers of GTA 5 to return data for me as well

[HoonDing]

Created my two Pillars of Divinity chars yesterday night: Bruce and Oby.

[213374U]

On topic... finally got around to start a few games of Pillars of Eternity this weekend, now in that painful stage of trying to make up my mind regarding class and build before progressing too much (which means, create character, play a bit, delete, start over... repeat a lot)

I know that feeling. The only way I can get past that starting indecisiveness is to create a cookie-cutter hero-type (Paladin, usually) and decide that since I'm going to be replaying the game multiple times anyway, might as well explore the obligatory "fight baddies, rescue maidens" path first.

[Keyrock]

 

On topic... finally got around to start a few games of Pillars of Eternity this weekend, now in that painful stage of trying to make up my mind regarding class and build before progressing too much (which means, create character, play a bit, delete, start over... repeat a lot)

I know that feeling. The only way I can get past that starting indecisiveness is to create a cookie-cutter hero-type (Paladin, usually) and decide that since I'm going to be replaying the game multiple times anyway, might as well explore the obligatory "fight baddies, rescue maidens" path first.

 

Shockingly enough, I've managed to avoid starting indecisiveness, which I am prone to, with Pillars.  I made Beefstick the Barbarian and 56+ hours later I've never looked back.  No metagaming either, I've been making decisions and living with the consequences, even if I have a change of heart moments later.

[LadyCrimson]

The discussion about PoE's economy somewhere around here for example meant absolutely nothing to me. People talk about optimising carry weights and calculating value-per-weight of loot in that game. Me, I hit loot-all on every container, and the first time I became encumbered, early on in the tutorial dungeon, I opened up the console and multiplied my carry weight by 100.

Yeah, I don't care about any of that stuff.

I mostly mentioned the enemy-mage thing because I think it's one of the symptoms of why combat starts to feel so same-y and wearying. There are very few serious measures/countermeasures in the game that mean anything significant (and most enemies don't use them), thus most combat is just the same thing over and over, because much of the time you don't need to even use the ones available. It starts to feel a bit like playing Diablo or something, where you just keep hitting the same 3 buttons all the time, except you're doing it on 6 chrs. instead of 1, which makes it tedious.

[GhostofAnakin]

Well, that sucks.  My save game data for my Metro 2033 game got corrupted for some reason, and now I have to start over a gain.  Not really in the mood to replay those levels just to get back to where I was.

 

This is EXACTLY why I loath this trend of developers using autosaves at random spots, rather than allowing a person to manually save anywhere and as much as they want.  If I was able to manually save, I'd have a bunch of different saves I could go back to.  Instead, there's only one solitary save and it got corrupted.

[Bartimaeus]

The entire save, or the current save? Try to use the chapter selection and pick the latest chapter autosave if you can.

Edited April 15, 2015 by Bartimaeus

[LadyCrimson]

Apparently in PoE, enemies get unlimited spellcasting. Which is not noticeable when you have a full party and are using them to pick your teeth with, but go solo and you may run into amusing situations of being Halted forever. Funny, sure, but yet so wrong.

 

 

Well, that sucks.  My save game data for my Metro 2033 game got corrupted for some reason, and now I have to start over a gain.  Not really in the mood to replay those levels just to get back to where I was.

 

This is EXACTLY why I loath this trend of developers using autosaves at random spots, rather than allowing a person to manually save anywhere and as much as they want.  If I was able to manually save, I'd have a bunch of different saves I could go back to.  Instead, there's only one solitary save and it got corrupted.

Totally agree.

[GhostofAnakin]

The entire save, or the current save? Try to use the chapter selection and pick the latest chapter autosave if you can.

 

The entire save.  I tried the chapter select option, and the only one available to me is the introduction.

[Nonek]

Due to work and tabletop I must admit that i've been neglecting Poe somewhat, however I finally got around to the end of act II. I think that I will now go back to neglecting it for a while, rather disappointing.

[cirdanx]

Now that i´m done with my first PoE playthru, i´m back to BG2:EE...curious if i will like the EE over a modded version..chances are not good