What are you playing right now

[Tale]

Mainly playing Ace Attorney: Spirit of Justice. But I'm also trying to get back into Dangaonronpa Another Episode, and checking out Trails in the Sky.

 

Just kind of jumping around, hoping I'll hit the point in one of them that wows me.

[Drowsy Emperor]

So I finished Inside, the latest indie darling of the critics.

 

Its about a boy that's running away from what seemingly represents an authority in some sort of post apocalyptic universe where one group of humans is using others as brainwashed puppets. To that end you keep on running from "humans", "dogs", some sort of underwater monstrosity that may or may not be on your side through forest, farmland, unspecified industrial levels etc. until you meet a tragic and mildly disgusting end about 3 hours or so in.

 

Its supposed to be a mood piece that tells you a "story" through visuals alone. But it doesn't actually tell anything and what little you see makes no sense at all and progresses to make less and less sense as time goes on until it just flops over and proclaims that its done.

 

And this is a game that has critics raving. Yet it manages to encapsulate the absolute worst traits of indie games, a vague pretentiousness about being something "deep" without a clear idea of what the "deep" thing is actually going to be. If you're going to make art without explicit or implicit allusions to something you have to at least give the viewer something to reflect on.

 

But there's nothing to reflect on in Inside. Its just a jumbled mess of ideas that goes nowhere. Which is a shame as the graphics, animations and sound design are all around excellent - which is I guess why the critics found it an easy piece to praise to high heaven.

 

Looking at the credits, its apparently a Danish game. Reminds me of movies like Valhalla Rising in its typically Nordic approach: "the world is bleak and violent and then you die".

Edited September 26, 2016 by Drowsy Emperor

[Chilloutman]

I seen some people playing Mordheim here, guys I got question. Skill frenzy have in description that it allows counter attack on every opportunity but disable dodge stances. AFAIK you get counter attack after successfull dodge. So what I am missing?

[Labadal]

46 hours played in Ni No Kuni. The game never ends. Some battles can be infuriating because of the brain dead AI, yet I can't drop the game. It's too charming! I can't make Drippy sad, now can I?

Edited September 27, 2016 by Labadal

[Katphood]

 

 "the world is bleak and violent and then you die".

 

QFT,

[GhostofAnakin]

I forgot how ugly some of these armor pieces are in Witcher 3.  Half of the ones in my inventory make Geralt look like he's wearing pajama tops.

 

On the plus side, I'd forgotten just how engrossing the world feels.

[sorophx]

finished Jade Empire, and it's kinda underwhelming. I didn't realize it wasn't made by Bioware, it showed while I was playing, and when the end credits rolled it all finally made sense. 

 

the game is really short (my final save says 15 hours, and that's going through all the side content), and the plot is really confusing (the setup for the second act almost killed my will to finish the game). the third act felt really rushed - devs-running-out-of-time rushed. it's especially obvious when you consider how many fighting styles the game has and how many of those you actually get to develop throughout the game's course. I was level 25 when the game ended, that was barely enough to cap 4 styles. I mean, what was the reason behind having 20+ styles (with a set of custom animations for each) that you don't even get to fully use?

 

this game almost worked. but there's just not enough content in the three quest hubs to keep you going. and the last part is just combat encounter after combat encounter with the same sets of enemies. it gets really tiring...

 

this is where the game lost me:

 

guess it's time to play KOTOR II with the restoration mod

[Fenixp]

I mean, what was the reason behind having 20+ styles (with a set of custom animations for each) that you don't even get to fully use?

Isn't necessity to choose your specialization kind of a big deal in RPG games in general?

[melkathi]

I seen some people playing Mordheim here, guys I got question. Skill frenzy have in description that it allows counter attack on every opportunity but disable dodge stances. AFAIK you get counter attack after successfull dodge. So what I am missing?

 

You get a counterattack if you have enough red points left over to perform the attack. So normally if your opponent has not used any combat ability yet, and have full, let's say 4 points and are armed with a single one-handed weapon that costs 2 per attack, they will counterattack twice, regardless of whether you hit or they dodge. There are things that reduce the cost of counterattacks: a successful parry for example reduces the cost by 1. So the same enemy armed with a sword (or any melee weapon and a shield) would still get two counterattacks, but if in parry stance, the first counterattack would have only cost 1 point. With Web of Steel, allowing two parry attempts, they could get 3 counterattacks out of those 4 points.

 

From here on I am mistaken

The idea behind Frenzy is (if I remember correctly) that you say "Yes, you get to hit me back, but I'll make sure I hit you and hit you harder." If it removes dodge, and your opponent has a high dodge chance of 100+, giving them the opportunity to hit back can be a small cost to pay. Especially if you play a high Melee Resist / Armor Absorb tank, who is either hard to hit or takes little damage when hit. Or if you have such a great crit build that you have a good chance to stun the opponent on the first blow anyway.

 

edit:

 

Practical example:

You attack my old level 10 dodge tank Augur. She has a dodge chance around 120% and of course mastered Sidestep for 3 dodge chances a turn.

If your warrior has 3 attacks, she has a 95% chance to dodge each of them, as even with dodge bypass for daggers etc, you are unlikely to get her below the critical failure threshold. She has already attacked you on her turn, so she has no counter-attacks, but you aren't going to do anything during your turn other than try to burn through her dodges, so another of your warriors can get a chance to hit her.

Now let's say you attack her with Frenzy. You negate her dodges, but as a trade in, for each of your three attacks, she will get a chance to hit you back, even though she is out of Offensive Points.

Of course in the first scenario you could simply choose not to hit her on your turn and save your offensive points for counterattacks yourself. But as a dodge tank she is most likely not meant to kill you. She is just there to tie down your heavy hitter, while the rest of her warband put the hurt on your guys. This gets even worse if the dodge character has abilities they can use that do not provoke a counterattack. A spellcaster who only needs to risk one low chance Curse/Wrath to be useful, while still tying you down for example.

I had a Sisters Novice tank a Daemonette for about 7 turns with her silly high dodge chance, while my Augur has tanked Impressives. Neither ever kill the opponents they tank, but that is the Sister Superior's job.

Edited September 27, 2016 by melkathi

[Chilloutman]

 

I seen some people playing Mordheim here, guys I got question. Skill frenzy have in description that it allows counter attack on every opportunity but disable dodge stances. AFAIK you get counter attack after successfull dodge. So what I am missing?

 

You get a counterattack if you have enough red points left over to perform the attack. So normally if your opponent has not used any combat ability yet, and have full, let's say 4 points and are armed with a single one-handed weapon that costs 2 per attack, they will counterattack twice, regardless of whether you hit or they dodge. There are things that reduce the cost of counterattacks: a successful parry for example reduces the cost by 1. So the same enemy armed with a sword (or any melee weapon and a shield) would still get two counterattacks, but if in parry stance, the first counterattack would have only cost 1 point. With Web of Steel, allowing two parry attempts, they could get 3 counterattacks out of those 4 points.

The idea behind Frenzy is (if I remember correctly) that you say "Yes, you get to hit me back, but I'll make sure I hit you and hit you harder." If it removes dodge, and your opponent has a high dodge chance of 100+, giving them the opportunity to hit back can be a small cost to pay. Especially if you play a high Melee Resist / Armor Absorb tank, who is either hard to hit or takes little damage when hit. Or if you have such a great crit build that you have a good chance to stun the opponent on the first blow anyway.

 

edit:

 

Practical example:

You attack my old level 10 dodge tank Augur. She has a dodge chance around 120% and of course mastered Sidestep for 3 dodge chances a turn.

If your warrior has 3 attacks, she has a 95% chance to dodge each of them, as even with dodge bypass for daggers etc, you are unlikely to get her below the critical failure threshold. She has already attacked you on her turn, so she has no counter-attacks, but you aren't going to do anything during your turn other than try to burn through her dodges, so another of your warriors can get a chance to hit her.

Now let's say you attack her with Frenzy. You negate her dodges, but as a trade in, for each of your three attacks, she will get a chance to hit you back, even though she is out of Offensive Points.

Of course in the first scenario you could simply choose not to hit her on your turn and save your offensive points for counterattacks yourself. But as a dodge tank she is most likely not meant to kill you. She is just there to tie down your heavy hitter, while the rest of her warband put the hurt on your guys. This gets even worse if the dodge character has abilities they can use that do not provoke a counterattack. A spellcaster who only needs to risk one low chance Curse/Wrath to be useful, while still tying you down for example.

I had a Sisters Novice tank a Daemonette for about 7 turns with her silly high dodge chance, while my Augur has tanked Impressives. Neither ever kill the opponents they tank, but that is the Sister Superior's job.

 

 

Ok so I dont have to dodge or parry to get counter attack, I only need some leftover 'attack' action points? anyway still dont understand that 'you perform counterattack on every oportunity'. I am currently having this ability on my chaos marauder just for damage buff, but I was thinking I can somehow get him more counterattacks but without dodge stance it seems quite unlikely.

 

edit after your edit:

 

oh, so it means that ENEMIES have counter attack against me even if they dont have left points when I attack them with frenzy? well that kinda sux

 

edit edit:

 

I think you got it wrong, it disable stances for character under effect of frenzy - not opponents

Edited September 27, 2016 by Chilloutman

[melkathi]

I may have gotten it wrong.

Then it should be that you can't enter any defensive stance but should get attacks every time. I'll search for it and let you know.

[sorophx]

Isn't necessity to choose your specialization kind of a big deal in RPG games in general?

not when you get the better styles right near the end of the game. I wasn't leveling anything because my only capped skill at the time served me well almost until the very end, so I saved up a ton of points and was able to play around with other styles before going through the last act. but not everyone is like I am, and they would've been in trouble without reading a guide prior to starting the game

[melkathi]

OK Chilloutman, I checked what people wiser than me said:

It means you can't cancel counterattacks. If you have the leftover Offensive Points, you have to use them to counterattack. So it is something theoretically negative.

I was getting confused with some skills that give free counterattacks

Edited September 27, 2016 by melkathi

[Chilloutman]

OK Chilloutman, I checked what people wiser than me said:

It means you can't cancel counterattacks. If you have the leftover Offensive Points, you have to use them to counterattack. So it is something theoretically negative.

I was getting confused with some skills that give free counterattacks

 

OK thanks, it boils down to when character can counterattack, I dont know why I think I read somewhere on internets that you can only counter attack after successful dodge for some reason

[Wrath of Dagon]

finished Jade Empire, and it's kinda underwhelming. I didn't realize it wasn't made by Bioware, it showed while I was playing, and when the end credits rolled it all finally made sense. 

 

the game is really short (my final save says 15 hours, and that's going through all the side content), and the plot is really confusing (the setup for the second act almost killed my will to finish the game). the third act felt really rushed - devs-running-out-of-time rushed. it's especially obvious when you consider how many fighting styles the game has and how many of those you actually get to develop throughout the game's course. I was level 25 when the game ended, that was barely enough to cap 4 styles. I mean, what was the reason behind having 20+ styles (with a set of custom animations for each) that you don't even get to fully use?

 

this game almost worked. but there's just not enough content in the three quest hubs to keep you going. and the last part is just combat encounter after combat encounter with the same sets of enemies. it gets really tiring...

 

 

 

guess it's time to play KOTOR II with the restoration mod

The game was made by Bioware, I don't know if they did the PC port themselves. I thought the Tien's Landing part was quite good, the rest was kind of meh a lot of the time, a lot of recycled ideas. I liked the game overall but it was clearly rushed, truncated and in general showed the start of the decline in quality that badly affected the subsequent Bio games.

[melkathi]

 

OK Chilloutman, I checked what people wiser than me said:

It means you can't cancel counterattacks. If you have the leftover Offensive Points, you have to use them to counterattack. So it is something theoretically negative.

I was getting confused with some skills that give free counterattacks

 

OK thanks, it boils down to when character can counterattack, I dont know why I think I read somewhere on internets that you can only counter attack after successful dodge for some reason

 

 

There are a lot of people who just don't know the game.

then there are those like myself who may have hundreds of hours in the game, but don't really use certain builds and the extra information has become one big pot of goulash where you can't discern what bit belongs where anymore

[sorophx]

The game was made by Bioware, I don't know if they did the PC port themselves. I thought the Tien's Landing part was quite good, the rest was kind of meh a lot of the time, a lot of recycled ideas. I liked the game overall but it was clearly rushed, truncated and in general showed the start of the decline in quality that badly affected the subsequent Bio games.

credits state that it was developed by LTI Gray Matter, with Bioware providing their game engine, QA, assets and a bunch of producers

[Wrath of Dagon]

 

The game was made by Bioware, I don't know if they did the PC port themselves. I thought the Tien's Landing part was quite good, the rest was kind of meh a lot of the time, a lot of recycled ideas. I liked the game overall but it was clearly rushed, truncated and in general showed the start of the decline in quality that badly affected the subsequent Bio games.

credits state that it was developed by LTI Gray Matter, with Bioware providing their game engine, QA, assets and a bunch of producers

 

This is what Wikipedia has to say about it: Jade Empire is an action role-playing game developed by BioWare and published by Microsoft Game Studios, originally released worldwide for the Xbox.[1] A Microsoft Windows version, developed by LTI Gray Matter and published by 2K Games, was released in North America on February 26, 2007, as a Special Edition.[1] Jade Empire was released as an Xbox Original on Microsoft's Xbox 360 on July 21, 2008. The Special Edition became available for Mac OS X on August 18, 2008.[2]

 

I know when I played it on the Xbox, there wasn't even any talk of it being developed by someone else. Admittedly I probably never read the credits.

Edited September 27, 2016 by Wrath of Dagon

[the_dog_days]

Jade Empire was made by BioWare and was ported to PC by LTI Gray Matter.

[sorophx]

I see, I wonder if there are any major differences between these versions.

[the_dog_days]

I see, I wonder if there are any major differences between these versions.

There's an extra male character model in the PC version.

[Amentep]

 

I see, I wonder if there are any major differences between these versions.

There's an extra male character model in the PC version.

 

 

Monk Tieng was available in the Limited Edition of Jade Empire for the consoles.  The Limited Edition also had a Weapon Style, Tien's Justice.

 

The Special Edition on PC has Monk Tieng, but not Tien's Justice.  It also has Iron Palm, Viper, and Rhino Demon Transformation Style not in the Limited Edition.  EDIT: IIRC there was an AI reworking for the PC port as well.

 

As to the fighting styles, I think Jade Empire wanted to do the "replayability" thing with them by allowing you different choices and combinations.  That said the execution of the styles is one of my biggest problems with the title (which I overall liked an awful lot) as the requirement of the paper-rock-scissor's style meant that your character - for all the choices they could have - was generally speaking going to be very similar because you really had no choice.  Also the Demon Transformations were generally worthless, IMO.

 

But I loved the setting, would have liked Bioware to revisit it with maybe a bit more work on the styles system.

Edited September 27, 2016 by Amentep

[sorophx]

testing out all the fighting styles themselves doesn't justify playing through the whole game several times, though. you can simply reload the game a few times before allocating points and see all of the styles that way.

 

I'll tell you this: if the game had several different plot lines (for example, three different quest hubs you'd only be able to visit if you missed the other two) - each spanning 15 hours for a total of 45 hours of content - I'd love this game as well. I'd much rather play one short 15-hour campaign in an interesting setting than endure 60 hours of a game like, say, Dragon Age 2. 

 

but on its own JE's campaign just isn't good enough to get me to play it more than once. I also liked the setting, I liked the combat system and would gladly play a bigger better JE 2.

 

EDIT: oh, and the demon forms saved my ass a few times, when my other styles wouldn't damage certain enemies (they also provide immunity to certain status effects, which also helped in a few fights).

Edited September 27, 2016 by sorophx

[Amentep]

Well I did say "generally" worthless.   There were times they could come in handy, but for the most part I found them not worth spending time using.  Mind you its been ages since I played either the PC or Console version of the game.

 

I still think the intent was the styles were to encourage multiple play-throughs even if its not very effective at that.

[GhostofAnakin]

Why does Hearts and Stone (sp) show up right away in my quest log when I arrive in Velen, but there's no mention of the other expansion Blood and Wine (sp)?