What Are You Playing: 9 Years since the Last Dragon Age

[Anonymouswizard]

Co- ordination means nothing when the computer drops 3/4 of your party in round one because you weren't expecting it to have AoE spells that one shot your party members.

Sure you could reload and spread your party out more, but an encounter which assumes meta knowledge of enemy spells is terrible design. The same encounter at level 5 is fine, then you'll have the hp to avoid being wiped by level 3 AoEs and can recover.

On the other hand, at least Solasta actually uses the languages roles.

[warty goblin]

Unless you expect to win literally every fight on the first try, getting wiped by an AoW due to bad positioning is just fine. And if you aren't winning every fight on the first try, I don't see how you can avoid meta knowledge.

Personally I rather like it when a tactics game pushes back hard enough I have to restart a fight. I don't want that every fight certainly, but I would get very bored of a game which didn't occasionally throw up that level of resistance. That way I know it can, which keeps things interesting. Bonus points if it can do it with normal enemies with good positioning or some novel element like that rather than a big dumb boss fight.

[Ionathus]

All this tactics game talk is reminding me of Triangle Strategy, which I got most (I think?) of the way through two years ago before more or less ragequitting. The difficulty curve on that game was pretty rough: Medium was a guaranteed victory on every mission, but Hard was practically a guaranteed wipe every time. I simply could not figure out what the game was going to consider "good" strategy and what it was going to punish in unexpected ways. A real hair-puller.

I wanted to like the game but it never "let me in." Which is a pity, because it reminded me so much of my hours and hours of enjoyment playing Final Fantasy Tactics: Advance on the GBA.

In other news, I wasn't sure what to play next until watching the Fallout series put me in the mood for some old school Fallout, so now I'm replaying Fallout 2 (I considered starting with the first game and I might replay that later, but I've always felt like Fallout 2 is better in almost every way, except maybe the main plot). Maybe it's just my nostalgia speaking, but I feel like it holds up.

I tried the original Fallout once off a GOG Games sale, but since I had played Fallout 3 already I was not in the right mindset for the wildly different gameplay. I think going back now I would be much better prepared for what to expect!

[Batcathat]

I tried the original Fallout once off a GOG Games sale, but since I had played Fallout 3 already I was not in the right mindset for the wildly different gameplay. I think going back now I would be much better prepared for what to expect!

Heh, that's pretty much what happened to me, only in reverse. When Fallout 3 first came out, I tried it but it was so different from the Fallout games I was used to that I couldn't really get into it. Then I returned to it a year or two later, knowing what to expect. I still don't think it's great, but playing it might've made it easier for me to "accept" New Vegas, which I think is probably the best Fallout game, combining the best aspects of 1, 2 and 3.

[WritersBlock]

I love how the new "next-gen update" for fallout 4 not only did not fix any of the bugs, glitches or issues the game has, but ALSO broke all the mods that were used to fix some of said problems in the first place.

[Psyren]

My friends and I have gotten really into Ravenswatch; think Hades meets Diablo 3 with a tiny dash of MOBAs like League (the hero controls and shopping mechanics). Set in a dark gothic fairytale land where you and a bunch of other public domain heroes form the titular squad, the Ravenswatch seeks to help the Sandman liberate the dream world of Reverie from Lovecraftian Nightmare entities.

The characters released so far are:

• The Pied Piper, who attacks with a magic flute and a constantly-replenishing swarm of rats;
• Scarlet, a speedy red-robed rogue who can turn into a heavy-hitting werewolf at night (she appears to be based on Red Riding Hood);
• The Snow Queen (not-Elsa) a sorceress monarch with potent ice attacks;
• Beowulf, a powerful bruiser of a warrior with a little pet dragon that can enhance his attacks with fire;
• Gepetto, an elderly artificer who crafts puppets and bombs in the field to help him attack;
• Melusine, a hydrokinetic siren (based on the Little Mermaid?)
• Aladdin, an agile prince who attacks with speedy enchanted scimitars, and who carries with him his amazingly powerful but limited-use magic lamp;
• Sun Wukong, the monkey king, who utilizes his divine powers and a big staff to self-heal and smash his enemies.

Each one has a suite of abilities that you can upgrade and tailor into various builds, as well as (at the time of this writing) one of two Ultimate abilities with longer cooldowns that you can whip out for emergencies or burst windows. It's been a blast to play despite being Early Access and I can't wait for the full release.

[Eldan]

Melusine is a French legend. She's a water fae who agrees to marry a knight and bring him riches and fame, as long as he keeps a list of weird conditions which change depending on the telling of the legend. I think she has a snake's tail instead of legs and possibly wings in her true shape, though she appears human. And of course the knight breaks the contract and is cursed. Or she turns into a dragon and devours him and/or the town.

[Zombimode]

Wraped up Geneforge. Had a blast. An interesting setting coupled with a good challenge and a very open game design combines to a pretty good package. Plus the glorious minionmancy!
The game would also be a good candidate for a second play-through - if I would actually replay games. Maybe a day will come when all gaming is just Fortnite, Minecraft and Cookie Clicker. But today is not that day! I will put Geneforge 1 on me replay list for now.
I was a bit unsure about the Geneforge series but Mutagen has definitely won me over. Geneforge 2 Infestation is now in my wishlist set to be played next year and thus continuing my tradition of playing one Spiderweb Software game every year.


Next up: As I spend a lot of time in the last couple of days reading The Three Body Problem, I'm in the mood for SciFi. For that a game called Walking Mars has caught my eye. No idea what this game is all about, but it looks interesting

[Psyren]

Melusine is a French legend. She's a water fae who agrees to marry a knight and bring him riches and fame, as long as he keeps a list of weird conditions which change depending on the telling of the legend. I think she has a snake's tail instead of legs and possibly wings in her true shape, though she appears human. And of course the knight breaks the contract and is cursed. Or she turns into a dragon and devours him and/or the town.

Nice! That teaches me not to google And that definitely fits with her characterization in the game.

[Zevox]

Okay, so, Solasta. Started playing it, and admittedly, it's a bit rougher than I expected.

Visually in particular, oh boy. The faces especially are reminding me of nothing so much as Gladius, that strategy-RPGish gladiator game I replayed last year, which is a 20 year old Gamecube game that wasn't exactly cutting-edge visually itself even when it came out. I honestly didn't think it was possible for something released only a few years ago to look like that, even a low-budget indie game. Not any kind of deal-breaker, just legitimately surprising to me that it looks as bad as this - and it's not doing itself any favors by trying to show characters more cinematically during cutscenes, with close shots of their faces at times. Probably should've kept that camera further back even during the story cutscenes.

As far as the story goes, eh, seems fairly standard fantasy thus far, nothing too interesting, but nothing wrong with it either, which is fine. The dialogue is kind of awkward at times though - thankfully not as much so as in Stellar Blade, but still noticeably enough that I went to check if the game was made somewhere that English isn't the native language, and yep, French company, so I'm assuming slightly sub-par localization is probably to blame for the clunkier dialogue moments. Again, nothing major to me, just a pretty noticeable flaw.

One thing that does bother me and makes me less inclined towards to the game is that it really seems to favor a style of D&D that's not entirely to my tastes. It assumes that the party is motivated by a desire for loot and money rather than altruism (even though most of my party has altruism and/or friendliness as major personality traits), the party seem to be sarcastic jerks to each other a lot (again, despite the personality traits I assigned), it wants you tracking how much food you have for journeys, every single normal arrow is counted if you're using bows/crossbows, encumbrance limits are pretty tight and you lose mobility quickly for going over them; in general it favors more fiddly bits of the game's mechanics I much prefer to have glossed over, and sets a tone for the game that isn't to my preferences.

It also doesn't seem to give me the full information about a lot of things, which can be frustrating - I can find no way to know the weight of an individual item, nor can I get more detailed spell descriptions for the spells the game has that aren't a normal part of 5e D&D (i.e. I had to learn that the Shadow Dagger cantrip has a 1d8 damage dice by casting it, the description only tells me that it deals psychic damage on a failed save). The UI in general is clunkier than BG3's I'd say. Also, unlike BG3 despite this being the console version it does not let me directly control the characters, I'm moving a pseudo-mouse cursor around and point-and-clicking them, which is always kind of awkward with a controller. Fine enough in combat, but for general exploration, it's definitely not my preference.

That said, I am generally enjoying the combat portions of the game at least, there's definitely been some good design there. Like BG3 it uses terrain well frequently, which is good. I did run into a frustrating bit during my latest journey though, where a random encounter put me up against a four-person group, three of whom could attack three times per turn. While I was level 3. And I'm playing on the normal difficulty. The fight almost wiped me, two characters were unconscious, one was straight-up dead, and the last one at 1 health when I finished it; thankfully despite the dead character being my Cleric, the free revivify from the plot crown let me get her back up. But when I ran into that same encounter a second time later in the journey, you'd better believe I reloaded the save I'd made after surviving the first one; that's just some BS right there. That is the one thing that's bothered me about the combat thus far though, other than that, it's certainly easy to see why it's the game's strong point.

Oh, for my party, since it's a full custom group, I went with a batch based on Legend of Zelda characters: Link as a Fighter, Zelda as a Cleric, Sheik as a Rogue, and Midna as a Sorceress. Which has wound up feeling weirdly appropriate given the number of cube-shaped rocks I'm pushing around to solve minor puzzles. Also appropriate that I chose Midna to be the one to pick up that crown. Yeah, strange how things are kind lining up with that party design decision I made on a whim, but I'll take it.

[Beelzebub1111]

One thing that does bother me and makes me less inclined towards to the game is that it really seems to favor a style of D&D that's not entirely to my tastes. It assumes that the party is motivated by a desire for loot and money rather than altruism (even though most of my party has altruism and/or friendliness as major personality traits), the party seem to be sarcastic jerks to each other a lot (again, despite the personality traits I assigned), it wants you tracking how much food you have for journeys, every single normal arrow is counted if you're using bows/crossbows, encumbrance limits are pretty tight and you lose mobility quickly for going over them; in general it favors more fiddly bits of the game's mechanics I much prefer to have glossed over, and sets a tone for the game that isn't to my preferences.

Yeah, this is definitely for a wargamer's table. A few tags are stronger than others and it just represents the likelihood of any phrasing over another with a weighted randomness (or if a line exists for it in the first place). I find that you really have to deliberately weight them with a kindness, altruism, and Formal and even then it's tricky. Feels more like friends around a D&D table more than characters in the world. Most of me just goes for the ride an abstracts a lot of it. As far as tracking food and arrows I'd pick up the create food spell as soon as you can. and get rid of any rations. those are the items that are probably causing your encumbrance issues.

It also doesn't seem to give me the full information about a lot of things, which can be frustrating - I can find no way to know the weight of an individual item, nor can I get more detailed spell descriptions for the spells the game has that aren't a normal part of 5e D&D (i.e. I had to learn that the Shadow Dagger cantrip has a 1d8 damage dice by casting it, the description only tells me that it deals psychic damage on a failed save). The UI in general is clunkier than BG3's I'd say. Also, unlike BG3 despite this being the console version it does not let me directly control the characters, I'm moving a pseudo-mouse cursor around and point-and-clicking them, which is always kind of awkward with a controller. Fine enough in combat, but for general exploration, it's definitely not my preference.

Hold <alt> when hovering over the description it will show you the dice value and weight of everything. It also shows the damage dice and area of effect. I don't know why it isn't showing for you.

That said, I am generally enjoying the combat portions of the game at least, there's definitely been some good design there. Like BG3 it uses terrain well frequently, which is good. I did run into a frustrating bit during my latest journey though, where a random encounter put me up against a four-person group, three of whom could attack three times per turn. While I was level 3. And I'm playing on the normal difficulty. The fight almost wiped me, two characters were unconscious, one was straight-up dead, and the last one at 1 health when I finished it; thankfully despite the dead character being my Cleric, the free revivify from the plot crown let me get her back up. But when I ran into that same encounter a second time later in the journey, you'd better believe I reloaded the save I'd made after surviving the first one; that's just some BS right there. That is the one thing that's bothered me about the combat thus far though, other than that, it's certainly easy to see why it's the game's strong point.

The game does expect some level of optimization as well as the mechanics. For those random encounters it expects you to go nova during them because you take a long rest afterwards and are balanced in that way. I recommend heat metal for those mercenaries.

Oh, for my party, since it's a full custom group, I went with a batch based on Legend of Zelda characters: Link as a Fighter, Zelda as a Cleric, Sheik as a Rogue, and Midna as a Sorceress. Which has wound up feeling weirdly appropriate given the number of cube-shaped rocks I'm pushing around to solve minor puzzles. Also appropriate that I chose Midna to be the one to pick up that crown. Yeah, strange how things are kind lining up with that party design decision I made on a whim, but I'll take it.

Oh that's fun. My run one I made my friend's D&D party. My second I'm doing ironman difficulty acievements which means that I need to optomize as much as I can. Ironman means it saves at the start of each player turn, so it goes really punishing on choices in combat. you can kill your save if you don't protect plot vital npcs.

[Anonymouswizard]

For the run I just started I just created what I see as a normal D&D group: a half-orc paladin, a tiefling bard, an elven druid, and a gnome wizard (the sole man of the group). I'm very glad that unlike my first attempted run I actually have the character option DLCs so I didn't end up with a human fighter.

Interestingly I forgot to give Nodkin the wizard Arcana proficiency, so he's now more of a historian who picked up magic for fun.

[Zevox]

Yeah, this is definitely for a wargamer's table. A few tags are stronger than others and it just represents the likelihood of any phrasing over another with a weighted randomness (or if a line exists for it in the first place). I find that you really have to deliberately weight them with a kindness, altruism, and Formal and even then it's tricky. Feels more like friends around a D&D table more than characters in the world. Most of me just goes for the ride an abstracts a lot of it.

I did actually double up a personality trait on everyone to try and make it their primary one: kindness for Link, altruism for Zelda, caution for Sheik, and cynicism for Midna. So that behavior out of Midna makes more sense to me, and is more fitting for her character from Twilight Princess anyway; the others, less so. Sheik and Link also have altruism as one of their other personality traits. Though somehow Link wound up with one called "slang" taking the place of his fourth? Zelda is the only with formal there (probably because of her aristocrat background), while Sheik and Midna got casual.

As far as tracking food and arrows I'd pick up the create food spell as soon as you can. and get rid of any rations. those are the items that are probably causing your encumbrance issues.

I suppose that'll be an option, but Create Food and Water is a 3rd-level spell. Even once I get it, kind of annoying needing to keep that prepared all the time during journeys.

Hold <alt> when hovering over the description it will show you the dice value and weight of everything. It also shows the damage dice and area of effect. I don't know why it isn't showing for you.

Again, I'm on the console version; no alt button exists for me to hold. Though after trying literally every button, I finally wound the way: I need to hit L3 (the left control stick...), which pulls up "tooltip mode," allowing me to slowly move a psuedo-mouse cursor over the inventory, then hit L2 while over the designated item to get more details like weight. And there is zero indication of this anywhere that I can find, you had to just randomly try L3 while on the inventory screen to figure this out. Yeah, not a fan of this UI...

The game does expect some level of optimization as well as the mechanics. For those random encounters it expects you to go nova during them because you take a long rest afterwards and are balanced in that way. I recommend heat metal for those mercenaries.

As far as optimization goes, I'll give my characters good stats for their class, good equipment, and what I feel are the best spells. Beyond that, not my thing, especially in 5e. I don't really multiclass, and I'm much less inclined towards taking feats over maxing my main stat, and even when I do take feats it tends not to be the ones that optimizers seem to love (polearm master, great weapon master, sharpshooter).

Heat Metal is not a spell anyone in my party can get - it's Druid and Bard only, and my casters are a Cleric and a Sorcerer.

Oh that's fun. My run one I made my friend's D&D party. My second I'm doing ironman difficulty acievements which means that I need to optomize as much as I can. Ironman means it saves at the start of each player turn, so it goes really punishing on choices in combat. you can kill your save if you don't protect plot vital npcs.

I did an ironman run in X-Com 2 once; the file got corrupted 2/3 of the way through and I lost the whole run. So I'm never doing that again. If I ever want to challenge myself to not reload an earlier save like that, I'll just do it voluntarily, not make the game force me to have only one save.

[WritersBlock]

Some good sales recently so I took advantage last night and got Way of the Samurai 4, Lorna the amazon queen, and Valkyria Chronicles (classic sega game with no Denuvo)

[Beelzebub1111]

I did actually double up a personality trait on everyone to try and make it their primary one: kindness for Link, altruism for Zelda, caution for Sheik, and cynicism for Midna. So that behavior out of Midna makes more sense to me, and is more fitting for her character from Twilight Princess anyway; the others, less so. Sheik and Link also have altruism as one of their other personality traits. Though somehow Link wound up with one called "slang" taking the place of his fourth? Zelda is the only with formal there (probably because of her aristocrat background), while Sheik and Midna got casual.

Slang and Formal are based on Backgrounds, not personalities. Like I said, it's a percentile chance for each line of dialogue if it exists.

I suppose that'll be an option, but Create Food and Water is a 3rd-level spell. Even once I get it, kind of annoying needing to keep that prepared all the time during journeys.

It's one prep, you barely notice it and you only cast it just before resting. There's also rations lying around everywhere, so if you keep four on hand between missions it's alright

Again, I'm on the console version; no alt button exists for me to hold. Though after trying literally every button, I finally wound the way: I need to hit L3 (the left control stick...), which pulls up "tooltip mode," allowing me to slowly move a psuedo-mouse cursor over the inventory, then hit L2 while over the designated item to get more details like weight. And there is zero indication of this anywhere that I can find, you had to just randomly try L3 while on the inventory screen to figure this out. Yeah, not a fan of this UI...

Oh, that's bad, but at least you got it.

As far as optimization goes, I'll give my characters good stats for their class, good equipment, and what I feel are the best spells. Beyond that, not my thing, especially in 5e. I don't really multiclass, and I'm much less inclined towards taking feats over maxing my main stat, and even when I do take feats it tends not to be the ones that optimizers seem to love (polearm master, great weapon master, sharpshooter).

Heat Metal is not a spell anyone in my party can get - it's Druid and Bard only, and my casters are a Cleric and a Sorcerer.

My problem with those encounters at first was always holding on to spells like I needed them later. Don't skimp on casting your leveled spells and just throw everything you have at the random encounters. I play on authentic difficulty and it carried me. Upcast sleep, use hold person, Use calm emotions if you are overwhelmed. Enemy cast a spell with concentrate? magic missile. Throw out scorching rays. Cantrips in random encounters are for when you run out of spell slots or you are going for one of the damage type achievements.

I did an ironman run in X-Com 2 once; the file got corrupted 2/3 of the way through and I lost the whole run. So I'm never doing that again. If I ever want to challenge myself to not reload an earlier save like that, I'll just do it voluntarily, not make the game force me to have only one save.

Fair enough. there's an achievement associted with it so that's why I'm going for it. I just got the no death one on my last run.

[Cespenar]

For "optimization", I only remember getting good mileage from picking a Paladin instead of a Fighter in Solasta as my meleeguy.

So, the same as table top, really. :p

[Zombimode]

Plus, if you pick a Paladin, you can also skip taking a Cleric with you, because the Paladin can do everything you will ever use a Cleric for: casting Bless.

Double optimization!

[Anonymouswizard]

For "optimization", I only remember getting good mileage from picking a Paladin instead of a Fighter in Solasta as my meleeguy.

So, the same as table top, really. :p

IIRC Paladin is extra cheesy as one subclass is specialised in fight shapeshifters... which includes the primary enemies for the Crown of the Magister campaign.


Going back to a BG3 halfling bard run. It really is a shame that the only male body types they could think up for male humans were 'dorito' and 'bigger dorito', when both halfling body types manage to be delightfully podgy.

[Zevox]

My problem with those encounters at first was always holding on to spells like I needed them later. Don't skimp on casting your leveled spells and just throw everything you have at the random encounters. I play on authentic difficulty and it carried me. Upcast sleep, use hold person, Use calm emotions if you are overwhelmed. Enemy cast a spell with concentrate? magic missile. Throw out scorching rays. Cantrips in random encounters are for when you run out of spell slots or you are going for one of the damage type achievements.

Yeah, I got that from them basically telling me as much during the tutorial random encounter. Problem is that using everything only goes so far at level 3 when your opponents have nearly triple your action economy. Especially when they roll a 15+ on the dice versus your Hold Person.

Fortunately, doing the first gem mission jumped me from level 3 to 6, so now I've picked up Fireball on Midna and Spirit Guardians on Zelda, which are obviously an immense boon. Plus of course second attack on Link. Hopefully I won't ever have a matchup that silly again.

I should ask, why mention Calm Emotions though? Last I checked that doesn't do much in combat unless you need to stop a Barbarian from raging or negate a fear effect or something, I'd expect it to be situational at best and a waste of a spell prep/known slot at worst in a game like this.

For "optimization", I only remember getting good mileage from picking a Paladin instead of a Fighter in Solasta as my meleeguy.

So, the same as table top, really. :p

As much as I like the Paladin class, the Zelda theme kind of precludes it. I guess you could stretch Link to use it, but Fighter and Ranger both feel much more natural for him.

Plus, if you pick a Paladin, you can also skip taking a Cleric with you, because the Paladin can do everything you will ever use a Cleric for: casting Bless.

Double optimization!

In my experience Clerics are too busy concentrating on Spirit Guardians to bother casting Bless, and Paladins are usually too busy smiting to bother casting it either.

[Form]

I've almost played through all of Horizon: Forbidden West and whilst picking apart machine animals with my arrows is fun, oof, it's a big game. That's not a bad thing, but I do feel the need to play something different now and may commit the sin of not doing all the sidequests and collecting all quest related collectibles. On the one hand I do want to listen to that last black box, on the other hand I don't feel like exploring what remains of the map to find it.

Spoiler: Far Zenith

Show

I've met Tilda and I'm just a little disappointed there wasn't a stroopwafel on the breakfast table. Saving The Night Watch is nice and all, but no stroopwafels? Tsk, so this is what 1000 years of immortality does to a Dutch person.

Also, it occurs to me she may well be the person responsible for the signal that woke up Hades. They had to hastily abandon their colony in Sirius with only a few of them making it to their ship and she seems to be the techie among them. There's potential for a dramatic revelation here later on.

[Beelzebub1111]

.
I should ask, why mention Calm Emotions though? Last I checked that doesn't do much in combat unless you need to stop a Barbarian from raging or negate a fear effect or something, I'd expect it to be situational at best and a waste of a spell prep/known slot at worst in a game like this.

This is where interpretative mechanics help you. In solasta it completely de-agros in a radius until they are attacked. One save, no rerolls until they take damage. You get as much time as you need to position, heal up and buff when you are overwhelmed.

[Cygnia]

Got all the achievements done for Sentinels of Earth-Prime. I think Sentinels of the Multiverse is the better card play, but SoEP has some good one in their deck too.

[Cespenar]

As much as I like the Paladin class, the Zelda theme kind of precludes it. I guess you could stretch Link to use it, but Fighter and Ranger both feel much more natural for him.


In my experience Clerics are too busy concentrating on Spirit Guardians to bother casting Bless, and Paladins are usually too busy smiting to bother casting it either.

Theming is a noble pursuit, so I can only tip my hat on that note. :p

For Bless though, it's such a badly leveled spell that it would even be worth it if your least fitting member (rogue?) took a level/feat to cast it.

[warty goblin]

Won a somewhat anticlimactic Seal victory in Age of Wonders 4 wolf game. I had figured once I pulled ahead on Seal points my ally would declare war on me, but instead they were happy to play second fiddle. Everyone else was at war with me, but they were weak and far away so I completely ignored them. By endgame unless somebody can show up with 3 stacks of maxed out dudes they just don't matter.

Continuing my heavy handed theming, now I'm on to a dragon leading an army of lizard people who ride velociraptors. Later I'll turn the lizards into dragon-lizard hybrids. Dragon leaders are a lot of fun, particularly early game where, well, you start with a giant dragon. Enjoyably they get their own custom dragon skill tree, so you can give them a tail whip ability, improve and alter their breath weapon, etc. To balance this you can't equip most items, but since all your other heroes are normal humanoids, you just give all the good stuff to them.

The velociraptor mounts are fun, they make your cavalry immune from opportunity attacks. So now my knights can charge from enemy to enemy without penalty. That's right, I'm a dragon leading knights. Dragon knights to be specific.

[Wookieetank]

That's right, I'm a dragon leading knights. Dragon knights to be specific.

Watch out for anyone wielding Dragon Lances, or mages with hourglass pupils