Video Games

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Fri Oct 21, 2016 8:30 am

Yeah, the Switch-Concept looks interesting.
I'm waiting for some more concrete data.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Mon Oct 24, 2016 3:12 pm

I recently started playing SubNautica. It's actually surprisingly good. Still in Early Access, but it's advanced far enough that I would consider it pretty good. It has a beautiful and dread filled world to explore, and exploring it really is the best part of the game. The progression is both enough to be interesting and always give you something to strive for, and also not so much that you ever get tired of anything.

There are some problems. Inventory management until you build your first base is a huge chore. Also the "and now you have to go fill up your water and food bars" part of the game stays the same for too long. It has an acceptable beginning time period, but then it stays that way long past when you would think you should be moving on to a phase where it is easier. Then we you have done a hell of a lot of adventuring, it suddenly changes to being almost completely taken care of. I feel like their should be a middle level. That said, there actually might be a middle level, there's a thing called a gravsphere I never built which "attracts small things towards it" if it sticks small fish to it when you build it, then that's probably the middle level that I wanted.

Voss · Post by **Voss** » Mon Oct 24, 2016 7:17 pm

Stahlseele wrote:And in Civ5, the AI was in some cases ridiculously agressive . .
But yeah, they again went with a bad AI that simply gets to cheat on higher difficulty <.<

In general, the release version AI is somewhat better than what they showed off in their stream. On average, anyway. In practice it seems to vary between 'vaguely competent' and 'what the fuck is wrong with you?'

I just played a game that spit out an entirely weird RNG Pangaea, in that it was technically one land mass, but really it was two connected by a tiny land bridge. I (as Norway, because I'm going random so I'll actually play the shittier civs) was on the western landmass, along with ALL the city states. Everyone else (Aztecs, India, Greece, Russia and Rome) was on the eastern continent. For whatever reason, the AIs never explored past their landmass, not even with ships until the very end. I found the Aztecs, and they were getting raided across the landbridge by barbarian cavalry.

This should be good for them (they can get builders whenever they destroy enemy units), but for some reason, they didn't have units defending their city, at least not to the west. So the barbarians had taken a settler, and left it sitting in Aztec territory when I arrived. Seriously, it was sitting in the open next to their capital. I paid for open borders and just wandered in and stole it. Never came back to the east, just built up in peace and went into space. I eventually got a great admiral and went exploring and to make contact, after I'd put a satellite in orbit, and met everyone else (well, the greeks had conquered Rome around turn 90). Everyone had been converted to Hinduism by Gandhi, but they'd done nothing outside their little bubble, never contacted any of the city states nor sent ships out (no one had coastal cities, and they didn't build harbors)

Most of the other games I've played have been more interesting, but that one stands out for serious dumb shit.

The religious game is dumb, as well. Missionary spam (a lal 5) still happens a lot, and the AI can and will convert your holy city and effectively kill your religion in its crib. Holy city pressure is essentially non-existent.

The big problem at the moment (other than AI maxing out at 'vaguely competent') is tech and culture advancement is very fast (flight by 1500 is pretty standard), but production is very slow and pretty much requires concentric rings of factories & powerplants (which radiate production to nearby cities, but one each per city), because for some fucking reason, production costs increase non-linearly, despite a lack of multipliers. The space projects are seriously 2500-3000 production, and if you don't stack overlapping factory bonuses, you'll be luck to break 70 or so production in a city. Units production costs go up by era, and district costs increase per district you build.

So industrial zones with factories and powerplants are an absolute necessity in every single city, and you massively profit from spamming shit cities that just build complete industrial zones and nothing else. (well maybe entertainment districts (zoos and stadiums also radiate, and can boost core cities)

Internal trade routes to other cities of yours, also give big production boosts for the originating city. So commerce and production is king.

Meanwhile you can get away with just 2 campus districts and theatre districts and keep racing through the tech trees.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Sun Oct 30, 2016 3:30 am

OK so . . Stellaris . . new DLC . . Leviathan Stories . .
Anybody else get the feeling of these things being hardcoded bullshit?

I have seen a single PIRATE SHIP that had a Hull Value of 40k and a Fleetstrength Rating of 9,7k! OK, that i can deal with, just throw a 15k Fleet with Battleships, Cruisers, Destroyers and Corvettes against it.
All kitted out with the latest and greatest in Disruptor, Plasma and Laser Tech.
It still took out half of my fleet, but i managed to kill it at least . . sadly, no special salvage or even the possibility to take over that monster of a ship.

And then a few hours later, i get a new alert about a . . ship of a monster.
Basically, almost as big as a sun, appearantly EATING A SUN . . imagine my abject terror, when my by then upgraded to 30k fleet strength got that thing down to about 90% health before having been utterly annihilated . .
And that fucking thing heals faster than i can build new ships. And moves through my empire and takes out ALL space borne objects i own. So all ships, including construction, science and colony ships. All stations as well . . Math tells me if i get it down to 90% with a 30K fleet i need a 300k fleet to get it killed . . that can not be correct can it? x.x

angelfromanotherpin · Post by **angelfromanotherpin** » Sun Oct 30, 2016 3:56 am

How's your weapon:defense matching? You can get some really lopsided results by managing the RPS.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Sun Oct 30, 2016 4:05 am

Pardon?
I have the latest Disruptoirs that deal 100% Damage to Shields.
Plasma Cannons that Ignore 90% of the Armor after the Shields are gone from the Disruptors.
And then i have Gamma-Lasers, which Deal 50% Damage to Shields and ignore 50% of Armor.

So i should be doing tremendous ammounts of Damage.
And to other ships i am doing tremendous damage <.<

I took out that big Pirate ship with this weapon load while it was not fully researched yet as well . .

Just . . this fucking Space-Monster . .

angelfromanotherpin · Post by **angelfromanotherpin** » Sun Oct 30, 2016 8:20 am

Did some research, apparently you're supposed to buy a specifically anti-this-one-monster tech from a Curator enclave.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Sun Oct 30, 2016 9:49 am

That . . is highly annoying.
Seeing how i only found the merchant and the artisan troupe . .

Leress · Post by **Leress** » Sun Oct 30, 2016 4:43 pm

Sonic CD for ios is now free, you have to pay to get rid of the ads though.

Blade · Post by **Blade** » Wed Nov 02, 2016 11:10 am

Stahlseele wrote:OK so . . Stellaris . . new DLC . . Leviathan Stories . .
Anybody else get the feeling of these things being hardcoded bullshit?

I have seen a single PIRATE SHIP that had a Hull Value of 40k and a Fleetstrength Rating of 9,7k! OK, that i can deal with, just throw a 15k Fleet with Battleships, Cruisers, Destroyers and Corvettes against it.
All kitted out with the latest and greatest in Disruptor, Plasma and Laser Tech.
It still took out half of my fleet, but i managed to kill it at least . . sadly, no special salvage or even the possibility to take over that monster of a ship.

Captain Harlock?

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Wed Nov 02, 2016 11:27 am

no, it was a Galleon.
And i shit you not, the name of the ship was:"What sorcery is this"

Shrapnel · Post by **Shrapnel** » Thu Nov 03, 2016 12:45 am

Dragon Quest Builders is amazing. It's like Minecraft, but good. I'm really glad that Squenix is finally realizing that DQ has an audience in the US, too. Now, if only they'd just release Dragon Quest X...

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Sat Nov 05, 2016 8:05 pm

fucking finally managed to actually win a round of stellaris for the first time today . . i just had to massively downscale everything.
Divide and conquer does not work in this game with the politics diplomacy and the warscore system . .
And appearantly, even just purely graphical mods that make the UI more useable disable all achievements <.<

AndreiChekov · Post by **AndreiChekov** » Mon Nov 07, 2016 7:16 am

Stahlseele wrote:fucking finally managed to actually win a round of stellaris for the first time today . . i just had to massively downscale everything.
Divide and conquer does not work in this game with the politics diplomacy and the warscore system . .
And appearantly, even just purely graphical mods that make the UI more useable disable all achievements <.<

Large part of the reson I haven't even touched the game yet.

Longes · Post by **Longes** » Thu Nov 10, 2016 1:13 pm

Tyranny is coming out today.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Sat Nov 12, 2016 1:44 am

Hold the presses, i can not believe i missed this, but some of the nice people from way back when are trying to reanimate MW:LL again!
https://clanjadewolf.net/mwll/

THIS is a full conversion MECHWARRIOR MOD for CRYSIS WARS.
You can find a .torrent including both Crysis Wars and the updated MWLL Mod installer on that page.
THIS is a Combined Arms Mechwarrior Game!
Battlearmor. Tanks. Mechs. VTOL. ASF. Artillery.
Been disappointed by MWO? Give MWLL a try!
MWLL was so good even back then that PGI/MWO tried and mostly succeeded in legally strongarming the mod into stopping developement.

Voss · Post by **Voss** » Sat Nov 12, 2016 4:15 am

Longes wrote:Tyranny is coming out today.

Its... largely better than its predecessor.

The story is far less railroady (though I'm not certain that is because your choices really matter or if they just change the order in which you do areas. But it feels better all the same, with a lot of reactivity to things you've done and choices you've made. I restarted after realizing I didn't create my character correctly (I went entirely spoiler free, so I had no idea that you get attribute points with each level up, so my initial build was awful). That said, it does have a few fixed points that you can do nothing about, despite it not making any damn sense. (The climax to chapter 1)

Story is also far more interesting than PoE, with the caveat that it's the usual Obsidian thing of 'you are super special for no reason, and if you're super lucky the last five minutes will explain why'

The skill-based classless system works a lot better than their knockoff D&D classes, and the weapon skills, dodge and parry make the shitty combat somewhat functional. It's still a test of patience and RNG, but the system actually functions like it was designed on to fit a d100 roll, rather than relying on massive gear bonuses and level based bonus to fake it.

The big downside are the companions. Story-wise, most of them are more interesting than the companions in PoE (I only like Eder and Sagani, the dwarf hunter, because they were the only two that seemed like people, rather than freshman philosophy tropes), but mechanically... yesh.

First off, two (of six) of the companions can't wear any sort of gear, because.. fuck you, that's why. One compensates for this by innately being a tank, the other... can get slightly better through class talents.

Which is the second problem area for companions. Your character has six talent trees to choose from, so you can customize the shit out of your character, with lots of choices. Companions have...2 (except for one guy who has 3... he's also the most boring and has special bullshit powers that make him necessary to drag along for parts). And mostly this is be a tank or be a really specific type of DPS. Which is really unfortunate, because except for the armored guy being a tank, the NPCs really don't fit well with one or more roles assigned by their talent trees.

Your first companion, for example, is set up to be a dual wielder or an archer. Archer might work (but spellcasters are better), but dual weapons are shit at dealing with armor (and the talents that get around that have recovery times that make it problematic), and don't hit for much- enemies, especially as you go on the game, can increasingly ignore her, and because she's also light armor focused, can mow her down at their whim.

Most of the others have similar problems. Spellcasters have some limits, namely spells slots and recovery times mean you want them to have some backup options, which largely seems to be archery (if you want them to not run into danger) or big fuck-off two handed weapons. The magic staves are a thing that go pew-pew, but they suck. Like paizo <elemental> bolt at first level class features suck.

The third problem is their stat setup, but this is relatively minor and mitigates itself over time with the attribute bonuses. Like PoE this game really wants to be min-maxed. And if you aren't blowing the shit out of people with big hits from two-handers or spells, they're going to heal or straight up ignore you.

tl;dr: better story, better companions (as far as interesting people); slightly tweaked combat mechanics that fit better, but still kind of suck. On the plus side, you're allowed to pre-buff the party outside of combat. On the downside, these buffs aren't amazing.

The downside of the classless system, is... if you aren't making a supermage that backs shit up with a bloody great hammer (or whatever), you've done fucked up. The skills basically level themselves at a rapid pace, and you can train 5 times each level on top of that. So you should. Especially lore, since it is number one in making fuckoff good spells in the spell creation menu (which is pretty good, but spell slots suck a lot of joy out of that- the system makes you think you want to specialize in certain types, but you don't, you want a big array of everything, because cooldowns).

Whipstitch · Post by **Whipstitch** » Sat Nov 12, 2016 4:53 am

Yeah, I sniggered a bit when I saw that quickness just lowered your cooldown rates. I mean, that's not bad, I guess, but whatever, I was making a 2 handed melee brute so I tanked it and just smashed my way through with flurry of blows, Might, Finesse and as many 1.5 damage modifier strikes as I could get my mitts on. It wasn't super duper optimal or anything but I could smash a couple targets fast enough to tip the scales and let attrition do the rest.

Longes · Post by **Longes** » Sat Nov 12, 2016 11:44 am

You can get a shitload of spellslots thought. There are two spellslot upgrades in the Magic tree, there si a party-wide spellslot upgrade in Leadership tree, and either Eb or Sirin has another spellslot upgrade that I think is party-wide. An odd quirk of the system is that in chargen you want to double down on a weapon skill tp get two free talent points. Magic skills start you with glyphs instead, and those can be bought with money.

I also didn't think that the end of act 1 (I'm assuming you mean the Well siege as act 1) was particularly railroady. I fully expected that conclusion from the start, though the Third Option was a somewhat bizarre twist in my opinion.

Voss · Post by **Voss** » Sat Nov 12, 2016 3:28 pm

Longes wrote:You can get a shitload of spellslots thought. There are two spellslot upgrades in the Magic tree, there si a party-wide spellslot upgrade in Leadership tree, and either Eb or Sirin has another spellslot upgrade that I think is party-wide. An odd quirk of the system is that in chargen you want to double down on a weapon skill tp get two free talent points. Magic skills start you with glyphs instead, and those can be bought with money.

I also didn't think that the end of act 1 (I'm assuming you mean the Well siege as act 1) was particularly railroady. I fully expected that conclusion from the start, though the Third Option was a somewhat bizarre twist in my opinion.

I was thinking of the final tent scene, actually. No matter what you do, how much rep you have with both factions, or how you approach it and even with 'work together or die' hanging over everyone's heads, that still happens.

The third option... I may have to try at some point, but it doesn't make sense to me. Far beyond a bizarre twist, everyone you meet afterwards should just fucking murder you. Especially the Archon of Just Fucking Murder.

I did get to test something I was curious about- you can only start with an 18 in a stat (if you drop other stats to 8 to get extra points), but you can buy up to 20. But the 20 costs 2 points, so I thought there might be something special about 20s. But no, its just another +5% spell strength, or health or +3 accuracy or whatever. So it's mathematically equivalent to each step you spent 1 point on, so... not worth it at all. Once you hit 19 in a stat, just start investing points elsewhere. Stupid Obsidian mechanics.

I actually haven't found Sirin to recruit her yet. I was leaning toward chorus the first time, but she pretty much ignored me after I refused to remove her helmet- I figured I'd meet her again later. But in my other playthrough, I haven't met her at all. Also the disfavored have so far lived up to my initial impression of them: incompetent idiots, despite their reputation.

Well, found her (not sure if I just missed the door previously, or if it only appears after a certain checkpoint). Best character in the game, by a mile. Though it probably helped that I got her at level 13, when dual songs are unlocked.

And... got to the end game as a disfavored allied. Did a bossfight, two submissions and another goddamn tedious bullet sponge bossfight, and then it bugs out and combat doesn't end. Fuck all. Try again, same result.

Was bug free until this point (which I presume is endgame)

Longes · Post by **Longes** » Sun Nov 13, 2016 10:44 am

Tyranny Act 1 Spoilers Ahead

The third option does make sense when you think about it. Your goal is to end the rebellion. The way of execution chosen by Kyros is to have a sevant of Kyros claim the Ascension Hall until the Kyros' Day of Swords or everyone in the valley dies. If you let all the rebel captains go without killing them, they'll send you a note asking to meet them where they'll swear fealty to you in exchange for not being killed. And then you go and claim the Ascension Hall. This will massively piss off both Disfavored and the Scarlet Chorus, but Tunon the Adjudicator will roll with it, because you followed the letter of the law and that's all he cares about. Bleden Mark will be slightly pissed which may disqualify you from getting his artefact on the first meeting.

All hope for having the factions work together was lost when Voices of Nerat reveals that they ate Brenix, so the entire game was rigged from the start to fail. The rebels also reveal that they have brokered a secret truce with both factions, which is why no one managed to do anything until your arrival.

Longes · Post by **Longes** » Sun Nov 13, 2016 10:45 am

So Dishonored 2 is out. I'm unhappy with the plot. I haven't played the Witches DLC so I don't know what the fuck is going on, and I don't like the change from gritty political warfare to Save The World From Cthulhu.

Voss · Post by **Voss** » Sun Nov 13, 2016 3:16 pm

The witches dlc: there was a witch with a cult, and the assassin that killed the empress stopped her from possessing Emily using paintings. She was either dead or stuck in a painting at the end, so.... Yeah, not sure how she came back.

That's pretty much everything relevant.

Thinking about it, neither Corvo nor Emily have any idea it happened at all (it happened simultaneously with the main game) so your lack of information is actually quite appropriate.

Shady314 · Post by **Shady314** » Mon Nov 14, 2016 2:12 am

Longes wrote:An odd quirk of the system is that in chargen you want to double down on a weapon skill to get two free talent points. Magic skills start you with glyphs instead, and those can be bought with money.

Great advice! Though if you are going for a pure mage I found most of the talents outside of magic and leadership tree to be pretty meh. If you double down on the same magic expertise you get a talent from the magic tree.
So yeah always double down on your choice. That's a straight up trap right from the beginning.

Also in Conquest choosing the Scarlet Chorus idea to take the city gets you the fire sigil which is otherwise unavailable in Act 1.

Voss

Some buffs are great. Vampiric weapons, Spectral Blur on Verse and more but the starting buffs are worthless. +2 might is just +6% attack damage that means very little before you have a mastercrafted artifact greatsword. It seems like the designers just cannot escape dnd mentality. +2 might is like +2 strength in 3e right?

Verse can be awesome. Give her two crushing weapons instead of daggers or swords. Most enemies have slash and pierce armor but not crush. I got her deflection so high it's ridiculous. I don't quite understand how its calculated. Maybe a bug? Her character screen says she has a 70% chance to turn a crit into a hit and over a 100% chance (with spectral blur)
to reduce hits to grazes and grazes to misses.

Eb and Sirin are crazy good especially Eb's Loyalty 3 ability. She singlehandedly wiped out the last fight in Ascension Hall with that nonsense. Id happily trade some of the customizability of the 6 trees to compete with the NPCs at their role. Why is Lantry apparently designed to be a better mage than me? I want +30 Lore too dammit! Eb can get passive +6 Armor I can get a 60s +4 armor buff. Granted it has a chance to deflect harmful spells but why cant the +4 armor just be passive and the spell reflection shield be an ability? Verse has a talent to move without pausing recovery. And some interesting abilities are walled behind needing 6 or 9 talents in a mostly useless or uninteresting talent tree.