Video Games

[Blicero]

To be perfectly honest, I'd describe "high-level" single player Stellaris as more of a toy than a game. The PvP community find things to be well-balanced with a rather short banlist.

Do people actually care about competitive PvP for Paradox games? I've spent dozens of hours dicking around in EU4 coop with friends, but I can't imagine it being fun at all in competitive, for all of the reasons people have brought up.

[Hadanelith]

Annoyingly enough, the *devs* care a lot about competitive PvP. They apparently do large multiplayer battles regularly, and a couple of different streamers I watch who regularly play Paradox games have noted the direct line from events in these multiplayer matches to patch notes.

[K]

To be perfectly honest, I'd describe "high-level" single player Stellaris as more of a toy than a game. The PvP community find things to be well-balanced with a rather short banlist.

Do people actually care about competitive PvP for Paradox games? I've spent dozens of hours dicking around in EU4 coop with friends, but I can't imagine it being fun at all in competitive, for all of the reasons people have brought up.

I don't understand how PvP could possibly work. I can't imagine even a very small game being less than 12 hours, and who has time for that?

[Blade]

I haven't played Stellaris, but CK2 is much funnier as a "grand RPG" than a "grand strategy game". Strategy in CK2 is very limited and the best efforts that have been put to challenge players is basically magic fuck you armies that you can still beat easily by abusing the AI.

You might sometimes get some interesting strategical stuff, because of a set of events but even then most of the time the strategy is more about second-guessing the AI behavior and trying to abuse it rather than doing the strategical choices that would make sense in the real world.

But in the end what's fun (at least to me) is the History and small stories the game creates.

[Stahlseele]

To be perfectly honest, I'd describe "high-level" single player Stellaris as more of a toy than a game. The PvP community find things to be well-balanced with a rather short banlist.

Do people actually care about competitive PvP for Paradox games? I've spent dozens of hours dicking around in EU4 coop with friends, but I can't imagine it being fun at all in competitive, for all of the reasons people have brought up.

I don't understand how PvP could possibly work. I can't imagine even a very small game being less than 12 hours, and who has time for that?

not sure if serious *squints*

[Stahlseele]

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/609143677
of for fucks sake, they added powdered sugar to the crack cokaine x.x

[OgreBattle]

Aren’t there board games of WW2 campaigns over 12 hours long? I imagine competitive EU4 appeals to that group

[Stahlseele]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSHuHCrW4KE
Shadow Empire < = this looks like something the Den might enjoy.

[Rawbeard]

Pathfinder: Wrath of the Derpeous has a preview of their new prestige classes up. it has the expected Hellknights, the not-bad Winter Witch and the baffeling Student of War and pants of head retarded Assassin.

these people seem to have lost their mind. Assassin? for real? "but he can take a mythic power so he can poison things that are immune" how does that help in a mythic adventure where you fight demon gods that laugh at your bitch ass saves even if you get past their immunity?

fuck. considering how Kingmaker bricked the entire concept of how you play D&D I doubt Wrath will be any less of a rocket tag adventure than the PnP version. what are these guys doing? frikkin russians...

/rant

here the link to the classes for those so inclined to read up on that.

[Stahlseele]

Is there a class that allows a shield and a reach weapon yet?

[Rawbeard]

not that I am aware. wouldn't hold my breath

[Blicero]

fuck. considering how Kingmaker bricked the entire concept of how you play D&D I doubt Wrath will be any less of a rocket tag adventure than the PnP version. what are these guys doing? frikkin russians...

How did Kingmaker brick D&D gameplay? Did it all follow on from real-time-with-pause, or were there additional design decisions?

[Rawbeard]

it's mostly fucking with numbers. sometimes stacking shit that doesn't stack to "cheat" encounters so they are "challenging". I once fought a guy with three instances of natural armor that all stacked. essentially you have to break the RNG as fast as possible. if the d20 roll affects the outcome, you will likely fail. HP barely matters, if you get hit, you will get fucked.
the gameplay all of this encourages is not like what you'd expect from previous D&D games, imo.
and when you hear people say "the wizard is a shitty sorcerer" and most guides recommend multiclassing half a dozen classes...
it feels fucked up.

also shaken makes you flat footed, making it probably the strongest debuff in the game, unless for some reason you do not have sneak attack. when looking into builds I was confused why everything was build for dazzling display and at least a level of rogue or vivisectionist... until I learned what shaken does in this game.

the real time nature also has some funny/silly consequences, but few of those are flat out stupid. like flanking is basically just "2+ people attack the same target". positioning is barely a thing. the AI wouldn't be able to handle it anyway. the AI can't even handle moving in formation. honestly the AI can't do anything past "attack and follow" with "use abilities set to autocast".
and this game also has those fiddly "if you fail a save, use a charge to get a bonus" type of shit, but I have not yet figured out how to actually USE that, so it might just be bullshit they copy pasted from the pnp descriptions...

unrelated, but it also has companion quest design straight from Mass Effect 2. "didn't get the best result? companion dies at the end". and for some it literally means "you made the wrong choice while recruiting them at the start of the game, they will die no matter what you have done since then".

don't even get me started on the undead companion that works as a "if you are gay the only way to be survive is to stop being gay" allegory. frikkin russians...

[hyzmarca]

Pathfinder: Wrath of the Derpeous has a preview of their new prestige classes up. it has the expected Hellknights, the not-bad Winter Witch and the baffeling Student of War and pants of head retarded Assassin.

these people seem to have lost their mind. Assassin? for real? "but he can take a mythic power so he can poison things that are immune" how does that help in a mythic adventure where you fight demon gods that laugh at your bitch ass saves even if you get past their immunity?

Find a no-save death poison and sneak it in the demon god's soulburger?

[Koumei]

Stahlseele: don't be silly, all reach weapons are two-handed, and it is literally impossible to wield one of those at the same time as a shield. Pictured below: things that couldn't possibly ever exist.

and when you hear people say "the wizard is a shitty sorcerer" and most guides recommend multiclassing half a dozen classes...

...

everything was build for dazzling display and at least a level of rogue or vivisectionist... until I learned what shaken does in this game.

I'm pretty much used to "what works in the tabletop game" and "what works in the vidya game" being wildly different. If you just want to damage people in Kingmaker, apparently the best thing to do is some kind of Barbarian (rage power that grants a bite attack), Vivisectionist (mutagen that gives a bite attack), Dragon Disciple combination, then wear that cloak that adds damage and a trip attack to every bite you make. So every round you make 3 (maybe more?) bite attacks, each with a trip attack, and eventually your opponent gets tripped and then you do a whole pile of sneak attack damage because when you fall over you're denied your Dex Bonus to AC (this bit doesn't bother me, it's weirder that you can't sneak attack a prone fighter normally).

Mind you, they also suggest giving one level of Grenadier Alchemist to just shy of "every single melee fighter" in the game, so you can add an entire d6 of energy damage to their melee weapons (when you can get a bunch of items that do this easily enough from an NPC).

and this game also has those fiddly "if you fail a save, use a charge to get a bonus" type of shit, but I have not yet figured out how to actually USE that, so it might just be bullshit they copy pasted from the pnp descriptions...

Almost anything that isn't "you use this as its own action on your turn" is an ability that you have to toggle on/off before it becomes relevant. Things that give you an AoO for someone else being shot, or allow a Swift Action Attack when you scare someone, are their own activated options which basically only work when you apply the Turn Based mod, but seeing as those two options are added by a mod anyway, you were already doing that. So basically, look through the giant piles of "feats and class features that can be used/activated/toggled" in the relevant section of your quickbar, and hover the mouse over them long enough for it to tell you what they are so you don't have to guess which sword icon means what. The thing you want should be somewhere there, next to Power Attack and all that.

don't even get me started on the undead companion that works as a "if you are gay the only way to be survive is to stop being gay" allegory. frikkin russians...

To be fair, there are two ways for her to survive. The first is to renounce her goddess and temporarily die (likely fucking you over because you probably made her a minister and probably have her assigned to a task), and still requires you to do the right things with Tristian. The second is if you're evil and have more quest progress / happiness value with her, then she wins the fight in the end area and you lose Tristian more or less right at the part of the game where his abilities won't be remotely helpful.

[Stahlseele]

@Koumei
Yes, exactly.
I wanted to play a Shield and Lance Knight type of character.

[Rawbeard]

Almost anything that isn't "you use this as its own action on your turn" is an ability that you have to toggle on/off before it becomes relevant. Things that give you an AoO for someone else being shot, or allow a Swift Action Attack when you scare someone, are their own activated options which basically only work when you apply the Turn Based mod, but seeing as those two options are added by a mod anyway, you were already doing that. So basically, look through the giant piles of "feats and class features that can be used/activated/toggled" in the relevant section of your quickbar, and hover the mouse over them long enough for it to tell you what they are so you don't have to guess which sword icon means what. The thing you want should be somewhere there, next to Power Attack and all that.

kill me now. I was expecting it to be there, must have missed it. that menu is such a clusterfuck...

[The Adventurer's Almanac]

I replayed Deus Ex for the first time this year. This time it was especially paranoia-inducing. I'm not going to be too specific, lest we all start yelling at each other, but... yikes, man. I hope SoCal's still around in 30 years.

[pragma]

Yeah, I have been playing the third game in the Deus Ex series because I'm about a decade behind on my media. Games fantasizing about grand conspiracies are less fun when conspiracy theorists sometimes shoot up pizza parlors. See also, the 2012 XCOM.

[The Adventurer's Almanac]

Ah, Human Revolution? It jerked off the main character way too much for my liking, and I prefer the more realistic musings on humanity's future to the 'DUDE AUGS' focus in HR. Like, I get it, mechanical augmentations are changing society. But... what else is going on besides transhumanism? My mind was blown in the first DX when I came across a random book in Paul's apartment going on about India and Pakistan nuking each other. All these casual little references to things that are terrifying to think about.
To be fair, I also haven't played HR since it came out, so I might be forgetting some things.
What about the 2012 XCOM?

[pragma]

Though it's mostly subtext, the XCOM agency is a vast international government conspiracy whose existence is officially denied. And I find conspiracy theories less fun than I used to.

[The Adventurer's Almanac]

Oh, I thought you were talking about the existence of aliens being officially denied. And that's understandable, although I don't think it detracts from the themes of either game.

[Stahlseele]

News on the MW5 Mercs Release on outside of Epic Games Store
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DU3vlvgIm6I
Appearantly all good it seems.
If i remember correctly, the game was 50 bucks initially, and now it is 30 bucks and the DLC is 20 bucks, so basically you get the game and DLC for the same price now as if you would have bought the game before.

[Dogbert]

But... what else is going on besides transhumanism?

So you play something that's specifically an essay and comment on transhumanism, and you complain about the transhumanism. Got it.

(I mean, ok, I didn't play previous Deus Ex games so I don't know what were the prevalent themes there. Still, HR was pretty specific on what you were getting).

[The Adventurer's Almanac]

Spoiler alert: Transhumanism was merely a single facet of the older Deus Exes, and not the entire focal point in an blatant allegory for racism that winds up being more simplistic than the original game's themes.